I'm a winner!

Woo hoo! I won the basketball pool! How did I win you ask, when the final four hasn't even begun? I'm just that good. Actually, Louisville and North Carolina are just that good....and Michigan State! Can't wait to see MSU in the final 4, I've had the Spartan fight song running through my head since this weekend! I'm a weirdo, I know.

I'm also a winner of the Environmental Management Association Co-chair position. It's just a student organization in our department, but it sounds nifty doesn't it? Someone nominated me, and I accepted, figuring no one else would run When I found out I was running against the current chair of the career development committee and just about every other organization in and outside SPEA, I figured it was all up. I even had a post title ready..."my short-lived political career". But I won. Probably because I was in town, and my worthy opponent was in NY leading some UN youth conference (see what I'm up against?) Still, it's nice to be a winner sometimes.

Which brings me to the ironic part of the entry. As I write this I'm actually very sad and feeling like a loser, because I just got rejected for the EPA internship I wanted. So, I don't think it's worth it to wait to hear about the one I was less interested in and less qualified for. (I hope the EPA doesn't monitor my blog- if so, YOU'VE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!). I'll just take my little Indiana internship and hope for better things next year. I didn't realize I'd be this disappointed. I thought I was okay with whatever happened and just wanted to know one way or another. I'll be okay with it tomorrow. I think my pride's a little bruised, and I've gotten sucked into the climb-the-corporate (or government)- ladder mentality at school. But it's just a flesh wound.

Perspective: "He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”-- Jim Elliot

the madness continues...

I should really be working on some projects now, but I was inspired by the response to my last post. After watching West Virginia beat Wake Forest in double overtime on Sat., I can understand why people spend so much of their lives watching sports. Sorry, you lost your top pick, Raj. Actually, I was happy, but now I'm a little sorry. The pool is close to even, so everything rests on the final rounds. I'm in a relativelly good position, with 3 of my final 4 left.

So if you want to know who to root for in the rest of the tournament, or just judge me for my ignorant picks, here they are (teams still in the tournament are in caps):

Elite eight: ILLINOIS, OKLAHOMA STATE, LOUISVILLE, Gonzaga, NORTH CAROLINA, Kansas, DUKE, Oklahoma (But you can root for Michigan State to beat Duke!)

Final four: ILLINOIS, LOUISVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, Oklahoma

Championship: ILLINOIS, NORTH CAROLINA (no upsets here)

NCAA Champion: ILLINOIS! GO BIG TEN!

Enough basketball. For the next month, I will only think about the following 4 things: 1) How dredge and fill permits issued under the Clean Water Act affect water use and development; 2) Colorado River restoration (and destruction), especially as it affects birds and mammals; 3) Floodplain forest restoration along the lower Mississippi River, and experiments to test its effectiveness; 4) Social Security reform. Which of these doesn't belong? Which of these makes me want to throw things across the room? I have to produce 3 presentations, 3 papers, and a detailed outline on these topics. And this completely leaves out Aquatic Chemistry, which I will probably have to think about a little before the final.

As of tomorrow, I can add high school physics tutor to my resume. I hope I remember something about physics. I brought my old college notes from home, but I can't get any idea of what they're studying till we start tomorrow. It's weird, I only communicate with these teens through their parents. Were we like that in high school?

march madness

I'm in the middle of it now. I have this bizarre tradition of joining the NCAA basketball tournament pool with my dad and bro, even though I never bother to learn anything about the teams in advance. This year I took some chances on little guys...well, #4 seeds...like Louisville...which is really getting me worried right now!

