Facebook

Amazing things happened this night on facebook.

I thought I ought to share those things with you.

Goodnight! I love you!

Faygo

So, I get to study abroad next fall term. More on that later. In the meantime, I thought I might want to share an email that my dear friend Greg sent me the other day:

The subject of the email is "My baby takes the mornin' train..."

"You should totally work this job, quality control for Faygo:
http://jobview.monster.com/Quality-Control-Intern-Job-Warren-MI-US-56867060.aspx"

My reply was "Too bad I have a job for now, huh?"

Greg: "That’s the beauty of it; you go study abroad and then come back and work for Faygo! Then you remember how awesome/sexy your friend Greg is for coming up with this amazing idea and give him all the Faygo he can drink. I like this plan."

I found it entertaining. Sounds like a fun job, but I'm comfortable here. Also, pretty sure Faygo doesn't have any idea how Kettering's program works and probably isn't that interested in finding out.

Last Week of Work

Every day of this week is going to feel like Friday. I came in at 9 today and still have just over an hour of work left. Barrack is at my apartment and I want to go home. We are going to go hang out with Brandon tonight. I finally have music back, via John. We are getting along pretty well and I am very happy to have my iPod back. I finished a 166 page report today. I got satisfactory results on my end-of-term assessment from my pseudo-supervisor.

Life is good. No idea what I'm going to have to do for the rest of the week. Honestly, tomorrow, I'll probably write an analytical report and go to a long meeting. Wednesday should be a similar report and meeting. Thursday, I won't have much, but will be anticipating the Streetlight Manifesto concert all day. The concert is that night, and I'm dropping Barrack off in Flint. Friday, I'll probably take a half day and spend time on either end of work cleaning the apartment up. Then it's back to Flint to move in.

I am going to try to update every day this week, but Sunday morning, I leave for Alaska and won't have internet for a week. Once school starts, I don't know how frequently I can update, but I imagine I'll spend a lot of time in classes "taking notes" and actually writing my opinions. I should have time to type them up before bed some days. Hopefully, I can remember to keep writing. It makes me feel better about things.

Also, on the topic of writing as therapy, I want to thank you, Kate. You are an awesome blank slate, and you let me write down my thoughts at you, but you are even better than that. You ask me the important questions that let me see what I'm saying. Thanks, love.

The Things I Want - Part 2

I have a lot of goals in my life. I want to be able to do things.

I want to be an expert. I want degrees in every sort of field. I really want to be able to answer people’s questions.

I want to be happy. I want to be able to attain all I want in life and reach contentment.

I want money. I want to be able to afford my life and never live above my means. I want to save up and do things one at a time.

I want ambitious children. I want my kids to be able to do what they want in life. I want a better world for them. I want to afford to give them every opportunity – gymnastics, ice skating, swimming, hockey, other sports, books, puzzles, and whatever else they want to learn.

I want people to be happier. I want others to get along and live well.

I want to find balance. I want to have work friends and home friends, family and my career, and all the time in the world to do what I want to do.

I want to find a cure. I want to fix something. I want to find the treatment of cure for something, even if it’s a very uncommon disease or infection. I want to make life better for a family or two by figuring out how to give their loved one a higher quality of life.

I want to teach. I want to help others reach their goals through education. I want to teach college level classes when I retire from whatever else I end up doing in my life.

I want to read. Oh, I want to read everything. I want to know every famous piece of literature and really know about things through reading.

I want friends. I want to always have the quality of friends I have now. I have amazing friends, but this is college. What will happen when I’m out? Will I be able to keep those friends? Will I make new friends at work or outside of work after college?

I want to be debt-free. I want to have the money to work my way up one piece at a time, without borrowing money from anyone. I want to be independent and not owe anyone anything. I want to live comfortably through my own work.

I want to help people. I want people to help themselves. I want to be an educator and a resource. I want to provide a means to a better life. I want to personally be able to offer jobs to people who need them.

