in loving memory of my nana, who passed away on tuesday...

ahem...an actual problem from my physics book:

A person weighs a fish of mass m on a spring scale attached to the ceiling of an elevator. Show that if the elevator accelerates in either direction, the spring scale gives a reading different from the true weight of the fish.

...

first of all, *why* would there be a spring scale hanging from an elevator? and if there was, *why* would you weigh a fish on it? ("hey! look! a scale in the elevator! now i can weigh that fish i've been carrying around with me, on the off chance that i'd find a spring scale in an elevator!"). and third of all, if you absolutely *had* to weigh your stupid, stinky fish on said scale, why would you do it while the elevator was accelerating?

ugh. there is no reasoning with these people.

i just failed my first physics exam...

i go to class. i do the homework. i studied my ass off. i talked to the professor. and i still failed. there were 4 questions on the exam, and i was able to fully answer 1. that sucks. this is the hardest class i have ever taken in my life. harder than chemistry, and that's saying volumes. even when i think i get it...i just don't. and can't drop it b/c a) i need it to graduate in may, and b) even if i got permission to take it over the summer, i'd still have to deal w/ the issue that dropping it would make me no longer a full time student, and then i'd owe uconn money that i don't have. garrrrrrrr.
i hate hate hate hate hate hate hate physics.

i have *finally* gotten around to posting some patagonia pictures, for anyone who would like to peruse...there a lot more (ummm...10 more rolls) where that came from, but weeding through and scanning them is going to take a while. maybe spring break i'll get it done...

i hope everyone had a lurvely valentines day...mike and i stayed in and ate a yummy dinner that i'd been planning all week, and (oooh...ahhhh...) carvel cake with heart shaped brownies. and i got pretty pretty roses and gummy worms, which is exactly what i wanted :) sometimes low-budget holidays are the best kind...

i have a ton of homework that i need to get done today, but i wanted to get some web updating done as well...i've been slacking. there just aren't enought hours in the day. at any rate, i really need to get my tuckus away from the computer so that i don't spend countless (more) hours at jeep.com playing with the "build a wrangler" function...

go to the "dead jeep" photo album to view the wreckage...

who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? on friday, i taught my 1990 jeep cherokee how to roll over and play dead...

i was driving to school in the snow, and started fishtailing at the top of a hill. i took my feet off the pedals to let the car straighten out, but it didn't straighten out at all...it went head first into a telephone pole, then rolled onto the passenger side, then the roof, and then finally stopped with the driver's side down on the pavement. the triangle window on the driver door busted out, the windshield was cracked up, the rear window popped out, the muffler tore half off, the transmission heaved up the shifter right out of the console...not to mention the fact at i left the grill and headlights up the bushes by the telephone pole and cruched the remainder of the front end right up to the wheel wells. it was compeltely, painfully, irrevocably totaled. i gave the title over the body shop and paid them $50 to junk it for me after i crawled in and kicked out the doors so mike could retrieve my speakers. what a mess. thanfully, i (as always) had my seatbelt on, and wasn't hurt too badly. a lump on the head, some bruises, and a whole lot of muscle pain...but i literally walked out of that car. granted, it was along the drivers side windows and out the gapig hole in the rear hatch where the window used to be, but i walked out.

so for now, i'm driving mike's civic, and his parents graciously loaned him their second car.

MORAL: wear your seatbelts. you know who you are.

well, the girl from friday was in class today, so i guess she must be fine...that's good news.

i just finished my GIS lab, and i wish i could be happy about it, but i know that i have another one assigned tomorrow, and i also know that i have to go home and do my physics homework and my physics lab for tomorrow. i thought that the homework problems were due on wednesday, but unfortunately, they were due today (surprise!). so i'm not looking forward to a fun-filled night with my least favorite book, but...it's only for a few more months (blah). then i have calc over the summer to look forward to, and (hopefully) grad school in the fall. a little part of me is asking why i want to put myself through two more years of school, but i know that's just my hate of physics and math talking. so that's that.

my dad pointed out to me that people are getting antsy about my getting patagonia photos up on my website, so i'll have to that soon, too. i only have 3 of 13 rolls developed right now, and i don't know when i'm going to have the time to scan photos, but oh well. i'll fit it in somewhere...

i'm going to go be worthless for the next 20 minutes before my natural resources seminar...

that was really, really scary...

