Valentines Day

I don't normally post non-Book Review posts on Mondays. I'm trying to stick firm to my Tuesday and Thursday schedule. However, today is a special day. I day I hold in esteem above all others.

That's right. It's my birthday.

Oh? Not what you thought I was going to say? Well, it's true. My birthday also corresponds to a ancient holiday of love*. In honor of that holiday, this weeks posts will be love themed. In the meanwhile, lets talk about the true meaning of this holiday: my birthday.

I really really really love my birthday. Some think its a little unnatural. And some find it odd since I generally complain about the placement of my birthday, mainly the day it is on. Having a Valentines birthday can really suck. It means your friends and family would rather not spend time with you on your birthday; they would rather spend time with their significant others. It means that sometimes they forget to get you anything, because they spent so much money on those very same significant others. And in general it just sucks.

But I still love my birthday, because my birthday is my day.

When I think about it, I blame my love of my birthday on being the third of four children. When you're in the middle and chronically younger than half your family, sometimes you can feel like you're not important or just a small cog in a large mechanism. For 364 (or 365 on Leap Year) days a year pretty much everyone is more important than I am. And I'm cool with that. I try not to be selfish. Other people are important. And other people have bigger, more important problems than I do. But on my birthday, for once, I get to be number one. Theoretically.

Theoretically, because my birthday is Valentine's Day, which is a holiday when people are supposed to focus on their romantically loved ones.

Since I can't fight Valentine's Day, I long ago embraced it. I've made it my holiday, my day, so that really when people celebrate with their loved ones, they're still celebrating me. Because it's my day.

And that's sort of appropriate. If you look at name meanings, the books will tell you that Amanda means beloved, but its more than that. In Latin if I say "Sum Amanda" I'm saying "I am Amanda" but I'm also saying "I must be loved." It's like a command.

So go out and celebrate your Valentine's Day. Enjoy it. Live it up. And remember, it's my day. :)

*To all the people out there who think Valentine's Day is just a made up holiday, look up Lupercalia. People have been celebrating love at around this date for over 2,000 years. So it may be made up, just not by Americans.

A Day in the Life of Me

During the school year I blog less than I do in the summers. Yesterday, I could not find the time to blog at all, even though I swore I would maintain a Tuesday/Thursday blogging schedule. Why is this? Why is my life so awful during the school year?

Well let's look at my schedule in the summer, while working:

6:00 am Wake up
6:45 am Drive to Work (listen to a podcast, usually a sermon or book on tape)
7:15 am Arrive at Work. Start, well, working. Usually I have three projects or so that I use to keep myself busy while I work
4:45 pm Leave Work. This is a nine hour day with 30 minute lunch break. I work nine hours, because I still have a student mentality even in the summer and really can't fathom going home after only eight hours of work
5:15 pm Get home. Eat something. Work on my WIPs. Blog
8:00 pm Read a book for pleasure
9:00 pm Go to bed.

Yes, it's an exciting life, but it's really not that busy. I do work. I write. I read. I sleep. Wooo.

Ok, so to give you an example of my life during the school year, here is this past Wednesday's schedule:

7:00 am Wake up
8:00 am Leave for school.
8:20 am Arrive at my desk. Check my email.
8:30 am - 10:00 am Do research
10 am - 12:30 pm class (Rocket Propulsion and Planetary Sciences)
12:30 pm Lunch
12:40 pm Homework
3:00 pm Senior Design Lab (I'm the TA)
6:00 pm Run to my car, drive home, take my dog out, feed him, eat something
7:00 pm Back to School. Grade papers
10:30 pm Leave school.
11:00 pm Pass out

Notice in this schedule there is no time for writing or reading. I read for pleasure while eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So that's about 45 minutes total of the course of the day. I write a little in lectures, but we're talking 500 words a day.

And the sad part is, I don't even get a break on the weekends. Tomorrow I will be coming to my desk at noon and work on orbital mechanics until I feel a need to break for food around seven pm.

I know we're all busy. Some of you go to work all day and have kids, which means you like never have a moment to yourself. And it's easy for me too look at my schedule and think "I can't write!" And I can feel sorry for myself or whatever.

But I don't. I chose to go to grad school. I chose this life. And I do occasionally find times to write. And I still get holidays. I'm already planning my fall break trip (going to Boston to see my sister--woo!).

So I know all you guys understand my busyness, and forgive me for not blogging yesterday. I know we're all busy. So how do you guys find time to write if you're writers? Do you write during lecture like me? Or do you wait until the kids are in bed and you have twenty minutes to yourself?

Bittersweet Fountain -- Part 1

I love musicals.

Seriously, there are few things in life I enjoy more than an amazing, moving musical production. If you ever found my iPod you would undoubtedly think, "Wow, this girl really likes musicals" and "seriously, does she have every WOW CD from the past ten years?" You would be right on both accounts.

