It's like an eternal p-day

On the mission, Wednesdays (a.k.a. p-day) were long awaited, and coveted.  The end of the mission brought the promise of what I liked to think of as the "eternal p-day".  With the end of the semester (as well as my undergrad career) nearing, I have begun to feel like I did at the end of my mission.  I can remember thinking how nice it would be to just be done.  I fully understood and realized that while "real life" would not be all I was cracking it up to be, it would still be fabulous.  And it was!  And now, similarly, I realize "real life" will not be all that amazing (likely pretty boring, actually), but there won't be homework!  There won't be term papers!  There won't be grades!  Seriously, I don't think life can look any greener. (in that aspect anyway.  Don't ask me what I'm going to do afterward; I still don't know)  Don't get me wrong, I like learning.  I just don't like learning for a grade.  It takes the fun out of it.  And learning, above all, should be enjoyable.  One week from today, I will be officially graduated.  And free.  Long live p-days!

Spring, I can just feel it...

I must say I love the onset of spring.  It's glorious, and oh so full of hope!  One of my favorite parts of spring are the flowers.  I love love LOVE spring bulbs, particularly tulips, so I love to see the starts of them poking through the crusty, seemingly untouched earth.  A few weeks ago, I decided to get out my camera and experiment with a few settings I discovered (hooray for taking it off of automatic mode!).  While I don't consider myself a good photographer by any means, I must say I was impressed with what I captured...shown here are some daffodils poking through, as well as some crocus' in full bloom.  Ahh, Spring!

Feverish Dreams

I don't normally get sick, and in fact, don't let myself get sick, who has time for that?  Unfortunately for me, however, this week brought on a case of the common cold.  Monday I could  feel that maybe I was getting something, but I hoped that a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) would stave it off.  No such luck.  Tuesday, I had a cough.  Wednesday, I was all sorts of congested (I will spare you all the rest of those details.).  I went to bed last night at 9 pm hoping that between lots of pineapple, vitamin c, orange juice, and sleep I'd be able to overcome this blasted illness in three days.  I turned out my light, and settled in for what I was hoping would be a glorious night of 8 hours of sleep.  Somewhere between the hours of 10:45 and 12:00 am I awoke with dead arms.  No good.  I also found myself feeling quite warm.  Strange - I never get feeling that warm at night in the winter months.  I didn't think much of it.  I settled back in, hoping to enjoy the rest of my night sound asleep.  2 a.m. arrived filled with what can only be attributed to fever-induced dreams.  I don't usually remember what I dream about.  But in a two hour span, I somehow conjured up a mixture of Remote Sensing, sewing, and Arabic into one big, creepy dream.  I'm currently working on a project in my Remote Sensing class that involves using a remotely sensed image (which you can see above, which I have geometrically and radiometrically corrected, as well as subset).  These images, for you novice remote sensing friends, come with several different bands in the electromagnetic spectrum, generally red, green, and blue bands, near-infrared (NIR) as well as others (thermal, infrared, panchromatic, etc), depending on the sensor.  In my dream, these bands were the blankets on my bed, and they were sewn layered together in the duvet I'm making, and I was thinking of all the new Arabic words that I had been studying for a vocab quiz (brain, liver, milk, water, you know, useful stuff when you're sewing a remotely sensed duvet cover....)(got the best score on that quiz than any other, I'll have you know....).  It was slightly creepy, and I felt like I was being smothered by these data bands.  bleck. I hope that my duvet doesn't come out looking like a remote sensing image.