In other madness, I spent spring break in Pennsylvania, visiting more family members than I generally see in one place. The madness is that is was a COLD place to spend spring break. But at least the driving weather was safe, and the snow-covered hills were pretty. An added bonus...coming home to warmer weather made it easier to get back to the grind. So, I'm going to copy off another blogger, who doesn't read this anyway, and give you my "what I learned on spring break" report:

1. everything I need to know in life, I can learn from watching COPS.
2. 5 designers + 1 remodeling project = bad idea (from Trading Spaces)
3. leasing offshore land is the newest wave in marine conservation..interesting if you're into water law or property law
4. 22 tricks to avoid budget cuts, and 7 ways to hide a deficit! (from Cosmo...no, my finance book)
5. what a real Hoosier is supposed to be (from the movie "Hoosiers")
6. My Florida family lives just a few miles from longleaf pine forests-one of our nation's top disappearing ecosystems!
7. I love musicals! (from a pre-trip viewing of Les Miserables)
8. a dirty apartment will not clean itself while you're gone

woo-hoo! Louisville won! But I'm starting to doubt their chances of making it to the final four!
But check out this upset: #13 Vermont over #4 Syracuse- doesn't help or hurt me in the pool, but it's interesting. How will Michigan State fare against Vermont (assuming MSU wins tonight)? Does this open the door for my favorite team to face Duke, my most hated team (besides U of M)?

Celllllll-e-brate good times, come on!

OK, picture me singing that and dancing in the style of Kool & the Gang, and you'll have some idea how I feel.

I'm almost done with my Aquatic Chem take home test, and it has been so good to me. Everything's working out, I get the same answers when I check with different methods, and I even understand why it's all working! And this is the test that made past students say: "don't plan to do anything else the week you work on the test." Obviously we can't talk details, but I'm sensing the same feeling of relief from my classmates.

On top of that today was gorgeous, sunny 60-degree weather. I was hardly outside in it, but I enjoyed it while I was.

Did my law reading at Bazaar Cafe. I love that place. I know, I posted about it before. Today, it was full of familiar faces. Including an interesting SPEA boy who's actually not married, engaged, etc. as far as I know. Hardly see him because he's the public affairs, officey type, but it turns out he's interested in water stuff, too! He'd talked to my Limnology prof/maybe boss sometime, and started telling me how fun that all sounded. I'm trying not to make this into a sign...for either a relationship or an internship decision. Ugh, the i-word. I don't want to blog this, until I've made my decision.

*if you actually check my blog and didn't notice the last entry posted on 3/3, that's because I got interrupted, and didn't post it till today. Now I'm in a totally different mood and had to start a new entry.*

my life is boring, but at least it has a good soundtrack.

I'm back on a jazz kick...Today's Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. Before that, I was listening to Patty Griffin all the time...v. different. Beautiful acoustic folk. Every song is a portrait. Thanks for introducing me, L.

Just when I thought I couldn't be a bigger nerd, I had to go and discover the wonder of chemistry. Just sitting in class on wed. learning about acid neutralizing capacity, and was suddenly bowled over in amazement at how seamless and elegant it all is. All these reactions taking place around and in us every moment, and we're not even aware of most of them. But it also amazes me that we know as much as we do, when we're so limited by our senses.

This was one of those weeks where I spent every waking hour doing schoolwork. And I had a lot of waking hours. I guess it's midterm week, aka hell week. Added to this, I volunteered to help plan an Earth Day event and "Road Rally", a community service competition, which took some time I didn't have. But I'm down to one take home test and the usual stack of required reading- I guess I have to do it, too. Last Wed. we had a term paper due in Restoration, and as a result almost no one had done the daily reading. The prof went through the list of papers, making us raise our hands if we'd read them. We didn't lie. So he berated us for awhile, threatened to assign more homework (because that will give us more time to read?), and sent us home early. Not pleasant to feel like a high schooler again, but he couldn't have picked a more welcome punishment.

Something that made my week... As I was walking to the parking lot, I caught a flash of color from the corner of my eye. It was a bluebird perched on a stop sign. Looked just like this. It didn't twitch as I approached to within a few feet. It just stared. As I went on my way, it flew off. A minute later, there was a blue fleck right above me on a telephone wire. Bird on a wire made a warbling chirp, a faint warbling chirp came back from a tree. I kept walking, and bluebird #2 was hopping around in an oak tree along the path. It was like being in a Disney movie. I spent some time last year keeping up bluebird houses, so they have a special place in my heart. Maybe the feeling's mutual. Check out NABS if you like them, too.

Quotage:
“Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
- -H. Jackson Brown, Jr., who writes quotes for a living (how can I get that job?)

"ouch."
- Sheela's response to the above quote