Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Reflections on a Birthday Post

Catchy title, huh? I think it kind of has a poetic/musical sound to it. Hehe, music geek. ;-) In this post, I am going to reflect back on the past year. Why? Because I can and because today is my birthday. :-) Gosh, that almost sounds weird saying. I cannot believe another year has gone by. I can only imagine how I will feel another 22 years from now. So, here are some highlights from this past year and some valuable life lessons I have learned.

In no particular order:

1) Graduation- After 4 years at the University of Arkansas, I made the walk across the stage on May 14th to finally receive that empty degree holder. I eventually will get my actual degree sent to me as soon as I finish the online Ethics class I am taking. I cannot believe that 4 years have gone by! Honestly, I still feel too young to be graduated and looking for a job or going on to get a Masters. I loved my time at the U of A and I am so fortunate that I had the opportunity to go there. Go Razorbacks!!

2) Space Camp- This is probably the most recent highlight for me of this past year. I had the wonderful opportunity to be 1 of 16 people selected to go down to Huntsville, AL for a Space Camp tweetup during the last Space Shuttle launch. I learned a great deal and I am still learning more everyday. I actually just stepped away to go watch the International Space Station pass over here in AR. It was a beautiful site and a wonderful birthday present. I wish I had grown up learning to love science and math. I believe it is never too late to learn something so maybe this next year sometime I will take a math course or science course and really work on those things. I think about the shuttle program that is coming to an end. I also look at the math. Meaning, the shuttle program began in 1981 and a lot of the current astronauts were still in college at the beginning of the shuttle program. Currently, we do not have a "replacement" program for the shuttle. There is still time for me to potential pursue that path. Yes, it would take a lot of work and more schooling, but if given the opportunity I would take it. One of my favorite movie quotes is from Contact: "If it really is just us, it would be an awful waste of space." I do believe that! How amazing and beautiful is the world and universe that we live in??

3) St. Paul's Episcopal Church: For the first three years of college, I really did not attend church anywhere here in F. The beauty and the sense of awe led me to try out St. Paul's. Yes, this is way different than what I grew up in, Baptist. I feel like I have found a place that I belong in and that I can always ask questions in. The questions part is important to me because I do tend to ask questions. They were more than willing to talk about those questions and the answers. The warmth and love from this church has amazed me and I will miss it a great deal.

4) Life lessons: I have always been living in my own little world and have been oblivious to what others can see. I, as far as I know, did not know of anyone smoking illegal substances in high school. Same thing with alcohol. This continued throughout college, even though I know it goes on everyday, maybe I just choose to ignore it. But, in the past few months my eyes have really been opened to this thing called life. It is messy! People do things and say things that I, again, knew went on, but could not bring myself to actually see. Sounds funny coming from me. I guess, maybe I am just a simple minded person. This point is honestly hard to articulate in a post so I will leave it at this. Life is messy. Things happen. People are not always what you believe them to be. That is okay. Everything will work out in the end.

5) I have an "old" soul: Hehe, this may make since to only a few people, but here goes it anyway. I believe I do not look at life the same as any other 22 year old. I think I have always looked at life differently around kids my own age. I prefer to hang around the "older" crowd-no, I do not think you are old ;-)-because I tend to get along with them better. I have no problem sitting around on a Friday night watching a movie by myself, but I also like to go out and have a drink with friends. I like the idea of a set schedule and something that is familiar to me. If that makes me old for my age, I am perfectly fine with that! :-)

6) True friends are not the friends that tell you you have no friends and that no one likes you. True friends are the ones you can always count on and not be afraid to be yourself around. If you are afraid to speak up in a friendship because you are afraid of losing that person, then maybe that person is not as good of a friend, if even a friend, as you thought.

Those are just a few of the highlights from this past year. I hope you all enjoyed an insight into my life. Stay tuned for the next blog post because it will more than likely be from VA! Thank you all and have a BEAUTIFUL day!

S.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Dreams

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt

Now that I have officially talked to my mother I can post that in a few weeks I will be moving to Virginia. I will begin working on my Master's until I hear anything about the Navy or the other job that I have started the process with. I am feeling so very many different emotions right now. I feel too young to be graduated with an undergraduate degree (okay, almost) and already pursuing a graduate degree. I can remember when I was younger and I could not wait to grow up. I definitely do not want to slow down the process and I am not saying that growing up is hard. In this moment, even though my future the next few months is really uncertain, I am so excited!! I want to do something great with my life and at the end know that I have made a difference. Does that sound kind of egotistical?? In a weird sort of way, I honestly do not know exactly where I want to go in the future, as far as a career goes. I would love being selected to become a Naval Officer and serve my country like my father, grandfathers, and many special friends have. I would also love becoming a federal agent for a government agency. Both career paths offer many great things and I am in a wonderful position right now because I am young, single, and willing to go anywhere. Even though I do not have the same dream each evening or day, I still believe in the beauty of whatever and whichever dream of mine comes true.

