Kelly

I have a very busy week ahead of me. I have a lot of work to do in my classes:

BME 404: project (pediatric femoral fracture fixation using elastic intramedullary nails)
BME 403: homework, maybe look at the MATLAB assignment
AME 302: homework, project
AME 309: homework
mobio: lots of reading

But I can’t let my homework get in the way of my plans for the weekend and what I’ll be doing over Thanksgiving break! Tonight, I’m going to see New Moon at midnight with my current roommate and my sophomore-year roommate. I think Twilight is stupid (I’m a die-hard HP fan), but I have to stay caught up on pop culture, right? Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going with the Viterbi Funding Board to a regional Engineering Student Council conference sponsored by UC Irvine. I’m looking forward to it, especially the workshop session about planning university activities/events for the National Engineering Week (coming up in February). On Sunday, I’m going to be on campus all day for DiscoverUSC wearing my black VSA polo.

Thanksgiving break is going to be crazy-busy. On Wednesday evening, I’m flying up to Portland, OR before going back home to Vancouver. The next day, I’m driving up to my grandparents’ house in Seattle for Thanksgiving with the family. Friday, I’m driving up to Bellingham for my cousin’s wedding shower, and then on Saturday at like 6am I’m catching a flight back to LAX so that I can go to the USC/UCLA football game. From one end of the I-5 corridor to another…

Last night, I was able to be on-camera for the live chat with Mark while Ryan moderated. It was really fun to answer questions from high school seniors, and I can’t wait until the next one! With Thanksgiving and finals coming up, I know I’ll be too busy to broadcast until spring semester, but I definitely want to do it again!

Thanks to: zsyed92, Alex360Uckun, SilverSoul212, epeulicke, cherrnoble, siIn10r, Jill388, confusednature, scuba_steven, aaronpetry, lizz1752, and everyone else who chatted! You all had some really great questions. Feel free to comment on our blogs, send us an email (vstudent@usc.edu) and check out our webisodes if you want to know more about USC!

…of blog posts about video games (Ryan and Mark), I thought I’d mention that I started a new account on Wind Waker over the weekend (Legend of Zelda, GameCube). Yesterday, I played for a good 2 1/2 hours and it was a great way to relax after the two midterms I had yesterday (Physiological Systems, Modeling & Simulation of Dynamic Systems). I haven’t really played it since last fall, so it was familiar but unknown at the same time. I know which tasks to complete in each level, but I’ve forgotten the exact ways of accomplishing the tasks.

Playing Wind Waker makes me reminisce about being back home in Washington, playing N64 with my sister and brother. I’m a proud member of the Nintendo 64 generation (that’s what Christmas looked like when I was 8). I still haven’t gotten all 120 stars on Super Mario 64 (Tiny Huge Island and Shifting Sand Land) and I’m stuck on one level of Star Wars Podracer (Grabvine Gateway). Probably my favorite game is Banjo-Kazooie, closely followed by Banjo-Tooie. These two games are AMAZING, plus I can do a good Captain Blubber impression (wuh-hey!).

Anyway, it’s time to take a look at my molecular biology stuff. I’m sure I’ll be taking a break with Wind Waker later, though!

Just got back from LA Live, an area downtown with restaurants, a movie theater, bowling, the Staples Center, and probably a lot of other things that I’m not even aware of. Today, USC started providing free weekend transportation for students from campus to LA Live and back, so my boyfriend and I decided to take advantage of it. After waiting for seemingly forever (standing in line for free pizza, watching the marching band play, and listening to Pete Carroll), we finally loaded the double-decker bus and were on our way downtown. Unfortunately, the trip took a little longer than usual because of a hockey game happening at the Staples Center and an R. Kelly concert at the Nokia Theater. The price we pay for living in Los Angeles, right?

Joseph and I got free tickets to see Up at the movie theater, then we went to the Yardhouse for some food while we waited for showtime. The theater was really nice, despite climbing a couple flights of stairs to reach the auditorium (we decided against the escalators and elevator). I hadn’t seen Up before, and it was really cute. Not as good as Toy Story or Finding Nemo, but better than Bug’s Life and Monsters Inc. (I’ll try to save my movie reviews for another day)

Going to LA Live was fun, and it was a great way to celebrate being done with my fluid dynamics midterm, and for Joseph to celebrate being done with his physics midterm. I’d like to go back to the theater sometime. Maybe for Sherlock Holmes?

So, after my unfortunate adventure last week, I thought I was okay. I had a bruise on the left side of my left calf from where I fell, but I didn’t really think too much of it. Of course I’d have a bruise from falling on asphalt, right?

