Test Results

Introverted (I) 54.55% Extroverted (E) 45.45%
Sensing (S) 65.63% Intuitive (N) 34.38%
Thinking (T) 78.57% Feeling (F) 21.43%
Judging (J) 73.53% Perceiving (P) 26.47%

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs.
Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable.
11.6% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Hogwarts Sock Swap Progress

Here's a picture of my Gryffindor pal's sock:




I'm using Nature Spun worsted weight, Plymouth bamboo needles, and a pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Socks book.

I'm starting to accumulate other goodies for my pal; I can't wait to finish it up and send the final package!

My First Meme

Mum just tagged me in my first meme... here goes!


Here are the rules:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


Eight Random Facts About ME:

1. I'm semi-ambidextrous. I write with my left hand, although I can write legibly with my right hand as well. Sometimes I use a computer mouse with my right hand, sometimes with my left. I crochet left-handed, but knit right-handed. I can play pool either way, which comes in kinda handy :-)

2. My freshman year of college, I was attending an Auburn baseball game, and was hit on the head by a line drive. This resulted in a hematoma, and I had to be hospitalized over night in Columbus, GA (the closest hospital with a neurosurgeon)! Since I was so far away from home (25 hr drive from school to my parents' house in CO), several of my friends came and spent the night in the hospital room with me. Except for the IV, black eye, incredibly swollen face, and monster of a headache, it was sort of like a big slumber party!

3. I was homeschooled from 2nd grade through my senior year of high school. I loved it, and would like to homeschool my own kids someday.

4. I have taught three guys how to knit, and one girl. The guys are more fun, because they make funny facial expressions when trying to get their fingers to do what they're supposed to... they also have a tendency to come up with special, "masculine" knitting vocabularies. My friend Nick refers to knitting needles as "spears" and crochet hooks as "harpoons." He also refers to yarn as "knitting cloth." He's also a very good knitter (as are my other protégé).

5. I modeled for a book cover once, as a favor for a family friend who is a professional artist. My character was a WWII era big band singer- how cool is that?

6. I have a Cabbage Patch doll named Ileen, who I've had since I was a baby. (In fact, I think my mom got her before I was born.) I still sleep with Ileen every night, even when I travel for engineering conferences and job interviews. Even though I don't really cuddle with her anymore, I still like to know she's in bed with me :-p

7. I have two moles on the side of my neck, which my family calls my "vampire bite."

8. I am... er... slightly particular about things. Ok, in my sister's words, I am "OCD about life." In terms of cleanliness, I can't use someone else's computer without washing my hands, never go barefoot in anyone else's house, can't stand for my pajamas to touch anything besides the inside of my sheets (which, in turn, never touch anything except my pajamas- never street clothes), I always carry hand sanitizer with me, etc. I like things to be even and balanced... so if, for example, someone is cracking their knuckles (which I find highly irritating), it will drive me crazy if they only crack the knuckles on one hand but not the other. I could go on, but Mum said not to say anything that will make me sound too weird ;-)

9. Ok, I'm adding another random fact because I really really hate the number 8. So there's my ninth random fact- I despise a particular number. (Yeah, yeah, I know. I actually talked about this with a psychology professor once; apparently, it's not too uncommon for mathematically-inclined people to have favorite and least-favorite numbers like this. My favorite is 7, in case anyone's wondering.)


So, I guess now I'm suppose to tag some people... since I'm pretty new to the blogging world (at least this blogging world after I abandoned my old blog), I don't have many folks to tag. So how's this- if you want to do the meme, go right ahead- I tag you! :-)

Well, I'm Back

Hello there! I'm finally home (in Colorado) and settled down after two weeks' worth of graduation activities, moving, and travelling. It feels wonderful to finally relax... I don't have to worry about homework, or exams, or packing, or any of that mess. (I suppose I probably should start worrying about all the change-of-address stuff, and transferring my car title to TN, etc. etc, but I've decided not to think about all that until next week at the earliest.)

