3/15/2010

End of Winter :)

 Last Tuesday was my good friend’s 21st birthday so we went out to dinner at Cactus, which is a Mexican restaurant that is down by Madison Park. It was very good. They have a few different locations and I have been to the one over on Alki beach with my parents. We took her out and bought her a Margarita and then head back since it was a school night. Final are this week so for the last week or so we’ve been finishing up assignments and start organizing for Studying. I have an exam Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and a paper due on Friday for my Ethics class and then I fly out on Saturday to start my spring break! I am super excited to get winter quarter done with. Out of the three quarters it is the hardest just because of the weather I think. I am super excited about spring quarter. It will be nice weather so we can study outside and I am excited about my classes next quarter.

This is Cara and some of the girls at the birthday dinner with our complementary Cowgirl Brownie….

3/7/2010

Springgg

      The quarter is coming to a close and spring is upon us. The weather has been wonderful this week!! I have been able to go running and just hang out outside in between classes. Yesterday I ran down to University of Washington to watch the girl’s club lacrosse game. The run there was pretty good because it is pretty much downhill or flat the hole way. It was really nice outside too, close to 60 degrees, so it was the perfect running temperature. The game was really good too. SU has a women’s club team that most anyone can join if they are interested, and lot of my friends are on the team. This is there second year I believe as a real team and they had two games yesterday. They lost both of their games but they played good. The second team they played was U-Dub so it is expected they should be better than us because the school is so much bigger.
    There are a lot of club teams to get involved in at SU if you don’t want to play a varsity sport but you want to still be involved with sports.

This is our girls team playing on Saturday... they are pretty legit.

2/28/2010

Skiing

 I just got back from my ski weekend with my family. I went up to Targhee, a ski resort in Wyoming, from Friday through Sunday. My family got a room up on the hill and we stayed there for the weekend. Targhee is my favorite place to go skiing. I have been going up there since I was little so I know the mountain very well, which is always nice. The weather was super nice. It was a blue bird day on Friday when we first went up there and then on Saturday it was a bit cloudy but still sunny. This weather meant that there wasn’t any powder but we had fresh groomers each day and the snow was soft because it wasn’t to cold.

It was really nice to spend the weekend with my parents and my sister. It is always really nice to come back to school too. When I am gone I really miss everyone that is here. I have found that I am closer to my friends here that I have know for 3 years than I am with a lot of people back at home that I have know all through junior high and high school. My friends at school have become my second family.

2/23/2010

Snow here I come

 School is staying nice and busy. We are upon another midterm week. Because of the quarter system there tends to be two midterm weeks. All is good though, I get to head down to Utah this weekend for a ski weekend with my family. I am super excited!! I am going to Targhee which is a ski resort in Wyoming. It is one of my favorite ski places just because of the atmosphere up there. It is like a little town up on the mountain and it is far away from any other town.

Starting last week and SU Mechanical Engineering department has been hosting Japanese students that will be staying here for 3 weeks. During the summer our department sends a few of our students over to a school in Japan and they have now come to visit us. They have been sitting in on some of the classes and my friend Nick (who is a ME also and when to Japan this summer through the program) took them up to Mt. Rainer to go snowshoeing. I have been sick so I didn’t get to go but I heard it was amazing up there. Rainer is about a 2 ½ hour drive which isn’t too bad for a day trip.

Well I am off to take a test!!

2/15/2010

The Search

Happy Valentine’s Day! Valentine's Day is actually one of my favorite holidays. Not because of the romantic aspect of it but because of the feeling that is around on Valentine’s Day.

This weekend I went on Search Retreat with our school's campus ministry. It was amazing, life changing. It is not tailored towards a certain religion or a religion at all. I am not going to mention much about it because that is part of what makes it so amazing. I am sure that there are some of you that have gone on Search retreats with your high school. It is just amazing to experience it with a group of people.

Luckily we have President’s Day of to recuperate and do some homework! A lot of reading and assignments to catch up on today!

Last week the spring quarter schedule came out. I am pretty excited about the class that I am going to be taking. They are Thermodynamics 2, Renewable Energy, Heat Transfer, and Finite Analysis. They are all engineering classes so it should be pretty intense but it will be good. There are a few that I am super excited about and a few that I am not really sure what to expect but it should be good. Hopefully I will be able to study in the sun next quarter ☺. Spring quarter is wonderful because you get to start going outside to eat and study and just hang out. Campus has a bunch of green lawns to sit on so it is always easy to find somewhere to hang out outside.

2/7/2010

Hey Marseilles and EWB

Saturday night we held a fundraiser for Engineers Without Borders. We had a social hour and then a concert from Hey Marseilles. We also had a silent auction that many of the professional engineers that came bid on. We had some electronics for sale such as an iPod touch, cell phone, and flip camera. We also had some stuff from Thailand and Ethiopia where past and future projects are. The proceeds from the event are going to a water purification system for Haiti and also our trips to Guatemala and Ethiopia. Check out the SU-EWB website for information on our trips that are coming up and the club in general at www.su-ewb.org. Also check out Hey Marseilles. They are a local Seattle band and the lead singer as an admissions counselor at Seattle U. They are really good! It was wonderful to have them play for the club.

Super bowl was also today! Go Saints!

1/31/2010

Tests

Last Friday was my first test. Hopefully it went well but it was one of those testes where you just don’t know until you get it back. This week is going to pretty hectic as well. I have a test on Tuesday in Fluid Mechanics, a test on Friday in Machine Elements, and a take home test due for Ethics on Friday. It will be busy but these weeks tend to come around about twice each quarter. On the quarter system you tend to have two midterms in your most of your classes and then a final at the end. I actually think this is nice because (1) You don’t cover as much information on each test (2) there are more grades to average into your grade. I like the last point because if you do badly on one test then you don’t necessarily have a bad grade in the class. Well wish me luck this week!

Here is a nice scenery picture for you from New Zealand because I don't have any picture from last week. It is a picture of Doubtful Sound in the South Island