LeTourneau adventures etc

So! LeTourneau was awesome, for lack of a better word. My various exploits included NOT missing any flights despite Texas being hit by a freak snowstorm ['0.5 inches! Let's close all the schools!'], arriving at the arranged time to find that my poor roommates had not been informed that I was arriving WEDNESDAY not THURSDAY [they were wonderful about it], scuttling along the frozen campus in what must have been a 10° windchill [very very cold, for me], all on the first day.

The scholarship competition spanned three days and ~75 high school seniors from around the country. It was all fabulously fun and occasionally nerve-wracking. I met some rather amazing people, Heritage kids, LeTU students, professors, they were all great.

My days consisted of such things as orientations, meals in the cafeteria [students alleged it actually tasted that good regularly!] with the faculty, hobnobbing with a couple of LeTU students in the sunshine playing frisbee and listening to a kid play guitar, going out to a movie on the last night with the one other Heritage gal staying in my dorm and a bunch of college students who we'd met, group interviews, and essay-writing. We learn about the scholarship in about two weeks.....

And yes, for a number of reasons I do think LeTourneau is the right college for me.

If I go to college, that is.

Because patriocentricity reappeared on the scene with the aplomb of, say, Saruman or any other classic villain. [Except around here, patriocentricity wears a black trenchcoat and a Stetson. Bonus points to anyone who gets that reference.]

I do so enjoy this. I pendulum regularly from

1) Can't go on
to
2) Can't give up

and that's really all there is to it.
When I was a little kid, I think I used to be just insanely happy all the time [okay not all the time, but compared to now, yes]. Most teenagers become a lot less happy.....I became a lot less happy, in SPOTS. At intervals.
I manage to cram Bethie-enthusiasm into half as much time, it seems like, and Teenaged Angst into the other half. [The percentages are a little off.]

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We packed up the robot last Tuesday, at 30 seconds to midnight. It was extremely epic. I was writing autonomous mode at 9 PM and testing out the line-following code and shrieking when it WORKED and getting cut on duct tape [don't ask me how] and running back to the computer to tweak the program [the laptop DIED on the last day and we were trotting the robot back and forth every half hour] and ingesting more caffeine and etc etc. It was a really thrilling day fraught with watchdog errors in the code and tension in the shop.

We bagged up the robot at 11:56, tagged it, and then realized that the router was still outside...we could add it to the 30-lb allowance of stuff we can work on after the deadline, but we didn't. Mentor got a brilliant idea and bagged it right on TOP of the robot....just tucked it down on top of the first tag, and tagged the router with a second tag....perfectly legal and very amusing....

Now I'm beginning to obsess about scouting and jot to-do lists on my physics notes.

Bought about 20 books at the library used-book sale this weekend! On the last day I was running around stuffing books into a cardboard box at $5 a box, rather exciting.

Quote from my physics teacher, showing us an applet [ == little application] that demonstrates the concept of pressure on an atomic level:
'An applet a day keeps the engineer away!'


Patriocentricity, Take Two
Hey, if anybody reading feels like praying for me, please do. I don't usually beg for prayer, for some reason [probably a silly one], but I sure need it. I'm always saying that I don't know how much longer I can go on; every time the fight takes a little more out of me.

Thanks guys.