I want a scholarship in my name. I want to encourage people. I want to be successful enough with my own education to be able to give back to the community through donating my money to others who are working as hard as I have to get to where I want to be.

I want a sweet volcano lair for practicing mad science. That would be SO COOL!

I want a family. I want the love and stability of a family. I want the drama and the late nights helping with homework or trying to console a screaming baby. I want the sense of accomplishment at sending my children off to school, seeing them happy through their own doing and my encouragement. I want the challenges and the love of a family.

I want to write. I love to write. I want people to be able to see the world through my own eyes and my small niche in society. I want to write technically and socially. I want to write fiction. I want to write facts. I want to share something with the world.

I want an awesome car, but I want to be able to afford it. I want to have my own midlife crisis. I want to have done a lot at that point in my life, and then decide at that point to get another degree and a red 2039 Corvette and other ridiculous things I don’t need. Especially a pool boy.

I want land. I want a pool. I want to buy land and have a small house built on it. I want to add on as necessary and as money permits. I want to get a pool when my children want to start swimming and having pool parties.

I want to know what happens. I want to get to that point. I really hate not knowing if things are going to work out one way or another. I want to know what is going to happen and how things are going to work and get to the point where I’m in my “happily ever after.” I will probably never get there, but I want to be content and have what I want.

I want to believe. I want to be sure of all of my decisions. I want to know that things will work out. I want to know that my God is real. I want to believe in myself and that I can do it. I also want to know what’s going to happen in the stock market in the next fifteen years. That would be nice.

I want to lose weight. I want to stay thin. I want to be beautiful and I want people to know it. I want to be in shape after I have kids. I want my children to be teased about having a hot mom. I want my husband to always be proud to take me out and around. I never want the passion to die.

I want to cook. I want to be able to cook like my mother. I want my kids to go to friends’ houses and have to lie a little bit about thinking the food is good. I want them to never have a meal that is better than their mother makes.

I want to take photographs. I want to take pictures of my whole life and have memories to pass down generations.

I want to live.

The Things I Want - Part 1

Sometimes I want to write something deep and meaningful on here. I want to write what I"m thinking. I want to delve into a topic.

I can't do that. I only get to update when I'm at work. I have enough time, but can't really be caught writing for twenty minutes to sort out my feelings on a topic. I think I have a lot to say about things, but I fear I will never get to write them down.

There's life for you.

New Position and New Thought Process Through Discussion

I am proud to say that I am the new Assistant Editor of our school's newspaper at Kettering University. I just got word that I got this leadership position when our Editor-in-Chief texted me last week. I was very excited because I take a lot of pride in my work on the paper and have been working hard this term to make sure we have things written for the first edition of the paper. I personally assigned myself about 8 articles, most of which are compilation pieces.

Okay, so I was going to write an article about health and safety, especially in the zone of sexual encounters and avoiding sexually transmitted infections. When I started having this discussion, I knew I wanted to talk about barrier birth control, disease rates and statistics, getting tested with your partner, discussing your sexual history, and different infections’ symptoms, treatment, and duration. The more I thought about it and talked to Someone Else, the more I realized that it’s hard to talk about these things. There was way more that I needed to cover! How do you not sound judgmental when you are talking about STI’s? People make mistakes and sometimes have to live with them for the rest of their lives.

We are in college. For some of us, casual sex will make an appearance in our lives sometime soon or it already has. For others, this article is completely unnecessary, as they are waiting for a certain point in their personal growth, be it “the one”, engagement, marriage, or any other prerequisite. I do not have any right to condemn or condone anyone’s actions or beliefs on the subject of physical intimacy. I am personally a very physically and emotionally intimate individual. I hug all of my friends in greeting and usually kiss them on the cheek. I touch people when I am talking to them and am comfortable with them doing the same. Different people have different comfort levels with physical intimacy.

When I started thinking, I didn’t know if I was writing to address attitudes or actions. I want to talk about actions, but realized I was thinking about it the wrong way. Safety is my concern. The conversation sparking this line of thought follows.

