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"

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!

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