Adios. . .

Hola! (See what I did there?)

So, let’s face it: The past several months, this blog has seen little to no activity. You can mainly chalk it up to the crazy life I live, between school and wedding plans and everything in between.

Well, the good news is I finally graduated!

YAY! Click to see the whole gallery!

That’s right, I finally got my Bachelor of Arts degree in History. After ten years, it’s done. Praise the Lord.

So what’s next for me? Well, the wedding is 24 days away, for one thing (followed by a week in Hawaii!). We’ve been crazy busy getting everything ready, and it’s been a blast at that. After that, who knows? I’m hoping I can land a job teaching secondary Social Studies somewhere, but it’s slim pickins out there. So I’m just giving it to God and praying that my resume lands on the right desk before too long.

Regardless, I have a lot to get ready for when it comes to married life. Jenn and I have lots of plans in regards to fixing up our house after we get back from the honeymoon. I’ll have a new job soon enough, whatever/wherever it may be. And generally speaking, I’m gonna be at a point in my life where my own personal blog just isn’t necessary.

So, as I’ve alluded to back in December of last year, it’s time to say farewell to this site.

But fear not! I’ll still keep up the non-updated site for as long as I can. Plus, at some point this summer, Jenn and I are going to start up our blog chronicling our life as a married couple. So I’ll still have a place to write, and we’ll certainly have plenty to write about as we start our life together. I’m very excited about the possibilities in regards to this new endeavor, and it should be a lot of fun. And I definitely hope you’ll join us as we kick The Harvey Family Blog into gear later this summer.

In the mean time, I’ll still be on Facebook, Twitter, etc.. You know where to find me, and I’m always happy to talk.

To all of you who have been my faithful readers, thanks a million for keeping up with me. And thank you to those who have asked me a hundred times “What’s up with your blog? Why don’t you update it anymore?”

God bless you guys, and I sincerely hope you’ll follow me over to the new blog later this summer. Take care. 🙂

Relief.

Well, thank God that’s over with. The Archaeology test I’ve been sweating over has been vanquished. I think I did a pretty darn good job on it, so hopefully the good doctor will see it the same way.

Big weekend ahead! Jenn and I are going to register at Home Depot, which will be our last one on the list. After that, we’re gonna go eat with Misty and then take a look at some furniture at the furniture store over in the Highlands. What is it, Ethan Allen? The one by PF Chang’s, whatever it is. Anyway, tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve. Along with the el cheapo masquerade we’re gonna enjoy with the fam and some friends tomorrow night, I’ve volunteered my car as part of the church’s Trunk or Treat party tomorrow afternoon. If you’ve never heard of this, basically church members line up their cars in the parking lot, decorate ’em all spiffy, and the kids go around trickrtreatin’ for candy from the trunks. It’s meant to be a super-safe way for the kiddos to enjoy Halloween without worrying about evil folks out there in the world. Should be a lot of fun. I heard through the grapevine that everyone’s doing a fall/harvest theme with their vehicles. I’m like, UM WUT!? I’m so turning the trunk of my car into a monster mouth. Rawr! Happy Halloween!

Save me, Friday.

Had a meeting yesterday all morning at the PDC. Between that and having trouble registering for my Spring classes, I obviously ran out of time and wasn’t able to blog. Sorry about that. 🙂

I have an exam today in Archaeology, a class that I’m actually not doing well in at all. I’ve been studying a lot, and I have a nice list of definitions to study all day today, or at least as much as I possibly can. There’s most likely going to be some interruptions… there pretty much always is when I’m really needing to do some studying during the day. I guess that’s what’s gonna happen when you try to do this sort of thing during your down time at work. Duh.