i just got let out of my lab animal science lab early b/c one of the girls in my class started seizuring uncontrollably. i called 911, but it took me 3 dispatchers before i got through to the UConn emergency line (i guess if you call 911 from a cell phone, you get routed to state police, then somewhere else, then finally wherever you need to be). at any rate, it was the most helpless feeling in the world, to see that girl on the floor like that and to just have to wait while the phone rang and people put me on hold. three cheers to my professor, Dr Milvae, who had the physically and emotionally draining job of holding the poor girl down so that she didn't hurt herself too badly. once the ambulance came, we were all in zombie mode, so there wasn't much point in continuing on with class. my hands are still shaking...

well, i found out the other day that i got nominated for the new england outdoor writer's scholarship. i have to get dressed up tomorrow for my interview regarding it. that would be a nice monetary bonus toward grad school...cross your fingers for me.

work was pretty blah today...slooow early on, then crazy for the last 2 hours. i'd go into detail, b/c it was rather interesting, but i've learned that my work stories tend to gross people out sometimes. suffice it to say that i've never seen a dog pee from anywhere other than where it's supposed to until tonight...very, very strange.

tomorrow i get to sleep in with mike...i can't wait. i really, really feel like i need it...

well, the semester is back in full swing...only this time, it's my last one. ack! i mean, technically, i'm hoping to get into grad school for the fall, so i won't *really* be done...but on may 17th, 2003, i will be the proud owner of a bachelors in natural resources management and engineering, and a bachelors in animal science. i've worked my butt off for the past 5 years, and i'm finally going to have something to really show for it.
classes this semsester: GIS (geographic information systems), lab animal science, physics, natural resources seminar, and animal science seminar. i get to do real live surgery for lab animal--administering anesthesia, the whole shebang. so that should be neat. bummed about GIS, though...i really wanted to learn how to use the total station (those tripod looking things you always see surveyors using), but since only 6 people are allowed, they don't teach it during class time. they teach it on saturday mornings. and guess who works every single saturday morning? you betcha. me. so it's hand-held GPS units for me, baby.
i got my unmotivated arse in gear and actually went to the gym after work tonight. i cannot even tell you the difference my inhaler makes. i feel like a marathon runner. well, maybe not...but relatively speaking... at any rate, it's a vast improvement from pre-inhaler krista trying to run. and it was incredible in patagonia, being able to go hiking and not be the breathless wheezer in the back. it probably should have dawned on me a little earlier, eh?

oh, and here's a bit of happiness: i made deans list again last semester! hoo-hah! :D

...needing to do my physics homework now...

safely back from patagonia, despite the fact that our saturday night santiago-atlanta flight was cancelled b/c there was a hole in the plane...

patagonia was unbelievable...better than i ever could have imagined. once i get my pictures developed i'll do a better write up of the trip--right now, there's just so much that i could say that i don't even know where to begin (except for saying CONGRATULATIONS, again, to chris and jody, who got engaged while we were down there...). this is such a slacker entry, but i have so much to do today...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

every time i edit my html, this program decides to change it. and not what i've edited. if i go in and say, change the picture in the right menu (which is currently eddie vedder), the code erases the labels for the blog menu (this) and the right menu divisions, making it look how it looked a few days ago. every single time. so every single time, i have to go in and redefine the divisions, reset the alignments, and retype the source for the graphic in the right menu. this is a huge pain in the ass. i can't even tell you. it never used to this, and i don't understand why it's all of a sudden doing it now. garrrr.....

at any rate--i leave for patagonia TOMORROW!!! so this is probably my last entry until i get back. hasta luego!

everytime i edit my html, this program decides to change it. and not what i've edited. if i go in and say, change the picture in the right menu (which is currently eddie vedder), the code erased the labels for the blog menu (this) and the right menu divisions, making it look how it looked a few days ago. every single time. so every single time, i have to go in and redefine the divisions, reset the alignments, and retype the source for the graphic in the right menu. this is a huge pain in the ass. i can't even tell you. it never used to this, and i don't understand why it's all of a sudden doing it now. garrrr.....

at any rate--i leave for patagonia TOMORROW!!! so this is probably my last entry until i get back. hasta luego!

okay...i think it's fixed. if you were one of the unlucky ones to witness the awful shmutz that was making up this page for the past few days, i apologize.