6 miles tomorrow. I will let you all know how it goes. I am planning on getting up early again and going to do Lake Fayetteville again. I know this post had very little to do with training, but I hope you all enjoyed seeing another side of me. You all have a fantastic evening and wonderful Saturday. BTW, the crochet cowl I have been working on looks great!! I am so excited to see it turning out. :-)

S.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

7 Weeks, 4 Days

That, my friends, is how long until the VA Beach Half Marathon!!! I am super duper excited. Training has been going great! I was going to start a different training program on the off days and only have Sunday off, but I have decided to just stick with my old cross train. So, this is what weeks will look like from now on.

Sunday: Rest Day
Monday: 45 minutes on the elliptical; full body weight training
Tuesday: allotted training miles; ab work
Wednesday: 45 minutes on the elliptical; full body weight training
Thursday: allotted training miles; ab work
Friday: 45 minutes on the elliptical; full body weight training
Saturday: allotted training miles; ab work

The food realm has pretty much sucked lately, to be very honest. Got to get back on the wagon. I did almost reach a nice goal on Monday. I have been trying to break 4 miles in 45 minutes, but I have not been able to. And before anyone calls that slow, I have the elliptical on an interval training program. I begin with the crosstrain on 4 and the resistance at 1, then it ramps up to a 10 on crosstrain and an 8 on resistance. I was with 7 seconds of reaching the goal. It is amazing how much more effective a workout can be while not reading a magazine. Not sure if I will hit that goal tomorrow. I sometimes feel the harder I push on the elliptical, the worse the top of my left knee right above the knee cap feels. No pain, no gain! Right?? :-)

Today has been a rather exciting and long day all wrapped into one. Some short term decisions have been made regarding the next few months and I am both thrilled and apprehensive about it all. I am excited about growing up and I cannot wait for this journey called life to continue. I also bought new knitting needles today for a new project and I have I think finally gotten the hang of the crochet project I have started. (After pulling out the yarn 3 different times.) Going to sign off here as I am fixing to be off work. Yeah!!

You all have a great few days and until next time! Much love!!

S.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Back to the 1/2 training :-)

PHEW!!! Boy am I glad that I got up early this morning and knocked those 8 mile walk training out of the way. It is H-O-T-T HOTT here this afternoon. I was tired after I got down, but could not have imagined if I had waited any longer. Currently weather.com is reporting it is 97 degrees, but it feels like 104 degrees. Humidity is only at 42% though.

This morning's walk was around Lake Fayetteville. There is an 4.25 mile paved path and then an 5.0 mile nature trail. I opted for the paved path. I somehow managed to miss the beginning of the path so ended up starting out at the mile 1 marker. Fastest mile ever! Haha, just kidding. This walk was different from others for a few reasons. This walk was only the second walk outside and this was the first walk with any type of elevation change, even if it was slight. Last weekend was walking along the boardwalk, so no real elevation change. I am finding out, slowly, how important it is to just get away from the treadmill and do the walking outside. Overall time. . . 2:18:38 for 8.03 miles. Not the best, but I am going to be spending more time outside from now on. overall, feeling pretty good. Went back after getting some groceries and a new scale (AWWW!!!) to take a shower and quick nap before work. Back to work after a wonderful vacation. Definitely time to get to busy with finishing up a few school things and getting to it with training. Just under 2 months now. Yeah!

Short, sweet, and to the point. Next blog, hopefully soon. Check out the other blogs from my vacation and Space Camp!! :-) Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!!

S.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Space Camp!!

Second leg of my vacation

After a short recharging recess, I am back to typing up on the plane about the second part of my vacation. I do this while flying over beautiful land and listening to U2's "Beautiful Day." :-) I love love love this song and it is probably my all-time favorite song. Okay, now back to the second leg, but a little explaining at first. 

I have a twitter account and on that twitter account I follow NASA and Space Camp. Each group had an opportunity for their followers to register and possibly be selected to go to their respective sights for the last shuttle launch. I was fortunate enough to be 1 of 16 to Space Camp. This was a very exciting thought for me because I love the movie. (If you have not seen, go watch it NOW.) I arrived in Huntsville Wednesday evening ready to meet my fellow tweeters. We all met the next morning and it was amazing to know that everyone of us had a love for space! The first stop was to get a badges at security and then begin our tour of Redstone Arsenal. This facility is on an army base and we were told we were the first group allowed in like this since before 9/11, talk about amazing. I learned about test firings on huge stands, the payload operation center, astronaut pee, and friction welding. All was incredibly interesting and educational. After the tour we headed back to each a delicious lunch of BBQ and listen to Ed Huckbee talk about his amazing time at NASA and the real space cowboys (the original seven astronauts.) We were all given books written by him and he also autographed them. The rest of the afternoon was filled with a mission overview, mission practice, and the incredibly fun Multi Axis Trainer and 1/6 gravity chair. The MAT chair was my favorite. Also a quick note on the mission, the crew I was with was the Discovery crew. I sat Pilot and had a blast. (No pun intended.) Later on that day, we were told that the whichever crew was practicing in Discovery (my group) was using the same mission orbiter that they filmed in the movie Space Camp. So in essence, I was sitting where Lea Thompson and Kate Capshaw sat for the movie. How cool is that?!?!?! 

