I don't have a clever title for this

   The reason why I haven't updated in a while is because I'm busy doing all the nothing I couldn't do while I was in school. No, seriously. I'm sleeping until noon most days, spending 2-3 hours on Facebook (or the computer in general), occasionally chipping away at my Christmas shopping list, reading a couple books, and, of course, training on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Turns out when I don't want to escape what I'm supposed to be doing,  I have less incentive to blog. Go figure.

   I got my grade on my senior thesis back: 88. :) I always feel like this professor gives my papers exactly what they deserve. I thought I did a good job, but not good enough for an A. (At the same time, I don't think I could've done much more.) I'm happy with the grade, and I got an A in the class, so it's all dandy! :)

   Samford sent out an email to seniors a couple weeks ago with a link to a website that has a set of assessments you can take and you can take notes on where you need to improve academically and what your goals are and all that jazz. It's designed to help you decide what to do in the way of careers. So, I took all the assessments (they were relatively short, probably because there were 5 of them) and kept coming up with careers that are either civil engineering or require that skill set. Apparently I'm decently suited for that area. There were a couple careers that really stood out to me. I think one was a book editor (no engineering there, haha), one was a landscaping architect, and one was.... something else I forgot. But those 3 sounded so amazing that I would be willing to go back to school to get the degree I need to do those jobs. Of them all, book editing is probably the one I could get to in the least amount of time. Maybe I should start looking for internships for that... Oh man, if I could be a proofreader, that would be awesome!! I'd get to read all those books AND correct typos and errors! :D
   Anyway, I need to get on the ball on updating my resume, too. I have one, but even I know it's crap. One of my friends, though, has gotten compliments from recruiters about her resume. She gave me permission to model mine after hers, which is on her website. So there's that.

   Those books I'm reading? One that I started was Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. It's book 6 in the Wheel of Time series. I'm not sure if I'm past the prologue yet or not - I wasn't paying attention, lol. But I don't think I'll be coming back to it for a while, anyway. See, I met up with one of my best friends yesterday at Barnes & Noble, and she suggested some books for me. Both are Christian books, and not terribly long (compared to what I've been reading). The first is a book about dreams; I don't dream often, but I had one a couple weeks ago that was oddly clear and, even stranger, I remember it clearly. That dream was one of the (relatively) many I had in 2 consecutive nights. The other book, and the one I'm reading right now, is called The Bravehearted Gospel by Eric Ludy. You can read the description of it here, if you scroll down to the Book Description. I've only read the foreword and the first couple chapters, but it's amazing so far. I can easily see this book being a way for God to rock my world and change my heart and life. I'm excited. :)

   Alright, that's all I got. Merry Christmas everyone! And if I don't post again before New Year's, then Happy New Year, too! Go with God.



(Okay, I lied, just a couple videos, then I'm done.)

If this speech doesn't move you, then I don't know what will.

And, because it's so exciting, the official trailer for The Hobbit. You know you want to watch this again.

Je ne sais pas

Yesterday was a blast. Work went well and I was able to use all that time to finish writing my thesis paper and send it to Jess for proofreading. Walking out of work and toward the Caf, I saw a LifeSouth donation bus thing, and knew I had to honor my Facebook promise (from April, after the tornadoes hit) to donate blood. So I went and ate lunch and went through the whole process of donating. I still don't like the idea of it. It was about as bad as I figured it would be, but most of that was because of the "unknown" factor. Now that I know the process, I'd be less averse to donating again. I still hate needles, though.

Had a pretty chill afternoon. Didn't do too much, since everything was pretty much done and I was gonna do my take-home final and poem this weekend. I got to talking with Tucker (my sensei) on Facebook and he gave some good advice on what to eat to keep me from passing out in training, haha. Which meant I actually had to go eat something of substance in the Caf, instead of soup or ramen. Which means I didn't get out on the road at my usual 5pm, because the Caf doesn't open until 5pm. Which wasn't going to be a big deal, anyway, I guess. If the other shodan candidate showed up, I'd be sitting there most of the time, helping to evaluate his shodan test. If he didn't, then I wasn't going to be training hard anyway, if at all, since I'd donated blood. (It had been over 4 hours, but still. Just playing it safe.) *shrug* I'm just really big on getting there early, haha.

Our last shodan candidate did show up. Details on how that went can be found here.

I didn't have any classes today, which means I got to sleep in, and I get to spend the day working on my take-home final. :) Sounds gross, but I don't mind it, and it'll be out of the way for the weekend, which shall be devoted to [briefly] studying for my Sociology of Deviance exam and memorizing my German poem. Which is frikkin awesome. It's a Marxist author's call for the oppressed workers to rise up. >:D

So yeah! This weekend's looking pretty awesome and chill. My two extra goals are to watch Men Who Stare at Goats and to read The Giver. :)

The End is Nigh

My thesis paper is complete! I sent it to one of my friends to have a second pair of eyes read it over, and once I make those corrections and email it in, I will be DONE with that sucka! And tonight is Thursday, which usually means there's a good chance we'll go to On Tap after training. And I don't have any classes tomorrow (both got cancelled). Now, I do have to drive, so I can't get tipsy or anything, but there will definitely be some celebrating going on. :) Finished with the evil senior thesis and promoted to shodan in the same week? If that's not reason enough for celebration, I don't know what is!!


On a random side note, I thoroughly enjoy making up crazy titles for these posts. It's fun. :)

Banpen Fugyo - A Thousand Changes, No Surprises

So turns out we were able to get through the whole test on Monday night, instead of breaking it up into parts as I'd expected. ((Details can be found here.))

In other news, I finished the first round of edits for my paper. Gotta add in some descriptions and explanations and a conclusion, but it's mostly finished. Should be done by the deadline, no problem.

Winter Winds

Hello, all. As you can see, this is a blog (and I am Captain Obvious). And this is my first post! Yaaaaay. The blog will mostly be for keeping my friends updated on what's going on in my life, I think. Which right now consists of my senior thesis and martial arts.

I've finished writing the vast majority of my senior thesis paper, excepting only the conclusion. Which I will write once I've read through what I have and figure out what the heck I've been saying, haha. (It's difficult to maintain a train of thought when progress is stop-and-go.) Then I'll make the first round of edits! Hopefully tonight, so I can make another round of edits tomorrow. And another the next day. Until I can turn in my final draft on Thursday. :)

Also in school-related news, we got our take-home final for German Lit today. Doesn't look too bad, just time consuming. And I'm really glad it's a take home and we can use all our notes and stuff, because I would FAIL if we couldn't. Waaaaay too much information to remember everything, haha. But it should go well if I pace myself. :) I'll probably pick away at it during the week, then knock it out once my thesis is turned in. Then I gotta memorize my poem for class (an epic Marxist poem that's calling for the proles to rise up). I'm excited about that one. :)

Tonight is the first section of my test for shodan (first degree black belt), too!! One of my friends at the Huntsville dojo gave me some great advice: just zone out and let your body do what it needs to do to keep you safe. Exactly what I needed to hear, because I always default toward overthinking rather than simply doing. And I know that things fall into place much more easily when I get out of my own way. :)

Anyway, I'm gonna go read through my paper, eat dinner, and head out to the dojo. :) Just wanted to post a little update!

PS - It's December and around 70 degrees, maybe high-60s. What's up with that??