Someone Else: “You asked me for ideas. I thought maybe you could write about babies. You know - fair buying, selling, trade. Proper techniques on making or not making them. Recipes.”

Me: “You are being ridiculous. Even on a serious note, I don’t think I know any Kettering students with babies. It really wouldn’t appeal to our target audience. Don’t get me wrong. I love babies. I just don’t think it’s the best topic for our readers. Besides, I think they know how it’s done. Most of us know what’s going on with that at this age. What questions do you think they would have that I could answer and the internet wouldn’t? I want to touch on sexual activity in a wellness article about STI’s, but I don’t know where to start.”

S.E.: “The buying and selling is most definitely in jest. I know only one Kettering student with a baby and I'm pretty sure he is married and gone. *Shrug* I doubt that you could be any more informative than the Internet, but perhaps you could present it in a mildly humorous fashion. Again you make a good point, as Kettering students are much more likely to encounter an STI than a baby-having situation.”

Me: “I think most KU students are smart enough to know how not to have babies. They aren’t necessarily smart enough to use barrier birth control as one of their methods, which helps prevent the spread of infections and diseases. Just because you use birth control doesn’t prevent diseases. That’s how people get herpes. Way to go. I hope they learned their lesson and will wrap that business up in the future.”

S.E.: “I would hope so but, as my grandmother is quite fond of saying, "Common sense ain't that common." Though in that situation, is it not the responsibility of both parties to A. be aware of an diseases they are carrying and B. to inform their partner, regardless of using barrier methods or not? I know that there are some diseases in which one partner or the other is merely a carrier, but I would think for the most part that people know if they have an STI. Granted, I'm not the most experienced at the "sex with multiple partners" thing, and could easily be wrong, but that's why you’re writing the article, correct? Then again, I guess responsibility usually goes out the window when the potential for naked women is involved.”

Me: “A friend of mine told me a story. She was very attracted to a kid in one of her classes. They started flirting, then hanging out a bit, then they were drinking and hanging out and started being intimate and one thing led to another. They used a condom, but it broke. He seemed worried, and she said she was on birth control and it wasn’t too big of a deal. He said that he usually gets tested regularly, but hadn’t been tested in a while. He had no symptoms of anything since his last sexual encounter with someone he described as “questionable” but hadn’t actually been tested. She went for testing, which was pretty expensive. She was fine, but the point is that a lot of people won’t discuss their sexual history with a new partner. They will have a sexual encounter on a whim with someone they don’t really know as well as they should. My article will focus on knowing your partner, getting tested together, and avoiding whim sex.” THIS IS WHERE I WENT WRONG IN MY THINKING.

S.E.: “Such stories seem to be discomfortingly commonplace in society today. It's good that she was alright but would further discussion have kept the condom from breaking? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about honesty, ESPECIALLY when it comes to matters of health and safety, as intimacy so often does. Is your article going to cover other forms of sexual contact and how they should not be undertaken on a whim, or just intercourse?”

Me: “Further discussion would have made her think about the fact that this was GOING to be a one-night deal. She said that if she had known his history, she would not have done that “in the heat of the moment” that night. If they had continued to get along and hang out and it had started to turn into a real relationship, she would have gone with him to get tested, they would have talked about it, and it would have been able to happen in a different moment. Of course I will cover other forms of contact. Vaginal intercourse isn’t the only way to spread diseases. Something like 20% of the adult American population has herpes simplex. I bet most people don’t know that.”

S.E.: “I know both of those things. Back when I was first diagnosed I did a lot of research on the other STIs out there. Truly frightening it is that people are so willing to put themselves at risk with the casual sex. I'd say that it's a lack of education; no one is that dumb to take their life in their hands that way if they knew all the dangers out there. And your article is hoping to address the attitude that casual sex is okay? Or is it going to discuss how to do it safely?” THIS IS WHERE I REALIZED I HAD GONE WRONG IN MY THINKING.

