Take a peek in the Anechoic Chamber

How come no one has done the trick-or-treat meme this year? I look forward to that.

I dropped down a notch on the scale! It's less than a pound worth, so I'm not sure it really counts yet, but it still feels awesome to move down. I just gotta keep moving down!

I also tried on the bridesmaid dress again, and my mom and I found lots of places that could be taken in quite a bit. Awesome! The last piece of awesomeness...I tried on a pair of jeans I haven't worn for at least 3 or 4 years (my mom took them) and I put them on, and THEY FIT! And they are a size 20! I don't think I'm officially at that size yet because these jeans have probably relaxed and stretched a bit between me and my mom, but it's still a huge huge huge boost to my confidence.

Of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I personally enjoy from book 10 on up, because those books have Micah Callahan, and I am infatuated with Micah. I don't mind that they go from sci fi/horror to erotic horror, but I know a lot of people that read her books have not enjoyed the change, but I suppose I'm just strange like that. Anyway, on to the point.

So I've been reading these books and going to bed at night wanting to be a part of that world. It's a scary, dark, dangerous world, but I am fascinated. The whole metaphysical stuff fascinates me as well. I want to be a lycanthrope(wereanimal) specifically a leopard, because they're sexy beasts. I want to know what it would be like to feel a beast inside of you, like a cat uncurling from a nap, and all the stuff that Hamilton puts into her books. The imagery is just wonderful and I love it. But I've wanted to be a part of it, and I didn't understand why, but I think I get it now. I want to be special, to be unique, for there to be something different about me. In the books there are lots of vampires and lycanthropes, so I wouldn't really be unique, or different, but I would, I wouldn't be just a human, I would be just plain old me. I'd be something more, bigger, stronger. Stuff like that. If I were different, maybe I could get a job, maybe I could find that place where I'm supposed to be. I don't know that part, I just know that I think my desire to be part of this world stems from my desire to be different to stand out.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say, just wanted to share that little tidbit of information.

Okay...so I don't remember the first dream, but the second dream. I'm house sitting for my neighbors, and just exploring their house and I look out the window and Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are walking up to the door. Yes, that's right, the characters from The X-Files. So anyway, I can hear them talking, and they say that no one is home, and I'm standing in front of a door that's similar to the one in my house and there's a frosted glass on one side and so I'm standing there waving through it so they can see me. They see me and so I sit down on the ground and then they ring the doorbell and I'm opening the door from my position on the floor, but also trying to stand.

And then I woke up.


All I can say is....... WTF?!

Or rather, like 15 minutes ago. I've been losing some weight, I'm at the lightest I've been in probably...2 years, which is an exciting thought. And my realization is that I've done it all myself. I get up in the morning and work out, I keep track of my diet honestly, me, all me. I've done it myself! This makes me happy.

-OUT-

I promise, when I have more I'm ready to talk about, and willing to post about, I will let loose with that information and just daily bombard everyone with the insanity that is me. Until that day, you'll just have to wait the ages between posts, and wade through the short ones to find things of significant interest.

This entry will serve as a small update into my life. Small because there isn't much to update.

I am still jobless. I have no prospects looking to interview me, either. It's quite frustrating. I had hoped that by now SOMEONE would think I was worth pursuing.

I have been eating a lot of gluten free foods. I am not in the category of needing to be gluten free, but my parents are, so I find it easier to search for gluten free foods that we all can enjoy. Plus, some of the food is just really gosh darn tasty! I suspect that when I get older, I may need to look into gluten free foods as a lifestyle change, because it seems to run in my family, but for now, I'm enjoying the fact that my dad and I can eat a pizza and he won't complain about feeling bad the next day.

