Yes, I have.

Have you ever...

• had someone throw you a donut from the car next to you while you are both stopped at a stoplight?
  
• done cartwheels on soccer field lines or down hallways to see how straight your cartwheels are?
  
• gone for a run after months of not running, just because you feel like it?
  
• dyed your hair, and then fear that it looks a little calico, because you may have missed some spots?
  
• tried to sleep in an academic building while the janitor blasts music in the hallway after midnight?

Or have you...

• made pierogies from a box and were reminded just how delicious even boxed pierogies are?
  
• stayed up until 3 in the morning reading a book - just because you're not tired and you want to finish it, and not really for any merit in the book itself?
  
• kicked a volleyball down a hallway to try to knock down the fans on either end of the hallway - at midnight?
  
• eaten most of a sandwich thinking your bread might be a little moldy, and then upon eating the last bite of cheese, realized that the cheese you'd been eating was awful, and the bread was innocent?
  
• made a triple integral out of clementine peels?

I can't believe research is wrapping up so quickly.  Our final presentations are tomorrow - we get to present at a conference!  I look forward to coming home soon, though the parting will be bittersweet.  

With love,

Laura

Kneeboarding and Scorching Heat

Hey-o!  I am having a splendid time.  Last weekend was particularly amazing.  First, we went bowling on Thursday night, and got unlimited tacos.  They were absolutely delicious.  The bowling place was weird, because if you knocked down 9 pins, it counted as a strike.  Tragedy, right?  Anyways, it was super fun!!!


We also went vacationing for the weekend to a friend's cottage up on Lake Charlevoix, which is right at the top of Michigan's mitten.  AMAZING.  I got to ride on a Sea-Doo, which was pretty awesome, and I got to kneeboard, which was SO MUCH FUN.  I also got to rock a paddle board.  Kind of felt like Robinson Crusoe.  Waterskiing didn't go so well, but that's alright.  It was fun to try :).

This is the beautiful cottage kitchen, in which delicious food like bacon was made.  Yes, one of those bags on the table does contain marshmallow cereal, and yes, that owl was creeping on everyone.

Here are two of my lovely housemates, Erica and Lisa, who also went to the cottage.  Yes, they are amazing, and yes, that is a Star Wars band-aid on Lisa's ankle.

The dock, the deck, and fun water toys.  Oh, yes, and that is Lake Charlevoix.  Oh hey, that almost rhymed! Joy. :P

Also, on Saturday, we saw floating lanterns released right next to us, just like those in Tangled.  Pretty sweet.  Never thought I'd see that.  Basically, the only down side is... well, really, there wasn't a down side.   I hurt my knee, but it doesn't hurt anymore unless I kneel on it.

So... the weekend was full of inordinately unfair amounts of incredible fun.  It was also full of bacon and off-brand lucky charms (but not together).

Heavenly.

Also, it's been like "a billion degrees" (that was a Mark quote) for the past... long time.  Seriously.  Check out the weather forecast for tomorrow (Friday):

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.7875235&lon=-86.10893010000001&site=all&smap=1&searchresult=Holland%2C%20MI%2C%20USA

It's supposed to be 101°.  That's ridiculous.  There's a small party of us headed over to the math building seeking refuge from the ridiculous heat, because it's 11 PM and 84°, and our apartments don't have air conditioning.  Also, we all have presentations in the morning, and Erica and I still have to finish ours.  Woot!

A Miscellaneous Assortment of Tidbits...

Life and Weather

So... life is excellent.  I very much enjoy being here in Holland, and it did rain once more.  The weather is now PERFECT for summer, and not so oppressive - hot during the day, but not too hot, and below 60 at night.  My kind of weather.


My Camera

My camera kind of took a nosedive, in the figurative sense.  I took it out of its bag, and the top of it was all askew, as if it had just decided to have a minor internal explosion.  It took some finagling to press it together until it looked pretty much like it was supposed to look, with all the pieces of the camera actually fitting together (thanks, Mark).  And then I tried to turn it on... so that's when I found out that whenever I press the on/off button of my camera, nothing happens, but if I just take both sides of the camera and squeeze them together, it turns on and off just fine.  It's a little touchy, though.  I think I need a new camera.


