It is all kind of crazy, this whole graduating, packing and moving thing, but I'm hoping it goes well, sorry to all if I'm scarce in the next few months, chances are I'm driving somewhere!

PNM

PNM has proved to be an interesting internship, from this first day I have been very impressed with the amount of organization and planning that has gone into making this summer a memorable one for us interns. We've had orientation, a trip to San Juan Generating Station, On-site visits to various gas and electric construction projects and generating stations, and tomorrow we are headed out to the wind farm in Taiban, NM. It's been fun because a big emphasis (besides gaining practical knowledge in our fields) has been to people network amongst ourselves. We went to an Isotopes game, out to lunch at least once a week, we hang out on the weekends, and on Friday we're going to the Rio Grande Zoo for out end of the summer picnic. So, from an internship point of view, this has been amazing. I've met some great people and definitely done some professional networking. From a job point of view I have learned an amazing amount. On day 1 back in May I thought that I was in way over my head. I didn't understand any of the technical jargon, or concepts of what people were trying to tell me, the electrical world of structures has its own language that's for sure! After several frustrating weeks I finally got the hang of it and have had a blast while learning alot! I've spent time out in the field which is good because I'm able to see designs being implemented, and I've done a ton of design work, from foundations to lines, it's definitely been an experience. My last day is the 18th and I've got alot of cleaning/finishing up to do before then.

Soccer

Before the summer started I decided to play with the Renegades which are a coed team in Albuquerque for the summer. That has been interesting. We had games every Wednesday and Thursday from the beginning of June through last week. I think that we ended up finishing pretty high in the standings but it was more of a personal learning experience for me. I've never played full-scale coed soccer before (I've played plenty of intramurals, but that's different) and it was fun to figure out how to play on the strengths of both men and women on a team (i.e. women don't make very good goalkeepers against men's shots!) Towards the end of the season I finally started getting my rhythm and even scored which was a huge accomplishment. I remember my thought was, "I've either got to score or get run over by this 200 pound man who is running full speed at me" Thankfully I won, and the big scary man didn't. As a result of such a good summer I've decided to go ahead and play with the Renegades for the National Coed Soccer Championships later this month and for the Fall/Spring seasons instead of the women's team at NM Tech.

Life At the beginning of the summer Josh and I were able to hang out alot because he was routinely in Socorro, such has not been the case as of late though. I haven't been back to Socorro since the end of June and Josh has seen the likes of the Gila National Forest in Southern NM, Cedar City, UT and somewhere in nowhere Idaho. I'm looking forward to when he comes back for school in 2 weeks. :-) On another front, my house has been wedding central as of late as well. In July Kate and Jeff got engaged and Kate asked me to be the maid of honor, which means that a couple of nights a week is consumed by wedding planning. It's fun and the way I see it, but the time it's my turn everyone else will already be married and have the tips to go with it!

Hmm, well that's what's been up for work, school, soccer and regular life, I don't think there's much else to say, maybe if I get with it I'll update again before school starts! *shock*

Hmmm..my last update was in October..I'm amazingly good at doing this on a regular basis! Here's what's been up:

School:This semester has by far been the worst one yet. I'm not taking too many classes but all of them tend to be overly time intensive. I'm taking a circuits course that I'm really enjoying an advanced strength of materials class I really hate, structural which is about a thousand times harder than statics and mechanics all rolled into one horrific class, mechanics lab which is interesting, but kind of a waste of time and soil and rock mechanics which I enjoy but requires WAY, WAY too much time. I'm working as a TA for surveying which I find funny considering how much I HATED the class last year. It's alot more fun to do the labs when you don't have to go home and write them up every week, that's for sure.

Life: Life's been pretty good, I have no overall complaints. Josh and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary in January which was fun. For spring break I flew to Virginia Beach and hung out with my grandparents which was an amazingly wonderful time. (pouring concrete, doing yardwork and watching March Madness every day...who could complain?) I ended up with two different intern offers for the summer which ended up being quite a decision to many outside factors but I've decided to work for PNM (the gas and electric company, similar to PG&E; in CA) in thier high voltage division doing various structrual analyses and designs. It should be a pretty interesting job, it pays well and the group I'm working with seems pretty exicted about me coming. I was offered the job because of an award I recieved (check out Tech's website under Top Engineering Students) which was pretty cool. Last weekend was my 21st birthday which proved to be quite eventful. Seeing as Josh's birthday is 6 days before mine he waited to go out until Saturday night. We ended up going out with a rather large group of people and the goal of both Josh and I having to stumble to the car was most definetly achieved. It was a good time though, we had fun going to the clubs/bars in downtown Alb. I think that next time I go I'm going to only have one drink though!

I think that's enough rambling for now...see ya again in a few months!

Soccer's been tons of fun this year, we actually have a dedicated team that shows up to practices (most of the time) and the games! YAY! We were undefeated until today when we tied. HOWEVER, it was pretty unjust. The other team scored by taking out one of our players...consequently delaying the game while we waited for an ambulance to show up. The word is that she probably disclocated her shoulder and tore some ligaments. It wasn't pretty. Other than that, I've got to make it through the next two weeks full of tests and then it's pretty much home free until Finals. YAY!:-D

Perhaps I'll update sooner this time, however, I'm not holding my breath.

Well, here I sit, one more day to the weekend bored at work. Acutally, I'm not as bored as ususal, as we finally figured out how to work one of the Federal Highway Administration's progams I have a little work to do, I'm hoping I can stretch it out to fill the whole day. Other than work being in general, shitty. Life's been alright. I've been going down to Socorro the past few weekends, working on moving Josh and my stuff down there. We have a TON of crap! It's quite frusterating, especially since I've been having to drive the truck with out a CD player or cruise control :-( I miss my car. This weekend I'll be going down again, but this time Josh is meeting me there so at least we'll be able to start putting some things away so we don't have to do all of it the weekend before school starts. I'm looking forward to going home on the 14th (Anyone going to be in SM) for roughly a week. After that, school starts and I'm glad for that too. Never again will I complain about 8am classes after this summer!! :-)