Graduation was, of course, wonderful. My parents came down, as well as most of my grandparents- it was so great to have them all there. My sister was graduating too (I co-oped, or interned, essentially, for a whole year while I was in school, which is why we both graduated at the same time), so it was a great family affair. Here are a few pictures:

Me and my sister Allison (you can tell I'm the dorky one)

Me and Laura, another chemE (chemical engineer) and one of my best friends :-)

Me and my parents before the chemE reception

Me and my awesome grandparents (minus one- we missed you, Nana!)


The whole family, the morning of graduation


Me and Laura before the ceremony started


Some of my favorite chemE's :-) The three closest to me, Laura, Adam, and Brian, comprised my senior design team (DAWS Engineering)

Me and my research advisor, Mario

Mmm... sorry if I got a little picture-happy there. You should see my photo album on facebook, though; 60 pictures! And that's only because 60 is the limit. I'd been waiting for this day for a long time, and I wanted to make sure it was well-documented ;-)

The day after graduation my grandparents headed home to Texas while my parents, sister, and I drove up to TN to meet my movers and spend the weekend unpacking my new apartment. I'm all "unpacked," but will have a lot of organization to do when I get back, particularly regarding all of my knitting and other craft-related stuff. I have a lot more works-in-progress than I thought, and I need to sort them all out. I also have a plethora of various crafty gadgets and supplies, all of which were in extreme disarray after four years of college. (Since I rarely had time to work on projects, and also no longer had access to all of Mum's craft supplies, I had been slowly and sporadically accumulating various craft supplies over the course of my college career. Since my bouts of craftiness were usually broken up by months' worth of solid, 24/7 schoolwork, and since storage capacity in my bedroom was extremely limited, all of my craft-related items ended up scattered and stored in random places. Ugh. I have to say, though, that since all the acquiring and scattering of items had occurred over such a long period of time, I really had no idea how much stuff I had actually acquired and scattered. If I had known the extent of the chaos, I probably would not have been able to sleep at night.)

Anyway... we headed back to Colorado earlier this week. We listened to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the car, and I got quite a bit of work done on my Hogwarts Pal's first sock... more details on that later. Since we got back, I've been busily relaxing. ;-) Getting caught up on sleep was a priority (I'd been averaging 5 or 6 hrs a night since spring break), and I've been working on my Hogwarts Swap socks and also another project. I also read HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban (yeah, I know, I was forced to read them out of order... *shudder*) and have been working on HP and the Order of the Phoenix. And we've had a couple days "in town" (running errands in the closest city, which is an hour away), which are always exhausting.

All right, I'm going to go "relax" some more, after I do some laundry. I'll post soon about my Hogwarts Swap sock progress... and one of these days I'll get around to designing my own template for the blog (I feel so uncreative that I've just used a standard one.) Goodbye for now!

Jennifer

FREEDOM!!!!

I am finally, finally, done with school! It feels so amazingly good. But sad, sort of bittersweet. I really do love school. I actually got a bit teary-eyed when I walked out of my last final, but I think this was mostly because I finished right at noon... so just as I left the building, the bell tower started its daily rendition of the school fight song. Poetic timing, huh?

So funny story about my last final. I actually missed it!!!!! If you know me at all (which I guess most of you don't, but pretend you do), you know how shockingly uncharacteristic this is. I'm normally extremely on top of things; I have never missed (or even been late for) meetings and such, and have never even skipped a class without prior permission from the professor! But, after four years of perfection, I completely missed my one and only final. I didn't even forget about it- in fact, I was studying for the final when I was supposed to be taking it. I just thought it was 24 hours later than when it really was! I have had the final written for the wrong date in my calendar for several months now- no idea how that happened. Soooooooooooo embarrassing. The professor was very gracious about it (even e-mailed me to make sure everything was ok), and allowed me to take the final Friday in his office. It all worked out fine and the professor didn't seem to mind at all- but still! I suppose this is a just very ironic, and somehow fitting, end to my college career! :-)