On the weight loss front, I'm doing well. I'm hovering around the lowest I've been in a few years. My parents have the kind of scale the doc offices use, and so I only have a couple pounds left to lose before I get to go down a notch. Moving down a notch will really make me feel good. I think my face is a little thinner now too. Hopefully some of the more cushy areas of my body will start to thin out as well soon, but I know it's a slow process. I am tracking it with my online food diary at Myfooddiary.com and I love it. It's 9$ a month, but the way the website is set up, it is perfect for what I need to stay motivated. (Read: I like to see smiley faces when I do good things) I am also using EA Sports Active for Wii. I love that as well. Again, it's set up to give me instant feedback, and I find I am able to push myself to burn more calories than they predict. It becomes a fight to make sure every punch destroys the little target. I enjoy it immensely. The only issue is that with the colder temperatures it gets harder and harder to pull myself out of bed in the morning. But I'm always jazzed afterward.

I am working on about 3 different quilts right now. 2 are for other people and 1 is for me. I'm enjoying all of them so far. Well the one I just recently got hasn't been started. It's a t-shirt quilt for a friend of a friend, and I haven't started on it yet, but it looks like it might be fun.

Anyway, that's the update in my life. I am still with Kevin, but the issues there are personal and I don't feel like airing them out this way. If you have questions or concerns, most of you that read this know how to contact me. Otherwise, your life will be incomplete. :-p

I hope one day soon to be updating the world that I have a job, and if you could all send me positive vibes that it will happen, I'd love it. Otherwise, I hope everyone else is doing well.

-OUT-

I'm going to talk about myself! But not for very long, I promise.

I just wanted to say that not getting the Hamilton Sundstrand job really shakes the confidence I had in myself. I can't imagine why I didn't get it. I have the experience, I know the customer, I'm passionate about the business, I know some of the people in the organization...I just don't get why I wasn't offered a job. It hurts to think that I didn't have what they were looking for, when I felt so confident that I was what they wanted.

I don't know, I haven't gotten any of the jobs that I've interviewed for, and I haven't been informed of any temp jobs either. I have to wonder if there's something wrong with me, if there's something I'm doing wrong, something that I don't have...or maybe, God forbid...someone out there wants me to fail. I don't know. These are just thoughts rambling around in my head, and I decided to finally write them down.

Anyway...I told you it would be short!

-OUT-

I don't really know what to do anymore. I'm at my wits end. I've got things that I need to talk about, but I don't really have people I can talk with. That's not true, I do have a few friends that I can talk to, and I cherish that so much, but I hate the idea of interfering in their sleep or whatever, at the times when I most need to unload. And I hate that all I seem to do is unload on them.

I came back feeling so good about certain things, and now that I've been back, things are right back to where they were before the trip and it kills me. It kills me to know that the trip didn't really fix anything, that the problems are still there, and almost more amplified as a result of my trip.

I just want to scream and cry and run away from everything, and I hate that I'm feeling that way. There are positives in my life, and I used to be an optimistic person, but now...I don't even want to consider the positive things. Last week I had two positive things in my life taken from me. Well one isn't officially gone until I find out tomorrow, but I'm assuming there wasn't enough people to sign up in the past three days that the situation has changed. So, those two things have fallen apart, and the other thing that I was looking toward, well...I don't want to do it anymore. I want to back out of it. I don't have confidence in myself, and I don't have confidence that it won't somehow be taken from me like the other things.

I wake up in the morning, groggy, and force myself to do a workout. By the time I'm done with the workout, I'm feeling great. I start the day and then all I want to do is read, or maybe quilt, but I don't want to do anything. I'm restless, and impatient, and all I want to do is read. I plan my day around how much reading I can get in. Sometimes I wonder if I have some warped version of depression or something. I'm happy but lethargic and want to do nothing once I've done my workout.

I don't know. I'm just frustrated, confused, hurt, angry, anxious...

I just want to give up. I'm tired. I'm only 25 years old. I should not be feeling this way. I should be happy, I should be loving life. I should be sleeping peacefully at night. But I don't know how to change it. I don't know what I need to say to myself to change how I feel right now. Or maybe I'm just afraid to face the truth, afraid that the way to fix it, is to cut some ties that I don't want to cut.

I don't know, and I'm not expecting anyone else to know. It's my life, and I've gotta live it. I'm the only one who knows the right path for me, and I guess first I need to find me.

Here's hoping I'll figure out the path to the trail to find myself.

