Grace Hopper Conference Day #2
Arizona is very uniquely beautiful. I’ve always loved the mountains. I grew up in the Ozarks (more hills than mountains, but that was before I knew any better 
) and have always loved the green grass, colorful flowers, blue skies, and freckled nights of the natural state. Atlanta didn’t really have any of that. Don’t get me wrong. I love the resources and opportunities given by living in Atlanta, but I do miss the quiet peacefulness sometimes. When I finally came across some real mountains when going home with John, I think I fell in love with it. The Appalachian mountains are amazing and I really hope John and I can find jobs close by to where he grew up. You can take the small tow girl out of the small town, but you can’t completely take the small town out of the small town girl .
Pictured above to the left is just one day’s worth of swag ^_^ lol. Swag is definitely a fun perk of going to conferences. While the amazing experiences and opportunities offered at the GHC are definitely the main reason to go to conferences, free stuff is always a nice plus.
Grace Hopper Conference Day #1
The Plane Ride
Mental note to self: make sure to charge laptop before the 4 hour flight I plan to do work on. I could have swore I charged it last night, but I guess I forgot. I did go to bed really late… so I guess it could have just slipped my mind. It’s actually really weird sitting in between 4 different people, three of which are on a laptop… and I’m the computing major . These people are exceptionally interesting though… talked to each of them for a little while (it was a really long flight)… so I guess this is a special case. There’s teh fashion designer for Los Angelas in her long red dress watching a romantic comedy about a couple of dog lovers. There’s the middle aged guy just coming back from his first high school reunion playing solitaire. There’s the nice old couple from Mexico, the husband frantically typing away on some sort of proposal. Then there’s me.. my pen on paper, throwing words on a page because I don’t really know what else to do. I feel so lost without my computer, lol.
BUNNY!
So ever since my roommate Sarah got to “baby-sit” her friend’s pet rabbit, we’ve been completely obsessed with fuzzy bunnies, lol. To bad Tech doesn’t allow us to have pets…. they’re so cute!!
Rain Rain go Away, Come Again Another Day…
5.6 inches of rain today; 17 in the past 5 days… fuUUUUn. Yeah, that picture below isn’t a river, it’s a major highway.
Unreal Tournament
For all of you video game fanatics, no, I’m not referring to the shooter video game. I mean the program builder environment… meh.
In my “Constructing a Moving Image” class today, we just started incorporating our Maya files with Unreal Tournament. It was crazy. For a program that was used in the production of games such as the Gears of War, you’d think it’d be more reliable and user friendly! Just maneuvering around the environment takes some getting used to. It’s also super picky about how many polygons are in your Maya object, so you can’t really get to fancy. Also, apparently it’s not to mac friendly… I guess it’s time to bring out the old Dell! Oh well, hopefully it gets better. Today was just the first day!
Apartment Harrassment
They shot it. Someone/some people shot our apartment door not with paintball bullets this time, but bb bullets.
We heard a lot of shots fired at our door, but when we tried to look out the peep-hole, it was covered. We opened the door to find someone had covered it with a name-tag and had shot a bunch of bb’s at our door…. dents in the door and wall… bb’s on the floor. I’m not liking all the harassment my apartment is getting… NOT cool. Apparently there’s been people knocking and then running too (not while I’m around) and someone stole the exit sign outside our apartment (housing’s aleady replaced it). We’ve contacted housing every time something happens, but Grrrrrrrr … just because they’re in college doesn’t make them anymore mature than when they were high school… *sigh*
Well… That Was… Unexpected
I came home this morning to find this (see pics below). That’s my apartment door. Need I say more? :S
Our door was the only one in the entire apartment building that was paintball shot. There was actually one other shot at another end of the hallway and one other at another end… and that’s it. It’s actually almost kind of funny…. but craziness.
Hanging w/my Cuz
My cousin Thuy Hong came to visit for the Labor Day weekend (she was staying with a friend off-campus, but still came to visit me while she was in town)! Showed her parts of campus, went to eat at Wingnuts, lol… it was fun. I really haven’t gotten to see her enough since moving to Georgia. I haven’t really gotten to see any of my family enough since coming to Georgia. Believe it or not, in the two years I’ve been here, Thuy Hong is actually the FIRST family member to come visit. I love them dearly, but I just can’t always afford the plane ticket to fly to Arkansas… and it’s almost a 10 hour drive!… which discourages my family from visiting me I guess. At least there’s always Skype, email, and phone calls!
It’s hard sometimes being an out-of-state student being so far away from home, but I’m definitely grateful for the modern technologies and friends and of course my wonderful fiance ^_^.
Like I’ve said before, I wouldn’t trade my experiences here at Tech for anything. Going far and out of state was a necessity to trying to reach above the glass ceiling in Arkansas (for my major at least) … but I do miss my family.