Well, a few days ago (Sunday, maybe?) I noticed a small bruise on the anterior proximal end of my left tibia (Thanks BME 404…this means “right below my left knee”). I thought that was a little weird, but I let it go. Yesterday though, I was wearing some shorts and my friend asked me what happened to my leg. I noticed that the small bruise had gotten a lot bigger (maybe 2-2.5″ diameter?), so I decided to go to the health center on campus today to make sure nothing serious had happened.

Thankfully, the doctor told me that it wasn’t really anything to worry about, since I was walking just fine (but that if it keeps up, I should come back and have it checked out). Apparently the bruising on the left side of my calf is/was really deep, so it basically spread underneath my muscles and showed up below my knee. So it sounds like I’m in the clear…I just have to be careful and not get distracted when riding my bike! I hope this is the end of the “bike crash” saga.

Yesterday, I fell while riding my bike! I was on the way from my apartment to my biomechanics midterm, and I had just crossed the street and was riding past the Lyons center. For some reason, they were playing Bon Jovi music–so, I looked over to see what was happening. Once I looked forward again, I realized that a bright yellow traffic barrier arm (not sure what the official name for that is) was two feet in front of me. In that split second, I had just enough time to think, “Wow, this is going to look hilarious for people riding their bikes behind me.” Essentially, I was “clotheslined” by the arm. Luckily I wasn’t hurt, but I landed on my left shin and it’s still a little sore. I’m going to have a really awesome bruise.

It’s very ironic because it was on the way to my biomechanics midterm…one of our assignments a couple weeks ago was to calculate the reaction force at the hip for a person falling out of bed. Kind of funny that if I had been given all the right values, I could calculate the reaction force where the impact had taken place on my leg from falling. Anyway, it gave me something to think about aside from the embarrassment and helped me to do some last-minute review in my head on the way to the exam.

Check out this video I found today: Piano Stairs

Pretty interesting. I’m not sure if it would really motivate me to take the stairs instead of the escalator, especially if the stairs are more crowded (it would take longer, plus you wouldn’t be able to hear your individual notes). Plus, all you can really play is a scale…still, it’s probably one of the coolest flights of stairs ever–or at least, one of the most fun/interactive to climb. Has anyone been to Château de Chambord in France, with the double-helix staircase? Those stairs are cool too. Stuff like this is why I love engineering–you get to put together something useful, but you also get to be creative.

Yesterday,  I got a care package from my aunt. It’s always fun to get mail (except when it’s the cable/internet bill), so it was fun to get a package from my aunt. She sent GS cookies and marshmallows that I can put together for microwave-s’mores, and she sent me a book and cross-stitching materials. It probably seems a little random, but I’ve always liked cross-stitching. It’s good stress relief from my engineering classes…semi-mindless, because you have to count the little squares but at the same time it’s not something that requires a lot of skill. Freshman year, my aunt sent me some hand towels with a cross-stitching pattern, and was a nice challenge–it was a flowery design, so there weren’t as many large blocks of the same color over and over. I’ll have to post pictures when I’m done with these latest creations (it might be a little while…I have a couple projects coming up for AME 302, my mobio lab, and BME 404).

Today marked my last day of midterms! For just a couple weeks, at least. From Friday to today, I had an exam in each of my classes. In one of my classes (AME 302: Simulation and Modeling of Dynamic Systems), the professor called it a quiz, but it was really a midterm in disguise since we only have two “quizzes” during the semester aside from the final.

This afternoon, my brain was fried, but I decided that surviving the first round of midterms called for a celebration. I called up a couple friends who like to go to Disneyland, and off we went! The park closed early today at 9, and we were only really there for an hour (we went to get food first), but we still got to go on Haunted Mansion, Buzz Lightyear, and Space Mountain. Both Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain were themed for Halloween, so that was really cool! I’ve seen Haunted Mansion decked out in its Nightmare Before Christmas glory, but this is the first time I’ve seen Space Mountain this way (its theme was Ghost Galaxy). If you have an annual pass, or just want to go to Disneyland when it’s not the peak summer time, Halloween is definitely a cool time to do it. I’ll have to remember to bring my camera next time!

Tomorrow I have my first midterm of the semester: molecular biology. I’ve been studying a lot over the past couple of days…The year is really heating up for me. Monday, I have an exam and a quiz; Tuesday, homework due; Wednesday, another quiz; Thursday, another midterm; Friday, more homework due. Plus, my family is coming into town for the WSU football game this weekend. I’m excited for them to be here, but at the same time I need to set aside some hours for studying. Ah, the constant balancing act between work and play.

In other news, I found out that Lady Gaga and Kanye are performing at the Staples Center in November. I’m not a huge fan of either of them, but I am really tempted to go. I saw Britney Spears last year and her concert was amazing!