So I ran away to the east coast for 10 days, but I'm back now. I had some good times, and some bad times. I may blog about it, I may not. I haven't decided yet. But all you need to know is that I'm back.

So...I'm back.

Here's two pictures of the second quilt I made. This one is very special to me, and I'm sure you can easily tell why.

http://twitpic.com/f5c0p

http://twitpic.com/f5c3v

That's all for updates. I'm working on a third quilt, it's for my mom. It's pretty, and chances are I'm not going to be taking a picture of it to post online, but we'll see.

Here's a picture of the quilt I made.

Well, it has, LiveJournal tells me it's been at least 3 weeks since my last entry, I thought it was a lot longer than that, but I guess not. I've been holding off on making an entry because I wanted to have a photo to link to, but I haven't gotten around to the taking of the photo so it will not be accompanying this entry.

So let's begin with what's going on in my life right now. I still don't have a job. I was turned down for the Air Management System position at Hamilton Sundstrand, but I was just informed yesterday that I am still in consideration for the Space and Sea job at HS that would be working with Orion, the unofficial interview I had at the time of the other interview. They finally got approval for a position, and then they had to open it up and except other resumes and applicants. They have not started interviewing, and I'm to contact him in a couple weeks if they haven't sent me any information, good or bad. So I still have that. I've been submitting my resume at any job I think I might be interested. Most recently I applied for a couple entry level positions with Goddard Spaceflight Center. They would put me in either Virginia or New Mexico.

Tomorrow night I am going to a SWE networking night. I was told at the last networking night I attended, that the aerospace and mechanicals seemed to go to the North Denver nights, so if I wanted to work in those disciplines, I should go there. So I am. I'm excited about it, and hoping that it'll go well, and if nothing else, I'll have made some great contacts and continued that ever important process of networking.

On Sept. 26 I will be speaking at a Colorado SWE mini-conference. I will be giving a spacesuit presentation that I've given before. It feels kind of strange to think that me, unemployed, will be giving a presentation to a bunch of employed professional engineers. It's kind of exciting and scary at the same time. I really hope I'm in town and can do it.

In non-engineering/networking news, I've started quilting. I finished my first quilt in under a week. It's a present for Kevin. It looks awesome, and I can't wait to make a quilt for myself, it was actually a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I was going to put a picture of the quilt on here, but I haven't gotten around to taking the picture, so it'll just have to come later. It's a snowball pattern, with locomotives fabric and japanese characters. It looks really cool. So I can't wait to do more quilting. I think I might make a quilt for the wedding I'm in...but that's in the future.

And finally we get to relationship stuff. I'm not even sure where to start, so I'm not going to. It's all very personal and I don't think it should be aired where everyone else in the world can read it if they want. All people need to know is that we are still together, and we still care deeply for each other.

Anyway, that's my life right now. Peace!

-out-

OH! And I now own a Blackberry. It's a Blackberry Peal flip phone, so it doesn't look like a Blackberry, but it is.

I was not there 40 years ago. I was not even a twinkle in my parents eyes. But today is a very memorable reminder. For those who haven't figured it out, 40 years ago two astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Michael Collins circled the moon while they were down on its surface.

As someone who has just recently become enthralled with NASA, being able to celebrate today and really understand what it means, and what it took to get there, means a lot to me. I want to be a part of the next wave of engineers and astronauts that take the leap to go back to the moon, and on to Mars. I hope to have the kind of risk taking passion that they had in the 60
s in order to fulfill Kennedy's goal.

The only thing that would have made today great would be if Walter Cronkite had managed to hold on just a couple days longer.

40 years ago we, Americans, proved that we can send a man to another planet and bring him safely home. And we did it, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

Have a great day!

...and I failed.

Really kinda bummed out about this. Don't really want to take it again because I won't have anyone there to kinda share the frustrations with, but at the same time, this would be awesome to have.

Anyway...the only positive thing that I had today was that part one of the shipment from Woman Within came in, so I have four new pairs of shoes. It would be 6 but two didn't fit.

