Howlidays

Hey, thanks for checking in! Guess what! I passed all my classes (albeit some not-too-gracefully). I'm praying I can take the academic beating to heart and actually work during the spring semester.

Christmas went great, though a little quietly; I've been able to catch up mostly with most of my friends from GR. Though some people I just can't get enough of, you know how that goes. Ah well.

I've been taking some of my free time to try and finish out a final draft of my book. I started off by running through and fixing all of the mechanical errors and weird word choices--basically anything that required just a couple of words or a new sentence; next is the revision of 16 different scenes that needed to be fleshed out, extended, or cut back to meet pacing needs. After that I'm planning on reading the whole thing out loud to myself (which really makes anything awkward pop out), correcting as necessary, and calling it a done draft.

You can polish a rock or a knife until it is shiny; you can keep going until it's gone and all you're left with is dust. You can do the same thing to a written work--refine and polish until there's nothing left. That's why I'm intent now on going just so far and no further with the editing, because I doubt I'll ever be totally satisfied and comfortable; you know how that can be. At some point I have to start sending out query letters, and barring some misfortune or other I think I'd like to be doing that before February is out. There: a date. Hold me to it.

Anyways: I've also started the arduous process of applying to a couple of graduate programs (Caltech and UofM to start with, plus a few others). I don't think, at this point, that I'll be doing grad school yet. It's not a place to find yourself or learn about your interests--it's a place to research something you already want to learn about, and do it until you almost die. Or something. But I'm not at that sort of point yet. But I'm sure going to apply anyway, just in case something changes. I just see this as the sort of thing I could be kicking myself for a ways down the road. If I don't, I mean.

In my ongoing quest to figure out what I ought to be doing, I'm interning at Hughes Group (http://www.hughesgroup.com) in St. Louis next week and then going straight to school from there. I'm enthused about it.

...

I seriously can't believe I'm done. Hopefully I can look back later and call this the toughest semester of my colleege career, and not the toughest so far...

I had to forgo sleep tonight to finish/try to finish my vibrations final, which was hard, brain-bending, and time-consuming. I worked about 12 hours straight before putting it down about a half hour ago so I could clean up...man...

I know I had to clear out of here pretty fast and missed saying goodbye and merry Christmas to a lot of people, so consider yourself goodbye'd and Merry Christmas'd! :)

ohhh, THERE's the light thingie at the end of the tunnel.

Well!

Classes are over now. It was so great on about Wednesday when I suddenly realized that everything I needed to do fit on one little list, and it was a list that was steadily declining in size.
I'm gonna list what's left (partly to refresh my own memory, sorry)

• Write a 12-16 page paper on the Christian Philosophy of Engineering
• Finish designing a Digital Audio Amplifier circuit board
• Finish the Vibrations take-home exam
• Present some stuff for Senior Design on Tuesday
• Take the Microprocessor final Wednesday
• Pack up, pack out, and leave @ 6:30 AM Thursday

I can't believe it's so close now. This whole year has gone...well, not quickly, it's been arduous, and yet I really felt good inside this year in a lot of ways. There are some things I dropped that I need to pick up again, yes. But I also laid some stuff to rest that needed to be. Time to move forward -- Grad School? Maybe. I'm not sure, but I'm applying anyway. The more I think about it the more I honestly believe writing would be a sweet career in every aspect but the money-making area. I mean, I think I'm a great writer (and you should too!), but you have to be a writer that caters to the masses juuuust right in order to make money at writing. Who knows? Maybe I can. Maybe not. If I can get used to the idea of being poor for a long time, I think I might give it all a shot.

Anyways, I also saw Narnia this afternoon, and I must say, if you take how bad the BBC movie was, that is how good the new one is. 1/BBC = New. Yeah. I was on the border of tears a lot and half the time I wasn't even sure why. It just feels meaningful. And good. And the White Witch did some awesome duel-wielding swordsmanship, which I thought rocked.

Man, I should also mention that I really want to get home...It's time to be done with school for a while and there's people I really want to catch up with. Plus kitties, snow, and hopefully ice hockey. And cute people!?!

It'll be a short break, though -- two weeks in Grand Rapids, and then I'll be off to St. Louis for a week to intern at a marketing firm. Should be interesting, could be fun...

To bed with me! And good day to you :D

nearly there...

The end of the semester is basically only two weeks away now. Man. It's been a long run. I got a good bit of administrative stuff done today in terms of holds, financial aid, dropping Mechatronics so's I don't need to worry about it, and so on. This week has pretty much been me and my engineering groups getting projects done and turned in and presented, and we're nearly done with that stuff. The projects are decent chunks of your grade, but generally they're not tough to do well on if you put in a little effort with your groups...

We also played some intramural volleyball tonight against 1B and then 2A...in a row. We won both games; they're using regulation-height nets for women's league, which makes it really easy to spike it. Spiking the ball into somebody's face is the best...It's refreshing to intersperse mental labors with athletic activities, you know?

Anyways, I should be flying home after finals on the 16th or 17th. Woo.