The Pnebleu Blog

Wednesday is the beginning of my last semester at Texas A&M University.  I am beginning to realize that.  In May, I will be graduated.  I don’t know what I want to do.  Not knowing what’s going to happen is starting to bother me.  I know I shouldn’t worry because God will take me where I need to go.  The job market is tightening up because of the economic situation, but I still have opportunity in front of me.

I have not lived my life.  I have put off a lot of things because I “just wanted to get through school, then I would get it.”  I’m not starting a pity party, I just committing myself to do the things that I want and should do.  My camping trip is a good example of something I did without waiting.

2009 is a new year and I’m going to try to make the most of it.  I am also going to try to figure out what I want to do.  Doing that might put my planning mind at rest.

Yesterday, was a great day!  In the morning, I had my 6-month review at work, which went very well.  I got a $0.50 per hour raise!  Then, in the afternoon, I finally got my Aggie ring.  Here’s a picture.

I have been counting down the days/hours to get this, and now I finally have it.  Thanks to my parent for buying it for me as a gift!  Thanks to them, again, and everyone else who has helped me get to this point in my life!  I love you all!

Life is begin to get crazy. I’ve been going to AITP (Association of Technology Professionals) meetings from 7PM to 10PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. School is kicking into gear, finally. Projects, homework, papers, and exams are becoming due. It has been quite busy at work lately. Only a two part time techs are there at the same time each day, so each of our workloads are very high.

Hurricane Ike causes a lot of damage to the Houston area, but it has also affected Central Texas. All of Robertson County is out of power, except for Navasota Valley Electric Co-op, so my parents are one of the few who still have power. The longest estimate for power to be out is 4 weeks, but it could be fixed within a few days. There was a problem with Entergy in Conroe. Ike has disrupted my Netflix mailings, but I’m not upset about it. There’s nothing more that Netflix can do (rerouting my movies to Dallas instead of Houston), and I have used the time to work on school and resume preparation instead of watching a movie.

As I am waiting for my loan application to come in the mail, my laptop has become more and more of a problem. So, fortunately, my parents agreed to temporarily cover the cost of my new PC purchase. As soon as the loan comes in I will write them a big check. I purchased a Dell XPS 630 with the Intel quad-core Q9300 processor, 4GB of RAM, 500GB RAID-1 HDD configuration, ATI HD 3870 graphics card, Vista Ultimate, and a 22-in LCD monitor. It’s estimated delivery date is from 9/29 to 10/1. Aaahh! I’m going to have to work on my patience with this purchase.

I ordered my Aggie ring a few weeks ago. I will arrive on November 14th! I’m excited about that, another test of my patience. Well, I’m off to talk to my adviser to see how my next semester looks.

Today was the first day of class of my senior year at Texas A&M University.  It was a great day!  My classes are going to be difficult, but my schedule is very satisfactory (except for lunch, I have to squeeze it in to the time I drive from work to school).  I’m taking Nutrition, Post-Civil War U.S. History, Web-Enabled Applications, MIS, and ERP (Enterprise Resouce Planning).

I work for 4 hours in the mornings and have class from 12:45PM to 5:25PM in the evenings on Monday through Thursday.  Fridays are my flex-days.  I am scheduled to work only the four hours on Fridays as well, but I don’t have any classes on Friday.  I can use the afternoons to do homework or projects, or I can just stay at work and get more hours.  It is up to me.

After a few chores and homework today, I am going to change my blog’s theme, I have been wanting to for quite a while and now I have a reason.  I have a Smugmug account and I can’t add the photos link to my current pages list.  So it time for a change.  You will soon see.

If you’ve read the sidebar, you should be aware that I’m a junior at Texas A&M University.  TAMU is full of traditions.  Greeting passersby with a “howdy” is one of the most recognizable traditions practiced on- and off-campus.  Every year there is a cyclical decline of the use of “howdy.”  High in August and decline through December.  There is a low spike in January, then it declines to it’s lowest in May.  I’ve notice over the pass three years an overall decline in “howdy’s” use.

I attribute the iPod as a leading reason for the decline in “howdy’s” that I hear.  The popularity of the Apple iPod and other mp3 players lead to people wearing headphones to and from class on campus.  Listening to music, Aggies are less likely to spout a brief “howdy” to the person walk by, and if you walk by someone wearing headphones/earbuds you are less likely to say “howdy,” as not to disturb them.

This is a sad trend here in Aggieland.  I hope the new classes admitted will push to bring back “howdy” to the levels it once was.  I’ll do my part and say “howdy” to everyone I pass.

Today, I had time to take a walk around campus, so I took some pictures. Take a look at them here: http://pnebleu.com/blog/photos/campus-tour-08/