Me: “My article has to address safety and facts. I have absolutely no right to judge anyone based on their comfortable level of intimacy with other individuals, be they cis- or trans-gendered, heterosexual, homosexual, asexual, bisexual, confused, or any other variation. I think that people just DON’T know the dangers. I am only here to educate. I want people to be safe. I want disease instances to go down nationally. I want people to be able to talk to each other. I am not going to be able to do all of those things, but at least I can get students who read our paper thinking a little bit about the choices they make.”

The Things I Love - Part 1

I was incredibly happy to start this job and find that I had my own lab coats with my name on them. I love having a lab coat to myself.

Article Ideas

While I am fully aware that there are better places on the internet than my blog to post this stuff so I won't lose it, I'm going to put it here anyway.

Meme of the month: Dominic’s meme article for the humor section

Nerd/Geek News: New movies, technology, and whatnot that feed all of our inner nerds at Kettering.

What We Love About Kettering. And the interesting part.. what they don't love, AND what they are going to do to change it. Not a negative article. For every downside, present a solution that people can get involved with.

Tips From Upperclassmen – try to collect study tips and other ideas for balancing class load with extra-curricular activities, such as listening to audio books to read your humanities assignment while at the rec center or making food.

Guide to Student Activities – email the presidents of every club on campus. Whoever replies gets their information (brief description of their club’s activities in the club’s own words and meeting time/place) printed in the article.

STUDENT ACTIVITIES PAGE!
Society of Women Engineers (SWE) meets on the 3rd Floor of the Campus Center in the Women's Resource Center, Wednesdays of even weeks at 12:20. Lunch is provided.
Members of SWE at Kettering regularly participate in volunteer activities, such as interactive science experiments at the Flint Children's Museum or being a teaching aide at the Smarter Girls Day Camp. SWE will also be selling "Love an Engineer" T-shirts in the Great Court, 3rd week Tuesday-Friday over lunch for $10. This money will go towards funds for our annual trip to the SWE National Conference. The National Conference is in Orlando, FL this year! SWE will also be hosting a Mr. Kettering competition, more information to follow soon. During the winter term, we host a weekend long expo for high school girls to come check out Kettering and spend time doing hands-on classroom demonstrations.
SWE is a great way to get involved in the community and school, and a great place to meet new friends! And SWE is not just for the ladies, the guys are welcome to join too! For more information, contact: Chelsey Crabtree, crab5055@kettering.edu.

My name is Khadijah and I am the president of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) for this school year. NSBE is a national non- profit organization that encourages African Americans to stimulate and develop student interest in the various engineering disciplines. Also, we strive to increase the number of minority students studying engineering at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Our chapter takes part in community outreaches, study sessions, and providing information on engineering, scholarships, and job/career placements. We meet every Monday during the term in Room A at 6pm. Dinner is provided and all students are welcome, regardless of ethnicity.

I am the president of the Outdoors Club. The outdoors club has the largest student membership of any Kettering organization with over 100 active members. During summer term we raft the lower New River in West Virginia over Labor Day weekend. During winter term we ski/snowboard at Nub's Nob in Harbor Springs. This summer term we will be having three meetings before the rafting trip. They are usually located in either 1817 or 1819 during lunch and food is provided. The first meeting will be to get the word out about the trip and get people interested. The second meeting will be to collect waivers and deposits and the third meeting will be to finalize driving arrangements. The raft trip comes at the perfect time during the term as it breaks up the monotony of a ritualistic class schedule. It is by far the funnest thing you can do as a Kettering undergraduate. Last year the scuba club and cliffhangers also came. We usually head down on Friday, camp, and spend Saturday rock climbing/hiking/swimming. Sunday is when the rafting happens and generally people camp Sunday night and drive home Monday because a full day of rafting takes most of the energy out of you. New members are always welcome and if anyone has any questions they can feel free to contact me in person via email (adam8133@kettering.edu) or phone (612-669-5123). Our facebook group is available to anyone in the Kettering network and has the most up to date information regarding meetings

The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) is the leading social-technical organization whose function is to enhance the potential of Hispanics in engineering, math and science. This is done through promoting professional and personal growth, and emphasizing the value of education, professional pursuits and leadership. This organization welcomes any student, no matter his or her ethnicity or background.

The Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) serves to enhance the professional skills of industrial engineers and individuals interested in productivity and industry improvement. We meet Tuesday during lunch. Remember, this is an open organization and welcomes students from any major!

Academic Council is a division of Kettering University's student government that meets Tuesday during lunch. The groups serves to lobby for student interests in academic matters. Any concerns pertaining to student policy, academic issues, etc. are pushed through this group. Meetings are open to students, wanting to express their concerns, issues, or suggestions.

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) at Kettering is part of the larger national organization. The Kettering chapter serves our local Flint community in building wheelchair ramps to the handicapped. In addition, the chapter has international project in Estanque de Leon, Mexico and Vukuzenzele, South Africa. The organization welcomes students of any major that is passionate and desires to give back to our local and international communities! Meetings are Tuesday nights at 8 pm, so come out and share ideas!

International club serves to the student body together. Emphasis is on bringing a diverse student body to common ground, in order to explore different cultural traditions and backgrounds. We meet Tuesdays during lunch and all students are welcome.

The Greener Engineering Organization (GEO) is a completely student driven organization that coordinates on-campus recycling, hosts environmentally conscious speakers, and works toward making Kettering more environmentally friendly, through both education and action. Members are responsible for emptying various paper and pop/bottle recycling bins around campus. A great way to get involved and help the planet.
http://www.kettering.edu/communityservice/GreenEngineeringOrganization.jsp
Meets Tuesdays @ lunch in Room AB-1335, the Student Civic Engagement Center (1st floor, AB, under the IT department and the SARC) Food provided.

Laser Tag Club: Meets once a term to sign up for the lock in. Watch for fliers. (Usually around 6th week)
Laser Tag Club serves as a way for students to take a break from the busy grind of school and get away from campus. An all night lock-in filled with lasers, snacks, and bonding with one's fellow students. Who doesn't like lasers?

The anime club, founded almost two years ago, seeks to promote the understanding and acceptance of both anime an Japanese culture on the Kettering Campus. Starting with anime showings, it has grown to encompass drawing lessons, cultural presentations, joining the national association of anime clubs (Mu Epsilon), and much more; with bigger plans to come. Come experienceing one of Kettering's largest and fastest-growing clubs as it soars to the heights beyond the reach of fandom alone!Meeting times: 6PM-12AM on SaturdaysLocation: Room 1817 (Academic Building, near the international and Industrial Engineering offices)


PERSPECTIVE:
Transfer Student - Biggest changes from one school to Kettering. What works at other schools that could work at Kettering, and what Kettering has that other schools don't (other than the co-op). Why did they transfer?
Freshman - What do they see that upperclassmen are missing? What are their thoughts about all of the activities and fraternity recruitment?
International – How did they hear about Kettering? What made them choose KU? Did they have any problems finding a job as an international student? (for some – What is it like travelling back home for work every three months?)
Senior – Are you satisfied with your experience at Kettering? What are your regrets from college? What were the best choices you made? Any tips for the freshmen?
Alumnus­ – How has the school changed since you were here? Tell us why your section was better than the other (My father and uncle were actually both here for overlapping years, but in opposite sections. I think they might be able to do a cool piece.)
Professor – What do you love about Kettering? How do the students compare to other places you may have taught? How did you choose your field?
Staff member – Why did you choose Kettering? What do you like here? If you could change anything about the school, what would it be?
Greek Student – Opinions of IFC, rush, and why they chose to become involved in Greek life
Independent student – Why they chose to remain independent, did they rush freshman year? Have they rushed subsequent years? Why do they not like being involved in Greek life?