And I thought I had found it with this EA Sports Active. It kicked my butt yesterday but this morning, I kicked ass. I put all my effort into it and felt great and had a wonderful time doing it. I felt on top of the world until I checked my e-mail and found this waiting for me:


Thank you for taking the time to participate in an interview with Hamilton Sundstrand, a United Technologies Company. We sincerely enjoyed speaking with you about the Acoustics Engineer position and hope you found the discussion with our representatives interesting and informative.

While we found your professional background, education and skills sets competitive, we have concluded that you are not the best match with the requirements for this particular position.


Needless to say...that kinda killed my triumph and now I feel back on the bottom and worthless. I know it's just a general rejection letter, and that I should just think of this as joining the club with the four classmates that also got turned down, but it still hurts.

-OUT-

I had so much confidence in myself when I graduated. Shortly after I graduated I got a call to have an interview. I was feeling on top of the world. And now? I feel like I'm an idiot who somehow managed to survive four years of engineering to get a degree. That I'm not worth any company's time.

What brought this on? Well, most recently, the fact that the FE results came out. I haven't gotten mine yet because it went to the school and has to be forwarded to me, but of the four people I know that took it, two have passed. This is awesome, this is great. We all thought we were going to fail because we started studying two weeks before the test. And so I am so happy for the two that passed, and hope that the third also passed, and absolutely certain that I failed. If they all passed, it makes sense to me that I failed. They have better grades, they always did better on tests, so it's just natural that I failed, I can't possibly play with the big boys anymore.

What happened to me? Where did all my confidence go?

So, it's been almost two months at this point, since Joe's death, and we had the little tree ceremony after graduation where I spoke and I thought that I was done grieving. I haven't really thought much about it except the occasional question about how many were in my graduating class. Unless it's someone I know really well and am close with, I tell them 17 instead if, "it was supposed to be 18". So I thought I was over it, I thought I had grieved enough and had moved on to the next stage of my life.

Yesterday I was watching the On-Star commercial where the car swerves to avoid deer and runs into a tree, and all I could think of was Joe and his accident. I started to get a little teary-eyed, but I didn't cry. Then later, I was telling Kevin about it, and I actually started crying. We were just talking online and suddenly I had tears. I told him that and he said "you're really not over it, are you?"

Thank you Captain Obvious.

Anyway, I know there's going to be moments like that, but I just thought, because we weren't super close...because he wasn't my best friend ever...once I did the tree thing, that would be that. He would always be a memory but never so painful as to cause tears. I guess I was wrong.

So I'm making more "connections" with my mom. I went with her and my grandma and aunt to a couple quilt museums and shows because they like to quilt and I wanted to spend some time with them, and I ended up walking away saying "I might like to try that". So...we borrowed one of my grandma's sewing machines, and I spent the day working on doll clothes. I made a little jumper and all it needs is some Velcro for the straps and a button and it's done! It's super cute, and I had fun doing it. After a little more experience with how to do things, I might up my game and go for sewing my own clothes. How awesome would it be to walk into work with a kick-ass outfit and have someone say "Where did you find that" and I could reply, with much suave...ness

"I made it!"

Yeah, so anyway, I'm learning the ins and outs of sewing and if I decide I really like it, then I'll get into the world of quilting perhaps. Woo!

That is all.

Alright, I joined the world of Twitter. I did it because as a NASA Student Ambassador we are expected to follow the NASA Interns twitter, so I decided to go ahead and make my own twitter. I don't know of anyone else on Twitter, and my screenname thingy is the same as this one anechoic chambe ....I think, I tried to do anechoic chamber and it wouldn't let me get the r in there, so this time it wasn't a mistake.

There's other stuff going on, but I'm not ready to talk to anyone about it.

1. Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song or Album:
6. Favorite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
10. What's your philosophy on life?
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
13. What is your favorite memory of us?
14. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarky) - what are they?
17. Can we get together and make a cake?
18. Which country is your spiritual home?
19. What is your big weakness?
20. Do you think I'm a good person?
21. What was your best/favorite subject at school?
22. Describe your accent
23. If you could change anything about me, would you?
24. What do you wear to sleep?
25. Trousers or skirts?
26. Cigarettes or alcohol?
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!)
28. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?