Sarah

Wow! Has it really been two weeks since I last posted?! We’re finally on break and I’m loving it!

The two weeks before break were hectic and stressful. I was counting down the entire time. I could not have been more thrilled to finally hit break. It’s great to be home, but I do miss my friends. It will be great to see everyone again and catch up after we’ve had a week back home. I have a group that typically eats lunch together (did you know you can fit 12 people around a 6 person table?) and since I’ve been home I’ve had pretty quiet lunches.

The weekend before break was the game against Purdue. Since it was right before Veteran’s Day, there was a patriotic focus to this game along with a giant American flag. It was a very cool sight.

Thank you to all those who have served our country!

The student section was very excited about the touchdowns we managed to get.

After a busy week of engineering problem solving (building a prototype of a homeless shelter) along with the impending chemistry exam, we had another study party. We started a few days before the exam and did more practice than re-reading. We drew diagrams and worked through the practice exams. It was nice to study together for a few hours before the exam. It was also a great feeling to walk to the exam with friends, wish each other luck, and part ways.

Study party!

After the exam we celebrated with going out for frozen yogurt, even though it was cold outside. It was a fun stress-reliever after the exam. It was a great last friend thing since we all knew we’d be leaving at different times on Friday. We said our goodbyes and gave hugs that night and planned dinner for when we all get back. As nice as it will be to see everyone, I really do love being home and not thinking about school for a while. However, I will be setting up my schedule for next semester so I can register right away on the 27th. Hopefully I’m lucky and have a good schedule.

Until next time, have a great Thanksgiving!

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. I know this post is a little late, but it’s been a little busy around here.

A couple weeks ago, WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) had a pumpkin carving event. It was a great way to relax and de-stress. We had apple cider and pumpkin bars. They also had designs printed out that we could trace for those of us who are completely uncreative(ahem, me).

Some girls from my floor getting ready to dig in, or rather cut in 🙂

Carving away

The two girls on the other side of the table from where I am paired up to make Pacman pumpkins. The one in the pink stripes on the right did Pacman while the one in the black on the left did one of the ghosts. It turned out really cute and since they’re roommates, they got to display their pumpkins in their doorway.

One of my friends saw this idea online and thought is was really cute. I think it turned out really well for her. I’m sure it looked very pretty all lit up.

Pumpkin guts and cut out shapes

There was bucket after bucket full of pumpkin seeds and guts. Some of the girls were saving seeds so they could go out to their friends in Mayflower and bake the seeds. We all had a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to the next WiSE event which is next month and will be cookie decorating (yummy!). I’ll make sure I take pictures so you can all see the, hopefully, pretty cookies.

Final Picture: Since we’re not allowed to have candles in the dorms, we were given battery operated candles to put in our pumpkins.

My pumpkin, not too original, but it looked pretty cool with the fake candle in it.

What time of year? Fall! I absolutely love fall. I love the cooler temperatures, the colors, the crunchy leaves. Even though the rainy days are perfect for napping and watching movies, I still have to drag myself to class (and haul a dripping umbrella around). But other than that, I love fall! Campus is so pretty in the fall. Unfortunately, the pretty time of fall is very short, but I made sure to go out and take a few pictures while the colors were still vivid.

The crunchy leaves on the sidewalks turn you into a little kid again 🙂 I haven’t gotten too many weird looks 🙂

Looking out over the river on the bridge just past my dorm.

The trees that line the walkway on my way to University Band were very vivid. That’s what I call Hawkeye gold!

When I was out taking pictures I met one of my friends who was just coming back from a run. She usually finds some of the trails no one else does (she’s only gotten lost once so far) and when she saw I was taking pictures, she was able to direct me to a patch of sunflowers. I was very excited about the idea and after getting to the sunflower patch, I was not disappointed.

The different color variations fit so well into the fall color scheme.

I love the fading colors. It just looks so fall-ish!

My picture-taking endeavor was a success and acted as a much needed break from studying. I also enjoyed getting to see some parts of campus that are much quieter and more relaxed then the downtown area. Goes to show what you can find when you explore a little bit 🙂

Talk to you guys later, maybe after my Chemistry exam tomorrow! Eek!

Hey Hawkeyes!

Wow, it’s been a busy week. I’ll try to give a full recap to get caught up and then hopefully I can make smaller posts more frequently. I’ll start with last weekend (the UNI game).

Last weekend began with me spending the night at a friend’s apartment. It was exciting to get out of the dorms for a little bit, but I was still close enough that I could go to the game on Saturday. My friend and I went out to dinner before she drove me to Hy-vee to re-stock on food. My study snacks had been slowly depleting with the amount of homework I’ve been doing lately. One of the highlights of staying at her apartment was taking a shower with hot water in an actual bathroom. At a certain point you just get tired of the dorm showers. Especially when you have to get up at 6:30 to have a hot shower. My friend dropped me off at my dorm in time to go to lunch with some other friends before heading to the game against Northern Iowa.

Sitting in Kinnick waiting for the game to start. The earlier you get there, the better seats you can find.

They told me that I needed to be in at least one picture 🙂

It was a nice day for the game, a little warm, but not bad. I’ve been trying to work on my sports photography so I’ll share a few that I thought were decent.