today i have to:
~go to walmart and get the stuff on my last minute things list
~do laundry
~(egads!) start packing

tomorrow is my parents' 28th wedding anniversary. i have the world's best parents. they are amazing, and still so in love after 28 years...everybody needs that. happy anniversary, mom and dad :)

trying to fix this...just excuse everything for now...the color, the spacing...ugh. i'm too anal. i can't leave it like this while i'm gone...

btw...why does my blog look like crappola in my mozilla browser (and, i'm assuming, netscape)? if you know why, please tell me. it's bugging me.

hope everyone had a very merry christmas...mine was absolutely wonderful. i know i've been awful about updating lately, but...well, i'm going to be even more awful in the next few weeks b/c i leave for patagonia in 6 DAYS!!! holy moly. i am so, so excited about going...but i am so, so sad about being so far away from mike for three weeks. opportunities to call will be few and far between, so...*sigh*. but i will be in a new and exciting place and learning a lot. i got lots of great trip related stuff for christmas, too (like my super-fun headlamp, thanks erika...). no plans as of yet for new years, but i'm sure we'll think of something. have a great new year's everyone!

got my PCB paper back today...got an A-!! kick ass. i worked so hard on that paper, so that's really great. also, finished my last exam this morning. whoo hoo!

short on time, but check this out: i have discovered the absolute coolest show *ever*. you need to watch it if you haven't yet...it's on the discovery channel and it's called monster garage. the other day, they turned a geo tracker into a hot air balloon (so, trackers are good for something after all...). what can i say? i'm a jeep girl...

okay...so i just finished my remote sensing exam in an obscenely short amount of time (1/2 hour). and i think i did really well, somehow. we were allowed to bring in a "cheat sheet" to the exam, and by some divine intervention i apparently put all the right things on mine--most of the exam consisted of me looking at my sheet and just transferring the answers over. there were a lot of questions about the different characteristics of certain types of sensors (Landsat, Quickbird, SPOT, etc...), and i pretty much just copied all of that info straight from the lecture slides and onto my sheet. so now i'm just waiting for lisa to finish up, b/c i picked her up today (roads were a little icky in her neck of the woods). whew--only one more exam to go.

tomorrow we're "doing lunch" with todd and catie and the 2 itty bitty bergers (well, not so itty bitty...but they're babies. and relative to todd, almost everything is little). we're doing that right after my 8 am (blech) dr.'s appointment in trumbull. yikes. guess who's going to be up bright and early tomorrow...

just a little over 2 weeks until i leave for patagonia...we're flying Hartford-->Atlanta-->Santiago-->Punta Arenas (look waaay at the bottom). so far away...wow. i'm getting so excited...i got a list from lisa of what to pack (since she went last year), and i'm going to start figuring out how my tent/sleeping bag/etc are going to be packed. b/c i can. b/c i want to. b/c i'm *excited*.

ok, time to be producitve--going to print out my semester project for my modeling class (that looks so bizarre--modeling class. i feel like i should elaborate...eh, you've been paying attention all along, right?). adios...

**yay** i got my plane tickets for patagonia today!! delta and lanchile, respectively. i'm so excited...

lisa and i made personalized christmas cookies for some of the nrme professors the other night. we gave them out yesterday, and they loved them! we decorated them relative to whatever the professor's specialty is (remote sensing, wetlands, etc). it was really cute to see all of their expressions when they saw the cookies. it made me want to make cookies for everyone i know :)

today, lisa and i set up every computer in the leris lab so that it would have a picture of david hasselhoff as its wallpaper. hee hee. we also set all of the web browser home pages to davidhasselhoff.com. buahahahahaha! because you can never have enough david hasselhoff (check out my regular webpage for a hilarious david hasselhoff related link...i'm to lazy to go fine the URL and make a link for it here...).

supposed to get an ice storm tonight, and i'm pretty bummed b/c we weren't able to get a christmas tree last night and i'd really, really like to be able to get one tonight. oh well. tomorrow, we're driving down to take my dad christmas shopping and have dinner at mike's parents' house for his birthday (which is friday), so we were thinking about going to a tree farm mike used to work at down in that area and getting a tree there. the place we went last year had very thin, gappy trees this year :/. i know there was a drought this year and all, but i want a big fat beautiful tree. and i'm going to be picky about it, too. so there.

alright, enough time wasting...going to be productive now...