Monday, February 26, 2007

Winter Break trip

Here are some pictures from my winter break cruise along the Danube River:















From top to bottom, left to right (my memory isn't perfect): A perspective shot in Prague (Czech Republic), a 12th century stone bridge in Regensburg (Germany) called, I believe, Steinerne Brcke, in historical Nurnberg (Nuremberg) an ancient Roman wall, a small castle on the Danube River in Germany, Fisherman's Wharf (I think.... I have no idea where), and lit candles in a Gothic church.

The trip was in late December, early January, so I can't remember locations exactly, especially out of context of the other pictures in my collection.

Enjoy!

Why didn't we listen to Alexander Hamilton?

Interesting idea....

Many governments, like England, have what is called a dual executive branch, where there is a head of government (h.o.g) and a head of state (h.o.s). In England's case the h.o.g is the Prime Minister. He/she is the person who actually runs the government, day to day policies and procedures. The h.o.s, in England's case, is the queen. She is the moral anchor of the nation, the one who gets to be the celebrity, the one the people look up to in times of trouble.

In the United States we have what is called a fused executive branch. The president of the United States must serve both the functions of the h.o.g and h.o.s.

Of the people who wrote the Constitution, only one suggested that we have a dual executive branch: Alexander Hamilton. He suggested that we have a monarch to fulfill the obligation of the h.o.s, and leave the president to fulfill his (potentially her) job as h.o.g. Why didn't anybody listen to him? It might have worked out very well for the United States. But, hey, can't go back in time and it's a little late now.

Just my thought for the day.

Tata for now.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Gosh I really love this...

I did my taxes today. I get $9.00 back from the IRS. I got more than 20 times that back last year.

Friday, February 16, 2007

The Friday of a three-day weekend

Three day weekends seem to come with more frequency when one is in college. Not that I'm complaining. The Saturday of a three day weekend is the most wonderful day, a day like a Friday, not quite of the week, no classes and complete freedom. Sure, in my own way I will celebrate those presidents who we are supposed to be celebrating on our day off from the school week, but let's face it: Most people will not truly celebrate the holiday, just the three days away from school.

We talked about nothing productive today in Political Science, spending forty-five minutes on current events instead of finishing up the chapter. Yet again she did not have our scores for our last exam, but she says she'll have them by Tuesday. I see two sides to this whole thing. It is annoying not to get our scores back until less than a week before the next exam, but I do see how hard it is to grade about two hundred or more completely essay exams without a TA.

I love the fact that my birthday is in less than a month. Yay for me! I need to remember to wish my friends with birthdays in between now and then happy birthday. I use Facebook to remember most of them because of its handy dandy birthday charter thingy and then I can simply post "Happy Birthday" on their wall without any fuss or bother. MySpace is great for the same function for the people I know who don't have Facebook.

I love the fact that on Fridays people don't start showing up for dinner until about 5-7 minutes before they open. It gives me more free time to do whatever I please, especially typing on my laptop. There are two things I am very thankful for right now: having a laptop that can hold a charge and the campus' free and extensive wireless internet.

I can't really think of anything more to say for right now, except for the fact that I am very much looking forward to the weekend ahead.

Tata for now.

Monday, February 12, 2007

To my parents

I figured since this is the week of Valentine's Day, a celebration of love, I decided that I should celebrate my parents' love for me and how they have shown it.

To my parents:

Thank you for:
  1. Deciding to keep me and not leave me at the hospital.
  2. Putting up with me when I yelled and screamed as a baby.
  3. Teaching me how to walk and talk, even though you might, once or twice regretted teaching me how to talk due to the volume of my talking.
  4. Putting me in the care of a competent baby-sitter and, by doing that, exposing me to people from outside our family and immediate social circle, and giving me an early mentor.
  5. Telling me to get along with my sister, she's the only one I'll have.
  6. Teaching me how to read. This is one of the things I am most grateful to you for in my life.
  7. Buying me lots of books.
  8. Trusting me to the public school system when I came of the age for kindergarten.
  9. Going to all of the little school events through the years even when you had things you'd rather be doing instead.
  10. Buying my cactus when my fifth grade class grew them for a fundraiser.
  11. Encouraging me to play an instrument and practice, even though I may not have appreciated it at the time (it took me a long time). You two instilled a love of music in me, especially in the classical music you used to play to get us to go to sleep.
  12. Hosting my sleepovers.
  13. Helping me transition smoothly from elementary school to middle school to high school.
  14. Telling me to get an alarm clock if I wanted to be woken up at a time other than the time you were waking me up.
  15. Promoting higher level classes to me, telling me that I was intelligent and could do anything if I put my mind to it.
  16. Instilling a love of travel in me, even if it just was to the ocean over winter break.
  17. Providing a stable home life.
  18. Talking to me intelligently and letting me form my own opinions about conversation topics.
  19. Helping me decide what classes to take in middle and high school, especially the latter.
  20. Teaching me how to drive. I'm sorry if it was hard on you.
  21. Letting me go on a date before my 16th birthday.
  22. Teaching me little, commonsense things about life, knowing that I have a tendency to forget commonsense.
  23. Coming to my rescue when I parked the car on the curb, but telling me that I had a lesson to learn from the incident.
  24. Volunteering for my school events and classes, especially fundraising events and field trips. Other kids might have been embarrassed to have their parents chaperone field trips, but I wasn't.
  25. Paying for the gas and insurance on the car. You might think it is a common thing to do, but a great deal of my friends had to pay one or both.
  26. Letting me go to school dances and stay up late every once in a while.
  27. Encouraging me to apply for as many scholarships and colleges as I could and supporting my final college attendance decision.
  28. Planning my 18th birthday party and attending my graduation, both involving lots of family members.
  29. Paying for so many of my college expenses. I appreciate this so much.
  30. Realizing that I am growing to become independent but every once in a while I need the help of one or both of my parents.
I love you both very much.