STUDY ABROAD Q&A – Hitting on subjects like tuition, financial aid, and the experience from students who have gone to study abroad

COLLEGE TOWN PROMOTION – I just really want to do something to actually get involved in turning Flint into what it could be. I don’t know what to do, but I think we should try to partner with other schools and their media distribution to get events and promotion going. Maybe host a volunteer activity to clean things up a bit around the streets and advertise through ourselves? No idea where I’m going with this yet.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS: STI’s – They are dangerous and some of them don’t go away. Use condoms, kids. Seriously. You don’t think it’s an issue until you realize the percentage of American adults with herpes. Somewhere around 25%, I think. One in every 4 people with whom you have sexual relations should statistically have herpes, not to mention the other diseases and infections available. Be careful, know your partner’s sexual history, and PLEASE get tested before starting sexual relations with someone. It should never be a whim. Think about what you are doing. The consequences could stay with you forever.

RECENT LAYOFFS­ – There were a lot of them. Talk about them, why they happened, and what it means to the students.

Community Service - A preview of the big community service events coming up this term, namely the Soap Box Derby. It’s been expanded this year to become an all day event, with a poker tournament, inflatables, one or more radio stations doing things, as well as the always popular soap box derby itself. Perhaps Mr. Roggenbuck can provide more details.

Up ‘Til Dawn - An article about the return of Up ‘Til Dawn, both an announcement and a way to drum up additional support for it. I can provide further details if you think it worth pursuing.

AHHHHHH!

School term is coming back up and I'm starting to freak out. I have a lot going on. Wait, you want to read my list of activities? Why didn't you say so?

I am only taking 19 credits, so school isn't such a big deal. Only bad day is Wednesday, when I have 9 hours of lab. The good news is that I don't think I will have to purchase food all term. Not only is it a rush term (so all the Greek organizations will be handing out food all the time), but I have so many clubs and activities that I either won't have time to eat, or I will be constantly fed.

WKUF is the school's radio station. I have a show (not sure what time or how long yet) and there are weekly meetings at dinner time on Tuesdays.

Allies is the GLBT group. I'm a strange combination of treasurer and secretary, so I have to be at those meetings. They are at Good Beans Cafe on Fridays after classes get out at 6. That takes care of my coffee fix for the term. I will have to announce via the current students page of the school's website that every other week, we will treat people to coffee if they go.

I am pretty sure I'm still the vice president of the school's Dance Club, and those meetings are supposed to be Thursday nights from 8:30 - 10. Not entirely sure what dance we will be learning next term, but we are thinking tango sounds fun.

The Technician is the school newspaper. I've already been assigned three articles to write for the first edition of the paper. My articles are due first week. I'm writing one about all the student activities, another about the school's statistics (various ratios including faculty:staff, male:female, ME:EE:IE:CHEM:CHME:AP:AM:EP:CS:CE:etc:etc), and a third about "student perspectives" from an international student, a freshman, a transfer student, a recent alum, and an upperclassman. Last term, meetings were Mondays and Thursdays during lunch.

The Pre-med club is not an official club yet. However, we meet most weeks and sometimes have food. By the end of next term, we should be an officially registered club. Usually, meetings are Wednesdays during lunch, because almost all of the members are in the same building all day for lab.

GEO is the Greener Engineering Organization. The president is my good friend Trent and I am thinking about going. Meetings will likely be Tuesdays during lunch.

The National Society of Black Engineers, of which I am inexplicably a member, meets during dinner on Mondays. They also feed us. Good work, NSBE. I think I mostly joined this for the mostly free food. (Mostly free because I pay $5 in dues for the year.)

I am also inexplicably a member of SHPE, the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers. I could maybe pull of being Hispanic at least. They also feed me lunch one day a week. Not really sure which day that is.

I can probably never ever make it to SWE (Society of Women Engineers) meetings, as they are not in the Mott Building, but insist on being every other Wednesday during lunch.

There you have it. I am fed Mondays for lunch at newspaper meetings and dinner at NSBE, Tuesday lunch at GEO and dinner at Radio, Wednesday lunch at Pre-med or SWE and sadly no dinner, Thursday lunch with the newspaper and dinner with Dance Club, and I'm pretty sure SHPE is Friday, now that I think about it, so I'm set for lunch and coffee that day.