Even though I finished my academic requirements, I've still got quite a bit to do. I've spent the past two days paying bills, cancelling my AL utilities and starting them up again in TN, packing, finishing up my last responsibilities as TBP president, and and taking care of all other manner of administrivia related to moving. I've also accomplished a small bit of reading. (Ok, so I read the the first Harry Potter book in 24 hrs... I know I have a lot of stuff to be doing right now, but it's a short book, ok? And I've already read it once, so I could go through it quickly this time. And I'm done with school!!!!!)

So, for the next few days I will be occupied with packing up taking care of all the moving-related issues. Mum's coming tomorrow (yay!), and Daddy and my grandparents are following on Wednesday. There's a chemE reception Wed. afternoon, and then graduation is Thursday morning.

Friday we'll all be getting up at "o'dark thirty" (as one of my friends likes to say- referring to the wee small hours of the morning) to head to TN. After I get at least somewhat moved in to my new apartment, we'll all head to CO, arriving... mm... Tuesday the 15th, I think?

Then I'll have a couple weeks vacation at home- I'll finally get to start my Hogwarts pal's socks! And then I'll fly back to Birmingham to be in my friend Laura's wedding. And then back up to TN to start work.

I apologize- this whole post is probably really boring, especially the detailed itinerary I've just provided. (Of course, I did warn you in my very first post that I tend to talk too much! :-p ) Anyway, the main purpose of this post (besides the blissful announcement that I'm done with school forever! or at least temporarily) is to put up the pictures I promised a while back. You asked for them, so there are plenty!

The first group are from the annual RUF low country boil. RUF is a campus ministry I've been involved at here at Auburn, and is where I met most of my friends.

The second group of pics is from my end-of-thesis champagne party. (And in case you're wondering, no, none of my friends - or myself - drink much at all, so this was not a very common event.)

The last pictures are from a chemical engineering department golf scramble. At lunch, a few of the students did a "who's who" type presentation- each of the seniors and faculty present were given some kind of title, as well as a matching "crown." Some of my friends' titles were: "first millionaire," "nicest guy you'll ever meet," "life of the party," and "first down the aisle" (Laura will be the first in our class to get married). My title was "professional interviewee," because I went on more job interviews last fall than anyone else in the senior class. (I wanted to be exposed to a lot of different companies so I could make a good decision about which offer to take... and it was worth it!)

So, without further ado, here they are- enjoy!

RUF Low Country Boil

Roommate goofiness...
(L-R: me, Mary, Allison [my sister], Anna [Mary's sister])


Nathan, my "little brother" (we were "adopted" by the same family at church)


Some of my best Auburn friends! (L-R: Michael, me, Allison, Anna, Mary, Nick)


End-of-Thesis Celebration



Me (sorry for the weird look- whoever took the picture caught me off guard) and The Goblet; Nathan



Nick; me and The Goblet (again, sorry for the unexpected, and therefore goofy-looking, picture)



Matt, Laura, and me (I'm going to be in their wedding in a few weeks!); Michael (at least I snapped an unexpected picture of him since he caught so many of me!)


The Goblet

Chemical Engineering "Scramble for Graduation"

All the seniors & faculty with our "crowns" - can you see me?

My "crown"

PS

Right side modules updated...

(I clearly use the term "week" loosely, as it will probably refer to a timespan lasting anywhere from 5 to 25 days!)

Almost There!

I just finished my last homework assignment ever!!! (Well, the last assignment in my undergraduate career at least.) Engineering curricula, particularly chemE, tend to have a lot of homework- upwards of 8 hours' worth per day! Needless to say, I am quite thrilled to have finished my last assignment.

Now all I have left is a linear algebra final (easy! but I still need to study) and various administrivia to take care of for Tau Beta Pi (I'm outgoing president). And of course, all the lovely details related to moving- ugh!