Hugs and kisses,

Your daughter

Friday, February 09, 2007

Peace and Quiet

Fridays are a miracle. The last day of the school/work week and everybody gets to go home and enjoy their weekends. Nothing better.

In my political science class today my sister decided to IM me, which was fine, but just a little odd because that is the only time she has ever IMed me since I set up AIM on our home computer. I was attending to that when the professor started to use me as an example in class because we were talking about how/if one can predict how a person will vote using statistics. She called me "Mac lady". The lights were off and my laptop has an Apple symbol on the back that lights up when the computer is on. I'm hoping she didn't see my face because I had the look of a kid caught with its hand in the cookie jar when I looked up.

In other news I have signed up to table for V-Week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to one, doing my part for the Women's Center. I've been putting this off for a couple days, but I finally went down and did it when I was in the Union building earlier today.

Monday, February 05, 2007

The first exam of the quarter

Man, there is nothing like writing straight for one hour to make you appreciate your lovely laptop. This is especially true because I am a slow writer. Any other kind of test, short-answer, multiple choice, fill in the blank, I'm great at and I'm usually one of the first finished, which was great last quarter. This exam and the other two for my political science class are entirely writing. Four 100 word paragraph, "short answer questions", and one large essay, consisting of three 100 word paragraphs. In addition to writing slow I think my other problem is that I have a tendency to want to say too much. Probably one of the seven paragraphs I wrote in the last hour was a hundred words exactly or less, and that was the last one when I was strapped for time.

The fortunate thing, however, is that I knew what I was talking about. Each question I could do a simple outline in my head and start the paragraph within about a minute of finishing the previous one. I can think much faster than I can write, but about the same speed as I can type, which lends itself very well to the notes I take in that class.

Let's hope I did as well as I think I did.

Tata for now.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

On (Not-so) Super Bowl Sunday

It is 5:00 and I am not watching "the game". You ask me why I'm not watching "the game". I could give you a myriad of answers, but I will stick to the most basic and completely honest answer I have: I don't want to. As I said to one of my friends online: "I. Don't. Like. Football." How could any red-blooded American not like football you ask? Well, let me clarify: I don't like professional sports. The only reason I don't say that I don't like sports, period, is threefold. The first reason is that I don't mind college sports, being in college myself. This does not, however, mean that I'm going to follow my school's team anything. I just don't mind them because they don't get paid monstrous salaries for running around on a field bumping into each other and yelling primal screams. No, they don't get paid for this as far as I know. The second reason is that I have played sports, way back when. Finally, there are a few sports I don't mind watching including soccer (sometimes), volleyball, and curling. Figure skating can be okay, but as long as I'm not forced to watch too much of it.

I have ever intention of doing something more productive than gluing my eyeballs to the closest television. It may just be writing this blog, but even this is better.

Tata for now.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Amusement

In my review session for Political Science today, my professor, who is from Brazil and has an accent, was trying to imitate a Texan accent and it was very amusing since she was kicking up her heels trying to show western-style, cowboy boots.

Overall this class makes me think really hard, gives me something to be passionate about, to share with my friends and family. I have learned so much that I never knew before. It builds on my Journalism class I had last quarter, one that was a media criticism class, and it was my favorite class last quarter. Another similarity is the fact that I have both of them all days of the week.

Just a short update for the day.

Have a fun weekend, I know I will.

Tata for now.

Groundhog's Day

Yes, that's right it's the second of February already, which means it's time for the groundhog. What did Punxsutawney Phil see this year? Not his shadow, that's for sure. Bucking a trend, this year this famous mammal did not see his shadow, which means, according to German tradition means we will have an early spring. Looks like it already outside today, so I'm not complaining.

Here's the link on CNN if you want to read the whole story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/02/phil.shadow.ap/index.html