Pancakes

We had pancakes this morning!  I thank Kala Stafford and Matt Stein in particular for the inspiration. The pancakes were cooked/served with bacon, blueberries, raspberries, chocolate chips, syrup, applesauce, raspberry preserves, honey, and peanut butter (I think that was all?) - oh, and a blended mixture of bananas and dates, which was left over from Ari's breakfast (he lives next door, and as Mark would say, "probabilistically, he eats nothing but fruit," although maybe it's not even just probabilistically anymore).  The pancakes were delish.  We used a whole box of pancake mix.


First talk

Erica and I gave our first presentation!  Woo!  It was sort of exciting.  There's definitely room for improvement, but that's the point of giving our first semi-informal presentation, right?

And here's a pic of what we draw while we research!  Pretty, no? :)

I love colored chalk!!! :)

My Week(s)

So my weeks are boiling down to this kind of structure, outside of the 7 hours of research Mon-Fri:

Mondays: Ultimate Frisbee at 7 if it's not oppressively hot, and then Elevate at 8:30 (a young adult Bible study/tough questions/get together)

Tuesdays: Picnic at Tunnel Park (Hosted by Chemistry Dept) with some Frisbee and Volleyball!!!!

Wednesdays: Super-awesome Volleyball at 7:30.  There is also Ultimate at 7, but it's supposedly more intense than Monday nights, and that kind of scares me a little, because all the talent I thought I had pales in comparison to the people who play on Monday nights...

Thursdays: Ice Cream Social after lunch with AMAZING toppings (Also hosted by Chemistry Dept?), and then Wally-ball after work. (Wally-ball just happened once, but it may become a weekly thing.  It is pretty fun - like volleyball but in a racquetball court and you can play off the walls.)

Fridays: Lunch out with the Math Dept, and then usually the beach later and/or game night and/or volleyball.

Saturdays: Lounge around and/or beach and/or game night and/or whatever...

Sundays: Service at Engedi Church at 11:00, and then hang out and/or beach and/or whatever...

Mondays: Rinse and Repeat...


Book and Grad School Visit

We got the day off of research yesterday and went to visit Notre Dame's campus.  I borrowed a book from my roommate for the long road trip, and then was antisocial for two or three hours last night finishing it.  It was called Troubled Waters, and I rather liked it.

But as for Notre Dame, it is ridiculously huge.  They have 8,000 undergrad students and 4,000 grad students, compared to Houghton's 1,200? total.  The campus is large and sprawling and has 29 dorms.  Yes, I repeat, it has 29 dorms.  And it has an entire building devoted to architecture. Whereas Paine is all sciences and math, all in one building...  Not to berate Houghton.  I love Houghton.  And I didn't exactly come away thinking that Notre Dame would be a good fit for me. But who knows?  It sure reminded me that I should be thinking about grad school...

I wish I got nicer pictures of the trip, but I actually only got one (being perhaps a bit discouraged at my silly camera), and it's pretty boring.  Sorry:

Game List

I'm also compiling a list of game items that I think are important to have in one's house, because they make for awesome games:

• Settlers of Catan 
• Tichu
• Deck of Cards
• Spoons (for Spoons :P)
• Dutch Blitz
• Set
• Mancala
• Boggle
• Bananagrams
• Mastermind
• Clue
• Checkers
• Chess

And here are some games that I haven't tried yet, but I've heard that they're wonderful:

• Deduce or Die
• Ticket to Ride

Any other ideas? Let me know.  Frankly, I think Apples to Apples and Monopoly are sorry excuses for games, but they can be fun in their own right, and I'll probably end up owning them, too.  But I'm looking for quality material...


Letters

And thanks so much to those of you who have sent me letters!  I feel very loved :). I will also try to get back to you more directly!

Much love to all,
Laura

Sweet Rain

Whew! So it finally rained here this weekend - for the first time since I've been here.  We got back from the beach, got inside, and BOOM.  Downpour.

Our timing was impeccable.  But it's still ridiculously hot.  All the time. 90s today.  And almost every day.  But I guess it's hot in Syracuse, as well.  Maybe just a weird summer, to go along with the weird winter.

It's wonderful being in an apartment without air conditioning.  My apartment looks like this:

This is the kitchen...

And this is the living room...

And the dining room table...

And my room!

Anyways, apparently Holland is known for tulips, windmills, and anchors.  Or at least Hope College has lots of anchors.  And the colors of Hope are blue and orange!  Just like SU :).