Speaking of moving, I have to say how very glad I am to be settling down in one place for a while. Over the past few years, I completed a co-op program, which essentially means that a student interns - at a chemical plant, in my case - every other semester, so that their total work experience adds up to a year. So, for two full years, I moved every semester. Not only that, but I'm also a packrat and slightly more materialistic than I should be, so I have a lot of stuff! Thankfully, my awesome future employer is footing the bill for my move this time, and the deal supposedly includes movers to pack my apartment. Not sure how I feel about that (add "overprotective" and "possessive" to "materialistic" and "packrat,"and you'll understand where I'm coming from :-p ). But it will be nice to not spend 4 straight days packing, too.

I finally have a few pictures to post, but my target bedtime was a couple hours ago so I think I'd better hit the sack. Pictures coming soon, then; probably after my final on Friday.

Jennifer


PS As I was just now thinking about all the things I don't want those movers to touch, my yarn stash crossed my mind! It may be pretty small, but it's precious nonetheless. What if they just stuff my gorgeous skeins and balls into corners of boxes filled with other junk? It might get all unfluffed and smooshed and ugly looking! And what if they leave the cardboard boxes out in the rain or something, and my red merino melts all over my baby blue Regia sock yarn? The horror!

I don't know if this was biologically accurate ("DNA" as it were), but it was fun!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

The End is Near

So yesterday was my last day of class- ever!!! (Unless I go to grad school, which is entirely possible...) It felt so great to walk out of my last class. It was a busy day- I had a linear algebra test, then my senior design group gave our final presentation, then Laura (also in my senior design group and one of my best friends) and I had our last lunch date at Moe's, our favorite restaurant (we have lunch there together at least once or twice a week), then I had more class, then I presided over my last Tau Beta Pi meeting, then I had dinner with some friends. Then I crashed and went to bed early!

Going to bed early allowed me to get up early so I could get to work early... so I better jump to it! I'll post again soon, as soon as I get something more interesting to talk about.

Jennifer

Didn't Mr. Eigen have anything better to do?

An n x n matrix A is said to be diagonalizable if there exists a nonsingular matrix X and a diagonal matrix D such that

(X^-1)(A)(X) = D

Furthermore, if A is diagonalizable, then the column vectors of the diagonalizing matrix X are eigenvectors of A, and the diagonal elements of D are the corresponding eigenvalues of A.


(In other words, I have a linear algebra test tomorrow...)

Time to take a breather...

Oh my goodness... what a week this has been! The month of April has turned out to be the busiest of my college career. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise, since I am a graduating senior in engineering. I'm almost there, but still have two pretty insane weeks left. Unfortunately, from the looks of things, my remaining time at Auburn will follow in the exponentially increasing "amount-of-work-per-day" trend. (I have so much work to finish by graduation, I get queasy whenever I think about it!)

On the bright side, though, I've gotten a couple of the major milestones out of the way this week. Yesterday, my senior design group (or "DAWS Engineering" as we call ourselves- long story) finished and turned in our final report... all 102 glorious pages of it! It felt great to turn it in, since that one document represents an INSANE amount of work over the past several months. Our project was to design and analyze multiple processes to produce a certain chemical- so basically, we designed several entire chemical plants. We did all manner of calculations to figure out how much it would cost to produce the chemical using each of the different processes, studied the safety and environmental aspects of each process, etc. etc. etc. At any rate, we're just about done with senior design! All we have left is a presentation next week to a few professional engineers who are flying in to evaluate us.

The other big accomplishment of the week was the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (which is one of the steps required in order to be a licensed engineer- it covers everything a person is supposed to learn in engineering school, including quite a lot of stuff I didn't learn!). I took it today. The entire thing took 11 hours! The actual exam time was only 8 hrs, but we had a lunch break and about two hours of administrivia and other nonsense (waiting in line to be searched/admitted, listening to all the rules, filling out paperwork, etc). It feels great to be done with it, but now I'm worried about whether I passed. I won't find that out until the end of July.