I'm thinking about getting a work study. Does this sound like a good idea?

Notes to an absent coworker

Today is your second day of vacation with your family and I just realized that you are my best friend here. Work is awful without you. At least when you were here, there was someone else to help bear the harassment that Jeff and Grant don’t even care that they are throwing out. I didn’t realize how bad it was when you were here. Probably because that meant that ANYONE else was on my team. Dave is sour, Grant is a hulking elementary school bully, and things are impossible.

You would tell me to take the whine out of my voice, but I want you to come back. I didn’t realize how much I would miss you when you are gone from the office. I love you because you are my big brother, my best friend, my protector and mentor. Your family is my family and I miss you all. I miss the way Beth treats me like a mix between another child and a sister. I miss the love I feel coming from all of your kids. They are almost like my own family. I want my babies to be like yours.

Over work term, you are my home. And I want you back.

Don't mind this!

I just want to make sure I don't lose this list. So the internet seemed like a good place for it. :)

General Education
ECON-350 -- SR II
Introduction to the Social Sciences -- ??
Senior Seminar: Leadership, Ethics and Contemp. Issues -- SR III
Written & Oral Communication II

Chemistry Core
Advanced Chemistry Elective I and Lab -- SR I
Advanced Chemistry Elective II and Lab -- JR II
Advanced Inorganic Chemistry and Lab -- SR I
Analytical Chemistry and Lab -- SR I
Biochemistry I and Lab
Organic Chemistry II and Lab -- SR II
Physical Chemistry I and Lab
Physical Chemistry II and Lab -- JR II
Senior Research/Seminar I -- SR II
Senior Research/Seminar II -- SR III

Mathematics
Differential Equations & Laplace Transforms -- JR II

Physics
Modern Physics/Lab -- SR II

Technical Electives
Genetics -- SR III
Anatomy and Physiology
Accounting Concepts or Introduction to Business -- JR II
Financial Mgmt and Business Law or Intnl Business -- SR I
Managing Orgs or International Finance/Marketing -- SR II
Marketing Fundamentals or International Mgmt -- SR III

Thesis

JR II - 18
SR I - 18
SR II - 20
SR III - 14

<3

Okay, so I have this boyfriend. He’s pretty cool. His name is Jeremy and he may be the only person who reads my blog. I love you! I hope you are having a fantastic day!

I also hope you update your blog sometime, since I gave you some material ideas with that Lady Gaga video and A Very Potter Musical and you have been promising to update for about a week now. Mind you, by “a week,” I mean “as long as I’ve been nagging about it” which is actually a lot closer to two weeks and three days or so. I know, I’m a terrible girlfriend and I need to stop nagging and let you be creative or whatever. Point is, I’m incredibly bored at work sometimes, and I know you work too, but it would be really nice to have ANYONE update their blog. Kate does a good job of writing a lot for her once-weekly posts, but only having something to read on Fridays doesn’t help as much as you would think it would.

This post is completely pointless. I just wanted to talk because I’m at work and have nothing else to do.

Thanks for reading it, love. Thanks for everything. You’re pretty nifty. I think I’ll keep you.

Work - Part 3

How I got the job: my mother worked at the hospital at the time. One of her coworkers was named Cheresa. Cheresa had a sister named Katrina. Katrina ran Summer Recreation. Cheresa liked me and my brother. This means we automatically got the job.

What the job was: Summer Recreation was basically glorified babysitting on our end. The “summer rec leaders” ran around chasing children for about 6 hours a day and got paid about $10/hour for it. Looking back, we were way underpaid. Well, the ones who actually worked were way underpaid. For the parents of the children, summer rec was a great way to be rid of your children for about the same period of time that school would have taken if it wasn’t the middle of summer. For eight weeks, you could send your kids to summer rec and they would be SEP. They could really make their children happy. They could feed them sugary cereal, then send them off to us to expend all of their energy. When they came home, they would be settled down. It was a really great deal.