Alright, that evening we were told we were having dinner that in the event we would be going to Mars would be prepared with only those items of food.  It was okay. Astronaut Don Thomas spoke with us during dinner and we all had the chance to get an autograph and picture. Day two, mission and launch day!! We started the day by talking with a few members of the Space Camp leadership team. Great people! They gave us their cards and I hope there will be cause to use them in the future. The mission was a great deal of fun! I still think a pilot I missed some switches that were suppose to be switched, but it was a ton of fun to do and I would love to have more time to actually play around with everything. After our mission we headed over to the IMAX to watch the launch. Space Camp even let us keep on our orange flight suits we wore to the mission over to watch the launch. I must admit, I felt pretty cool! ;-) It was packed when we got over there and we actually almost had it out with some teachers about our seats, but we eventually got to sit. Astro Don was answering questions and giving us the 411 on what exactly was going down. We has a brief scare at t-00:31 when they thought the tower had not cleared fully. Once it was determined it had, the countdown continued. It was amazing seeing the shuttle launch with so many people. You could just feel the excitement! After we got out of our flight suits we kind of wandered around the museums and spent money at the gift shops before I headed back to the airport to catch my flights home. 

I am once again back on a plane, my final plane ride for this vacation at least. This ride is not nearly as cool as what STS-135 (Atlantis) experienced today, but such is life. I look out my plane window and can look up at the moon and only wander right now where the shuttle is at in their orbit and how amazing it must be to be where they are. I have been truly inspired in this leg of my vacation. I know that I will probably personally never go to space, but I am encouraged to follow my own dreams and to keep persevering. Maybe I am a bit naive, but is there a huge problem with just a little bit? I do not think so. I like to think by having just a little bit that the sky is not the limit to any dream. Questions? Comments? :-) 

By the time I post this I will be back in my room and getting ready to return to a regular schedule, something I am actually kind of looking forward to. Tomorrow, 8 miles for the half training schedule and work in the afternoon. 

It has been a wonderful trip and I am so thankful I got to experience EVERYTHING I did on this trip!! I hope I have not bored you all too much! Have a great weekend!!!


S. 

First leg of my trip :-)

First leg of my vacation

I type this while I am sitting on my first plane back home knowing that eventually I will copy this over to my blog, but I wanted to get it down while I am thinking about it all. 

This vacation overall has been probably the best one I have had in my 21 (almost 22) years of life. I first started the vacation flying out of my home base to Washington DC. For those of you who know, you know that this is honestly my favorite place to visit and now the rest of you know this too. This trip up was a bit different because we actually spent a good portion of the trip down in Virginia Beach. Up until now, I have never spent more than 24 hours in VA Beach and both other visits were during cold months and so i was not able to enjoy the beach, which was very disappointing. This leg of my vacation was only made better by the company I got to share it with. I love going out and doing many things during vacation, but honestly sometimes it is just nice to relax during vacation. There was plenty of downtime and I LOVED it!! The girls I am doing the half-marathon with in September and myself went down to the boardwalk bright and early Saturday morning and got in our 7 mile walk before it got too hot. It was wonderful having walking buddies and it was awesome walking along next to the ocean. :-) Sunday, we headed over to church and then I actually got a Sunday afternoon nap in for the first time since I cannot remember. (Yes, I am a mapper on Sunday afternoon, at least when I can.) Monday was another relaxing day filled with grocery shopping for grilling later that night and trying to cook on my part. ;-) Unfortunately, we headed back up to the DC area on Tuesday, but we did get to see a wonderful concert by the Navy Commodores at the Navy Memorial. I also was taught how to crochet on this trip. I am slowly working on a cowl at the moment. (Someone correct me if I am wrong on what I am trying to make.) I for the life of me cannot remember how to slip stitch the two together so I am stuck until I can get instruction. I also received an absolutely BEAUTIFUL blue flower quilt for graduation. There were also other gifts as well. :-) I love them all!!! I am one lucky girl!! After a very long drive up to Baltimore, only because there was a fugitive on the loose, and a great dinner and a little shopping with my wonderful dad I got on yet another plane to fly to the next leg of my vacation, SPACE CAMP!!!

This may need to be two post. Yes, in fact that is what I will do. I will finish out this post/note and write about Space Camp in the next. :-) Besides, my thumbs are getting tired as I am typing this on my 4G phone. ;-) 

S.