One of the not-so-stressful events of the week was the Honors Scholars Symposium, which - for lack of a better term - honored the graduating "University Honors Scholars" (all the geeks like me). After completing their freshman and sophomore level honors classes, the members of the Honors College have the option of writing a senior thesis based on research. I did the math the other day, and only about 1% of Auburn grads do this... and (overachiever that I am) I'm one of them :-) I've absolutely loved doing research, though, and I'm enjoying writing my thesis (if only I could finish it!). So it hasn't really been that bad!

Here are a couple pictures from the symposium. It would be nice to put one up of me giving my presentation, but it didn't turn out so great and vanity prevents me from posting it :-p

A couple of my engineering buddies...

The director of the Honors College congratulating me after he presented my stole and goblet

My research advisor, Mario. And of course, the goblet. (It's a long story, but the goblet was partially what enticed me to go for the thesis option. As soon as I'm done with my thesis, the goblet is going to be tested with a little champagne :-p )

Well, that's been my week... the high points, anyway. If I can only hold on a few more days......

(And in case anyone's wondering, no, absolutely no knitting has occurred within the past couple weeks. I did take a break last night to do some minor alterations to my bridesmaid dress for an upcoming wedding - doing crafty things is always stress relieving - but no knitting; sorry!)

Take care!

Jennifer

In Memoriam

San Francisco

Earlier this week I took an overnight trip to San Francisco to present research at a conference. Here are a couple pictures from the trip:

Shamefully enough, these are just about the only ones I took! I was traveling by myself, so I was a tad nervous walking around downtown by myself (there are homeless people and panhandlers everywhere!). I was trying to avoid looking too much like a tourist, which meant I couldn't take lots of pictures like I normally do :-)

My presentation at the conference went well and it was a fun trip, although it was very short! I arrived early Wednesday afternoon and checked into my hotel, which was right off Fisherman's Wharf. I grabbed a late lunch and then walked around the wharf a bit, before I headed up to the downtown/Union Square area. Then I walked back to Chinatown for a little shopping, then to Little Italy, and finally back to my hotel. The rest of the people from my school arrived around dinner time, and we ate dinner at an upscale Indian restaurant near Union Square. I tried some "kashmiri pulao," which was very good. We rode the cable car back to the hotel- fun! We got up early the next morning to head to the conference, which was across the bay in San Rafael. Immediately after my presentation, I caught a cab and headed for the airport. All told, I was in San Francisco for exactly 24 hours. Whew- what a trip!

Even though the trip was short, I feel like I'm way behind in my schoolwork now. I've spent the day working on my thesis; I think I'd better get back to work!

Jennifer

Hogwarts Sock Swap Questionnaire

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into?
Ravenclaw

2. Shoe size?
7 ½ US

3. Foot Length?
9 ½"

4. Foot Circumference?
8 ½"

5. List your three favorite double-point needle brands, including size and length
Mmm... not a lot of experience to draw from here! My favorite set was a gift from Mum, so I don't actually know what brand they are- although I believe they're made of rosewood. They are size 1's, about 5 ½" long. I also have some 6" Plymouth bamboo size 1's, which I like (although haven't used yet).

6. Would you like to try a new brand needle? If so, which brand? Size? Length?
Since I've only used a couple types, definitely! I love wood needles. I would like to try Pony Pearls. Not a huge fan of metal. Based on a couple iPod socks I knit last year, I'm not overly fond of Balene or Crystal Palace either. And I definitely prefer DPN's to circulars.