Where the job happened: Port Huron has a lot of little kids. Therefore, we have a lot of elementary schools. About half of the elementary schools host a summer rec program. We were at Michigamme (mish-eh-GAH-mee) Elementary, about six miles away from my house.

I actually don’t have too much to say about this job. I learned CPR, ran around with children for hours every day, learned to play Stratego, and got paid some amount barely surpassing minimum wage. Oh, and an 8th grader decided he was in love with me. That made his freshman year of high school (my senior year) a little awkward.

Work - Part 2

There is actually a huge magic in being in the right place at the right time. That was how I got my second job – a job I loved very much.

I was a junior in high school and one of the favorite students of Mr. Tim Owens. Sr. Owens was our Spanish teacher and one of the two advisors for National Honor Society. I was the Service Chairperson and spent about a couple hours a week in Sr. Owens’ room after school every day tallying community service hours that students had signed and turned in to my mailbox in his classroom. I was just arriving to his room to start on this task on a Monday of early March. Sr. Owens was on the phone. He looked up when I came in and said “Christina, are you good at math?” I was in an advanced trigonometry class at the time, so I replied that I thought I was pretty good at it and asked why he wanted to know. “Go down to Mrs. Hopp’s office” was his response.

Mrs. Hopp was my well-meaning but slightly ditzy guidance counselor. I knew exactly where her office was and went down to see her. I hadn’t really been to her office since she came back from having her first baby. She had quite a bit of the weight left. I knocked on her door and she waved me in, setting papers aside. I sat down and she concisely explained to me that a family she knew very well (her pastor and his family, actually) homeschooled their teenage sons. They were 17 and 16, and both at the levels of juniors in high school. Their mother taught them, but she had a chronic illness and they had reached the point in their lessons that she didn’t really know the math as well. She asked Mrs. Hopp to find a student at her high school who could tutor for an hour a day, three days a week. I would be paid $10 for each session and would be teaching them Algebra II through the end of the book, then start them on trigonometry, carrying them through the rest of their “high school” time. I happily accepted the job, then went back to counting service hours.

The next Monday, I showed up to the Lavender house, which was only about three miles away from my own house. Candy, the boys’ mother, was a lovely and friendly woman. She invited me into their dining room, where the two boys – Nate (17) and Josh (16) - sat at the table, ready to learn from this girl they had never seen before.

I taught those two for a year and three months until we all went off to college. I sometimes wonder if they ever resented learning from someone younger than both of them. I feel like I would have had problems with it, but they never even hinted at such a thing.

Nate was terrible at math and didn’t seem to have much interest in learning it, either. He was a good kid, though. He complained about not understanding, but worked hard to try to get what I was telling him. By the end of every lesson, he could do the work I was teaching. Unfortunately, at the beginning of every lesson, he would say “Okay, so I got it when you left the other day, but I couldn’t do any of the homework.” He always seemed genuinely sad about this.

Josh was another story. Josh was never MILES ahead of my lesson, but he could anticipate where I was going with my lessons. I could always tell when he was doing it, because he’d get an excited light in his eyes and start writing. By the time I finished my sentence, he would push his paper over to me and say something along the lines of “Like this?” I’ll admit that he was more satisfying to teach because he understood better, but both were a joy to have.

On a few occasions, Candy would be too ill to come out and learn with the boys. On those days, she would leave my ten dollars on the table and we would work without her. Normally, on those days, I would teach for about twenty minutes, then we would just get into talking about friends and experiences and goals and plans for life. Those were some of the best days because they evolved from being my students into being friends. It was a nice thing to have out there. They were good kids and I was proud to know them.

Since we all graduated, I know that Nate and Josh both went off to study music. They have had a Christian band since I met them and they are doing pretty well for themselves. I doubt I was an important part of their lives, but I feel that they made a difference to mine and I am proud to have known them. I ran into Nate at the store over his summer break last year. He was with his girlfriend and he gave me a hug, then introduced me as his high school math tutor. I probably blushed. It is always good to see people who have learned from me.