But what you call a good musical and what I call a good musical may not be the same. To find out, I am going to discuss my love for my three favorite musicals starting with least favorite and going to most favorite.

Warning! Spoiler alerts!!! I will give away the ending. You have been warned.

3. Aida
Talk about a sexy voice. I am of course talking about Adam Pascal, the man who plays Radames. On my first listen to the Aida soundtrack I was sold whn I first heard him sing "Elaborate Lives". But it takes more than a sexy voice to make it into my top three musicals of all time. Aida is unashamedly a love story, but a love story embroiled in politics, war, love triangles, and family intervention. It is about two people from very different backgrounds who end up falling in love. However, their backgrounds doom them, and they end up being buried alive together.

2. Les Miserables
Epic tragedy. In a nut shell, those two words describe Les Mis. It's about discovering who you are, discovering God's plan for you, and finding your place in society. It's also about revolution. I have to say its the revolution that puts it over the top for me. (Revolutionary Europe is my favorite time period, 1789 to 1914. I'm a sucker for a good revolution). The song "Do You Hear the People Sing?" makes me want to start a revolution myself. Les Mis is a musical that doesn't just entertain - it changes you. In the very last song it demands that we strive to make the world a better place. We must hear the people sing.

1. Wicked
In my opinion, this may be the greatest musical ever written. The music is phenomenal, the story lines enticing, the comic relief hilarious, and it changed my perception of a story I've known all my life. The character Elphaba is one I relate to: she is different, awkward, and uncool. She want to change the world for the better and has the greatest dreams that she can. She refuses to be bound by the system. She is a revolutionary.

Looking at the three musicals you can sort of see the similar themes to my favorites: revolution, death, two girls who are both attracted to the same guy, and of course, bittersweet endings. I appreciate the "happily ever after" ending, but I'm a sucker for the bittersweet. Aida and Radames get to be together, but only in death while Amneris is left alive but alone. Cosette and Marius get to be together, but only after Eponine, who loves Marius, and all of Marius' revolutionary buddies die. Elphaba and Fiyero run off together, but Glinda is left thinking they are dead and alone. Ah, the bittersweet.

Why do I like bittersweet endings? Maybe its because I relate often to the person who is left behind: Amneris, Eponine, and Glinda. Maybe its because I feel like life is much more bittersweet then it is happily ever afters. I'm not sure. I only know that a truly bittersweet ending both breaks and fills my heart. This is part of the reason why I chose the name "Bittersweet Fountain". I love bittersweet stories.

Who am I?

To get to know me, you need to know that I have three desires in life:

1) To have a number or equation named after me.
I am an engineer by education and trade. Like most engineers produced by a certain Institute of Technology in the state of Georgia, I am fairly competent. However, I don’t just want to be competent. I want to be good. I want to be a world class, “miracle worker”, a Montgomery Scott. When an engineer reaches this level of absolute awesomeness they always get a number or equation named after them. Examples: the Reynolds number, the Bernoulli equation, the Loewy Number, the Kutta-Jukowski equation, Poisson Ratio, etc. Ok, so Poisson was a liar and a cheat, not an awesome engineer, but you get the picture.

2) To win a Hugo Award.
I’ll admit that I might settle for a Pulitzer or a Noble Prize, but for the most part the Hugo Award is where it’s at. In my spare non-engineering time I like to write novels, mostly scifi/fantasy. Please do not be impressed. In my mind having an engineering degree is much more impressive. Writing is a gift God gave me. Engineering is a constant struggle, a battle, I only ever win by the grace of God. I am not yet published but would like to be. When I am published, I want to be compared to the greats: Asimov, Bradbury, Jordan, Tolkien, Card, and others. I want that symbol of greatness that only writing a truly fantastic mind blowing scifi novel can attain. I want to win the Hugo Award.

3) Be all God wants me to be.
This is really a tough one. It’s the one I work hard to achieve but often feel the farthest from. God created the heavens and the earth. He sent His only Child to earth to die for me. How do I repay Him? By seeking Him? Not usually. See numbers 1 and 2. Clearly I seek fame (not necessarily fortune. I’m not sure how much money there is in getting a number named after you). I want to be awesome for God, but that sort of comes back to my desire for fame. I want my name to be inserted into Hebrews 11, the Bible Hall of Fame, but I fall short way more than Romans 3:23 calls for. You see this desire for fame just really isn’t what God wants me to desire. He wants me to seek Him first. I know this, but there is some sort of disconnect between my head, my intellectual desire, and my actions. I’m afraid I make God’s worst child at times.


So there I am. And just so you know number 1 is slightly evil. My last name has 13 letters in it. Engineers will hate me forever if I get something named after me.