*edit/ Apparently, the needles I thought were Crystal Palace were actually Brittany. My knitting tension is really high, and I snapped one of the needles- hence my dislike for them. According to Mum, the smaller size Brittany needles have a tendency to be flimsy. Also according to Mum, Crystal Palace needles are great, so I retract the ignorant statement previously posted. /edit*

*addendum/ That reminds me... since I have high tension, size 0's probably wouldn't be best for me. Size 1's (2.25 or 2.5) would be better. /addendum*

7. If you are a RAVENCLAW, do you prefer the colors in the film or the book? Do you have a strong preference?
Although I'm a complete purist when it comes to all things Tolkien, I'm not that picky about Harry Potter. I prefer the film colors, but I would also appreciate the accuracy of the book colors.

8. Are you willing to have an international Hogwarts Sock Pal?
Certainly!

Inaugural Post

Greetings!

My name is Jennifer, and (as you might have guessed) this is the first post on my new blog.

By way of introduction, I should probably mention first off that Mum is my mum. (Incidentally, the way that she - a very American woman with a very American family - aquired this moniker is a rather interesting story; you should ask her to tell it. I will say that I should receive primary credit for the fact that the name stuck, as my sister calls her "Memo" for some reason... a name which, in my mind, is much less sophisticated than "Mum" and would make for a lousy blog title.)

Mum has been trying to convince me to start up a knitting blog for quite some time, and I finally caved after she set up the Hogwarts Sock Swap to entice me. Just to warn you... I currently don't have time (or enough interesting post topics) to maintain two separate blogs- one for knitting, and one for personal/social/fun stuff. As a result, this blog will likely be a combination of the two. So if you're only here for the knitting-related content, feel free to ignore the posts about school, vacations, the weather, the plight of the snowy owl (just kidding), etc. Likewise, if you're just a friend of mine, don't know how to knit, and don't really even care that I know how, you can ignore the knitting stuff. :-) I should also point out that for the time being, the ratio of knitting/non-knitting content will be heavily skewed to the non-knitting side- for the simple reason that I don't foresee much knitting occuring in the next four weeks! (See following paragraphs.)

So, that said, I should probably try to introduce myself to you. I'm about to graduate with my Bachelor's of Chemical Engineering degree from Auburn University (t-minus 27 days!). Unfortunately there's a heck of a lot of work to be done between now and then, so you may not hear from me much until after graduation. This is due mainly to the fact that I'm a slight overacheiver, and have a tendency to take on superfluous work (research culminating in a 60-page senior thesis, holding the office of president in an engineering society, etc). But, I wouldn't have it any other way. :-)

That leads into the next topic I should touch on... my personality. I should probably just go ahead and say it- I'm a geek. This tends to result in some really boring posts, so I apologize in advance. I'm easily excited by topics most people find soporifically boring (such as nuclear power), and find humor in things most people wouldn't (like the term "centrifugal force"). I promise I'll try to keep the geekiness to a minimum on this blog!

There are a lot of other interesting (or not-so-interesting) things I could mention about myself, but you've probably already noticed one of the more obvious ones... my verbosity. And, judging from the current length of this post, I should probably move on to different topic. :-p

If you linked to this blog from my Mum's, or are somehow connected with the Hogwarts Sock Swap, you might be wondering about my knitting history. I've been knitting for about a year and a half, and - interestingly enough - Mum didn't teach me how to knit. She was readily available with tips and advice, but I more or less taught myself. I've always been really crafty, though, which I'm sure is partly due to Mum's influence. I think I've dabbled in just about every type of handiwork there is, and have aspirations of learning everything that's left. My favorites (besides knitting, of course) are hardanger and scrapbooking. In terms of my knitting repertoire, I've not done anything terribly advanced... just scarves, hats, etc. I just finished my first pair of socks a few weeks ago; Mum was so excited she blogged about it. I'm looking forward to starting my next pair (and finishing up my other works-in-progress) as soon as school finishes up. For the time being, though, the only things I'll be "creating" are my senior thesis, senior design report/presentation, C++ program, etc... none of which would make for very interesting blog entries. My apologies :-)

Jennifer