Kick-off at some point. I don’t know much about football, which means I know basically nothing. I just like taking pictures 🙂

Pushing through for more yards

Celebration after a touchdown! A very happy moment for players and fans. (The blurry black part on the right side is a happy fan’s arm that flew up at the last minute.)

The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework and getting ready for the coming week.I had plenty of homework and a few big assignments. Word of advice? Start Engineering Problem Solving 1 homework earlier. The first few problems are really easy so you put it off, and then you end up staying up until 3am to finish the homework the morning that it’s due. It did get finished (I still don’t know my grade yet) but I felt pretty good about it. Other than being really tired, Tuesday went pretty well. Then I decided to start my Engineering Problem Solving 2 homework that was due Friday. We had to write a password validity program that had multiple requirements. After sitting in the T.A. Office Hours for 4 hours, I had the entire code written and was getting ready to run the program when I accidentally over-wrote the file. Essentially, I deleted my entire program with no way to retrieve it. I did feel bad for the poor T.A. who had to deal with a pretty distraught me. I managed to re-type a quarter of my program Tuesday night. After sitting in office hours all Wednesday night and Thursday night, I finally finished my code and submitted it. Now I just have to wait for my grade. Lesson learned: back-up everything and be very careful before clicking anything that might alter your work.

Wednesday was a relaxing day(other than worrying about my program). I decided to take a photography class first year seminar so I could get away from the math and science of engineering.  So far it’s been one of my best decisions yet. The professor is awesome and the atmosphere of the class is very relaxed. We took a “field trip” on Wednesday during our class time. Our “field trip” meant meeting at the Old Capitol and taking pictures of the stair case:

The stair case in the Old Capitol. Our assignment was to get a unique picture from a different angle.

We also had to take a picture of the architecture of the Old Capitol.

I tried to go for a “up the stairs to the pillars” shot. I’m not sure how I feel about how this turned out.

The highlight of the day? Our professor brought her kids (her poodles) to class and we were assigned to take at least one picture of them.

Bailey, the shy and slightly timid one, but she still loved attention.

This is Rex(T-Rex). He was very friendly and greeted everyone that walked past the Old Capitol steps.

For a class of ten girls that all miss their pets, seeing the dogs was a great way to relax. We could pick up the dogs and move them around.

Bailey posing for a picture.

I’m sure all the people walking past thought we were crazy. Quite a few people stopped and took their own pictures and cuddled the dogs too. We just don’t see animals as much as we’d like.

Friday meant almost all my homework was due. I had a couple papers, my resume, and my EPS2 homework due. I also had Engineering Problem Solving 1 discussion. This just so happened to be our lab day. On Monday we had chosen what type of cookie and what type of chocolate we wanted. We had to have consistent chocolate coating with the majority of the cookie covered. We had to measure the cookies so we can determine if we’ve been successful in coating the cookie.

Weighing the cookies and recording mass. We organized our cookies by letters to keep them straight.

My group decided to coat half our cookie with vanilla almond bark and the other half with chocolate. My group works well together, we just need to get faster at working within our time constraints. Our final product ended up being rushed and not as pretty as we’d hoped, but they still looked very tasty(we also got to sample a few of the extras 🙂 ).

Our finished product 🙂

On Monday we’ll measure the final product and record new dimensions. I think they look pretty good 🙂

Saturday was the football name against Central Michigan(which we lost 🙁 ) but it was still fun to go to the game. I went with a few friends and we were really close to the side line(bad place for pictures) so we felt really close to the action.

A small part of my group for the game

It’s really nice now that the weather has cooled off. I still got sunburned though (I even put sunblock on!). I made an attempt to work on my sports photography again.

One of the pictures I thought was pretty cool.

Getting ready to play

Sorry for the really long post. This next week will hopefully be less stressful (ha!) so I can do several small posts instead of a great big one like this. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my week of mistakes and learning moments. Thanks for sticking all the way through! 🙂

Hey Hawkeyes!

Wow, talk about a busy week and weekend. Has it already been almost a week since my last post?! I’ll give you a short rundown on last week.

Tuesday night, with no pressing homework, was the fun night of going out for frozen yogurt with some friends. Just so you know, Orange Leaf’s chocolate and carmel yogurt with butterfingers is really good.

Wednesday started the University Band, which is the non-audition band here at Iowa. Anyone can do it, and you even get a credit for it. We played through the music we will be playing for our concert which is December 3rd, for those who want to check it out. We’re playing some pretty cool pieces.

Thursday night, a few friends and I went out for ice cream with some new friends that were sophomores in engineering. We met at an engineering gathering in the Seamans Center (engineering building) and they were really helpful in giving advice about classes and professors.

Friday brought the scramble to submit the Chemistry homework by 11:59pm. A group of girls on my floor gathered in a room to help each other and we finished the homework with plenty of time to spare.  As a celebration of finishing the Chemistry homework, we went to the movie playing at the Iowa Memorial Union.

Saturday meant sleeping in (finally!) and of course, the big football game against Iowa State. This was my first college football game so I was a little nervous and a little excited. I walked to Kinnick Stadium with a friend, but somehow got separated once we were there. There were so many people! I ended up standing next to some people I didn’t know, but they were very friendly and helped fill me in on how things usually worked at the games. A few pictures from my first Hawkeye football game:

Even though we didn’t win, it was still a ton of fun. Campus was really quiet afterwards, so it was a little depressing. I’m excited for this week’s game against Northern Iowa. Go Hawks!