apparently, we're pretty good

President David Daniel invites you to join in celebrating the victoryof UT Dallas' national championship collegiate chess team.With the historic two-time win of the "Final Four" of chess in Baltimore on Sunday, as well as successive Pan-American titles,UT Dallas has retained unprecedented bragging rights forthe U.S. and Western Hemisphere collegiate chess titles.

i'm still not quite sure how this happened...

"playtri sprint tri, april 12th, 7 am"

somehow mom and mary convinced me to do a triathlon this coming saturday. a few things to take note of: it is less than one week away and i have not trained at all and am NOT IN SHAPE, it is at 7am, and mary does half marathons as warmups and has about 2% body fat. so, while a little part of me is excited, the rest of me is completely terrified.

yesterday mom, dad and i did the tour dallas bike tour, which we will never do again. besides having to ride really slow and being scared of crashing, it was semi-fun. there were three major crashes right next to each other and i wanted to take pictures, but i didn't. we did see some really nice houses and some really pretty flowers. **insert awesome untaken picture here**
on the other hand, some friends and i went to the harbor yesterday (it is a newish shopping center/riverwalk thingy at lake ray hubbard) and katherine took tons of pictures. as soon as she uploads them i'll steal some to post.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

on march 21st there was a fire in the apartment building across from mine. the paper came out with an article yesterday and here are a couple quotes:
"The cigarette that alledgedly caused the fire may have been placed in a crack in the wall on the patio of the unit where the fire reportedly started, where it ignited other cigarettes already in the wall." yes, my friends, they were discarding their cigarettes in the column supporting the balcony
"Polomba said fire response was especially quick for this incident because one of his units saw the smoke while returning from another call." can you say lucky?
"According to WP's records, the persons occupying the unit where the fire began were not on the lease." seriously?

in other news, utd has decided to keep the name comets, but scrap the mascot temoc since he looks like a flaming sperm and his name is comet spelled backward. below are pictures of the four new choices to replace him with: a greyhound named sirius, a robot named nano, a flaming man named scorch, or an astronaut named cosmo. under the pictures is a clip of the accompanying article. a couple questions immediately come to mind: why replace a disliked mascot with one that is worse? is there anybody with any sense of normalacy in the group responsible for this? why can't we simply be the comets?

"I like the idea of being able to partner with the Greyhound Rescue Society," Hinkley said. "We'd be doing a good thing there, too." really? we have the facilities to take care of greyhounds?
"To Peterson the greyhound is the most lovable, while the robot is the just the opposite.
"I didn't really like the robot because I think it's difficult to love a robot," Peterson said. "It's difficult to hug a robot and you can't really image a robot jumping up and down and really exciting people because it's confined to certain motions, at least if it's a realistic robot." when was the last time you hugged/loved a greyhound? when was the last time you saw a greyhound jumping up and down and exciting people? is lovable even the image we want to convey?

and someone has been stealing bras out of the laundry center.

people who don't know how to play soccer should not be allowed to wear cleats.

life

if you haven't tried these, you should: AMAZING

hmmm... what to say? what to say? my life recently has been consumed by utd and emler's. why couldn't we just end the semester at spring break? speaking of school, let me just say this: i have never liked group projects. i am one of those people who will do all the work because i want a good grade and don't necessarily trust other people. since i have started grad school i have done group projects in every class, which is completely idiotic since i am in a "professional program", meaning everybody works full time and doesn't have extra time to get together and meet. luckily, i have been blessed with relatively good groups. until now. i literally almost punched one of my group members in the face in the middle of class last week. i am soo frustrated and just want this class to be over! oh, well, life lessons i guess. i'll have to deal with difficult people the rest of my life so i guess this is good training.

maybe i'll take pictures at the softball game tonight to prove i really do have friends :)

YAY!

I GOT THE INTERNSHIP WITH COOPER!!
thanks for your prayers.

oh, and it is 85 degrees outside.
and i got a $9 haircut

life is good

from the mind of amanda...

sorry for lack of pictures, but aj borrowed my camera for pa stuff and i haven't gotten it back yet. in other news, a conversation with my mom today got me thinking (scary, i know). as far as career paths go, there are only two things in life i swore i would never do: teach or do research. as i type this i have a mental image of God just sitting up in Heaven and laughing at me and my planning. my life has changed so much from when i first started out and has taken directions i never would have imagined. first, as you know, last year i was a teacher. and the whole time i thougt, "wait, isn't this what i swore i would never do?" and i am currently teaching at emlers. how come the one thing you are good at is the thing you swore you would never do? secondly, as i described the internship with cooper ventures to my mom (which, btw, i rocked the second interview) she pointed out that it is basically research, the other thing i swore i would never do. nevertheless, i am really excited about it. can you really enjoy something that you swore was not for you?
with that said, please pray for my summer/future plans. i will be the senior peer adviser next year, which means i will be a summer peer adviser. the problem is i only get paid half as much this summer so i'll need a second job. i really want the cooper internship but it is unpaid and quite a lot of hours. so, i'll also need to work at emlers. i know God has a plan and that he will work it all out if it is meant to be, yet i tend to worry, especially about scheduling, money, etc. i like to have all my ducks in a row, but sometimes life just doesn't work like that. anyway, please pray that i will trust God and not worry since He knows what is best.

it is spring break so i'm quite excited to not have school this week, even though i am working. i still have assignments/projects i have to work on but i am enjoying not sitting in class. and, megan let me borrow season one of BONES. GREAT SHOW! so, i am currently trying to balance working on school and relaxing/watching tv.

nerds

this is the snowman outside the engineering building today. instead of carrots and coal, the eyes, mouth, and buttons are made from old circuit boards.