Research is great! The program we wrote actually worked for some graphs *insert happy dance* and everything is going smoothly.  Erica and I have to present on Thursday (as do all the other groups), and it is not worrisome at all, because we have lots we can talk about.  And Lights Out is fun! :)

Oh, and here are some pictures of the dunes that I promised!!  Mark, one of the other research students, kindly illustrates how very large the dunes are as he runs down this (relatively small) dune:

Look at the tiny little people!! The Bowl Dune is huge.

And Lake Michigan...

We took the high road and hiked along the edge of the Bowl Dune.  Look at how small the others look, who are hiking up the middle of the dune!  

We came all the way from the lake to here :)

Michigan is beautiful and I love it.  We go the beach - and to the Bowl Dune - a lot.













The Dunes are beyond gorgeous.  It's like being in the middle of the desert, but there is green all around.  If you want to see more pictures of Michigan and the Dunes, there are a lot on Facebook!

Yay Blogging!

Yay blogging!  Here I am again :)  So, some exciting things that have happened to me so far:

- I Injured my thumb playing frisbee (it's healing quickly!!) and then found that I could still play volleyball the next day (woohoo!!) :)

- I went to the beach this weekend!!  It was ridiculously hot.  Ridiculously.  For example, we tried to play volleyball on the sand courts, and gave up after a minute or so because the sand was SO STINKING HOT that it felt like blisters on feet were inevitable.  Ridiculous.

- I've been a little antisocial at times and read a few books - hard to know what to do with all the time on my hands! It's great, though :)

- I did my first programming EVER on Maple!!! It was SO SUPER exciting!!! :)

- I bought Kale and have already earned a reputation for eating strange things in strange ways ;).  On the other hand, the kid next door has a diet consisting mainly of fruit - ~20 bananas/day, among other things...

- I learned how to play Tichu!!! Such a wonderful, wonderful game

- I went to a Thai restaurant and had DELICIOUS curry made with coconut milk!!!  And then I had the rest on crackers - SO GOOD!

- I wrote a super animated blog post ridiculously punctuated with exclamation points and smiley faces!!! :P

:) :) :) :) :)

Beautiful Holland

I must say, Holland is a very beautiful place.  The downtown is beyond adorable!! Went to the farmer's market this morning, and then walked around downtown and browsed in little shops that have the cutest things imaginable.  I am glad that I don't have much room in my suitcase for the return trip, or I might be more tempted to buy... a lot of things.  I did buy one thing today, but that's a surprise (shhh!).

And the dunes are amazing.  If you've never been to the dunes along Lake Michigan, don't bother trying to conjure up an image, because I can guarantee that it won't do them justice.  I will try to get up a nice picture or two soon.

I must say, it is strange to be suspended in this place between college and summer - I do what feels like schoolwork (of the best kind) for a large chunk of the day, but then I'm free!  No homework, no nada.  Is strange, but I like it very much.

Beginnings

Alright, I admit, Bethany inspired me - may her Washington experience prosper.  I realized today that I forgot my journal at home, and that the devotional journal I brought with me is completely full. So blogging, here I come.

I arrived in Michigan on Sunday.  It was my first time flying alone, and I was late awakening due to my sister's wedding and then packing until the wee hours.  I barely had time to wash the hairspray out of my hair before I had to be at the airport, but everything went well.  I stayed on the same plane from Syracuse to Cleveland (sp?) and then from Cleveland to Grand Rapids, but I had to get off in between (and find out where my plane had rolled to; the gate for boarding in Cleveland wasn't on my pass, and neither was the stop in Cleveland).  Oh, I am spelling Cleveland right.  Just looked it up.  ANYWAY, I actually met the pilot of my plane in the Cleveland airport.  He was getting coffee, and he was really nice.  Mark Sherwin was his name, but we actually didn't exchange apellations while we were waiting in line, though we did exchange other niceties.  I found out his name from the stewardess' announcement.

Jah, so I arrived in Michigan and had dinner and played frisbee.  Was a little disappointed that most of the researchers aren't very athletic, but hey, that's life.  Had some fun doing research, hanging out, playing volleyball...  My fellow researcher is great.  Her name is Erica Budge, and she's from around here.  It's kinda nice being on my own, but I miss lots of people and places back home. Can't wait until things around here start feeling a little more familiar.