This weekend’s the Halloween party. I’m considerably more excited than I was a couple days ago, because Jenn decided to buy us masks. We were struggling with figuring out what to do, because we didn’t really want to spend a lot of money on Halloween this year. But Jenn was able to buy our masks for a grand total of less than 10 bucks, which is awesome. Still not entirely sure what I’ll be wearing with it. I might go for a slight twist on an old-timey gangster, complete with a “tommy gun,” but we’ll see what I decide to do. It’s supposed to be nice and cool that evening, so I’ll be comfortable wearing long sleeves for once. 🙂

Oh, that Captain Kidd.

Ever heard about William Kidd? He was such a dingbat. Dude was contracted to go hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean, ended up doing some pirating himself, let himself get busted, and was hanged. They even left his body hanging out over the harbor as a reminder to other pirates. There’s a theory that he kinda got screwed by the system and was set up, but I’m not really sure about that. He shouldn’t have raided a Mughal ship (the Mughals were buddies with the East India Company) if he was really sailing for the glory of England. Dummy.

Okay, sorry about that. We watched a DVD about Kidd in Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It was entertaining, but Kidd’s stupidity just cracks me up. Also, the narrator pronounced things funny. Madagassker.

Also, last night was the second night of informative speeches in my Business Communications class. Since I got mine out of the way the first night, I now have to sit through three more nights of speeches. No big deal though, most of them are pretty cool. Though last night, even though the teacher told them not to, they were all bringing in their Powerpoints in .pptx format, not .ppt. For some reason, he won’t download the Microsoft Compatibility Pack to his laptop, so they couldn’t use his with the projector for their presentations. Well, guess who had the laptop that COULD do this?

/me raises hand

So I volunteered my laptop for the majority of the class. It was certainly no big deal, I was happy to help. And everyone loved my wallpaper when it popped up on the screen:

Tonight’s Bible Study at Laura’s, and I’m trying to decide if I want to skip class and get there on time, or rush out after class and get there late. Not sure yet, prob’ly won’t decide until the last minute. Heh.

Destroyer of Midterms.

Hey, Midterms. See this?

Think you can handle this? I DIDN’T THINK SO.

Yes, it’s that time again. Miiiidterrrrms. I’m actually almost done with them for the week. My midterm project in Business Communications was last night, which was an 8-minute long informative speech on career paths for a History Major. I think I got through that pretty dang good. Then I had my Pirates of the Caribbean midterm, which wasn’t too bad. 40 multiple choice and 10 matching questions, followed by an essay that we could choose from a list of 4 or 5 different prompts. I wrote on possible significant turning points in the history of piracy. Seemed pretty easy, I just had to do a LOT of writing to make my points sound good. Hopefully he’ll like it enough to give me a good grade.

Tonight is the midterm I’m not really looking forward to. History of the Renaissance is a pretty nice class, but the teacher is really big on NAMES. LOTS AND LOTS OF NAMES. And they’re aaaaaall Italian names. And nothing against the Italians, but so many of their names sound WAY too similar to each other. It all runs together way too easily. I had this teacher for History of the Reformation last Spring, so I know what to expect. But it’s still a pretty difficult format. There will be multiple choice questions. But not your average multiple choice. No, we’re talking questions where three out of the four choices COULD be the answer, but only one is THE answer. And most of them WILL be that way. She’s good about throwing in a few gimme’s, but the vast majority makes you sit there and bang your head on the desk.

Then there’s the ID questions. She gives us a review sheet ahead of time that has a list of, like, twelve names on it. We’re supposed to know who these people are, and be able to write two or three sentences about each one. She picks six of those names to put on the test, so you literally have to know all twelve if you want to do well. And then there are the essays. Yes, plural. One essay of our choice from the prompts listed, and then one essay that we all have to do on one specific prompt.

So yeah, overkill much? I’m gonna be so fried when I get home tonight. But, on the bright side, I’ll just have regular classes for the rest of the week. My Archaeology midterm is next week… I think? And my Criminal Justice midterm isn’t until the first week of November. So that’ll give me some breathing room and a good chance to study for those separately.

Speaking of studying, I should probably pull out my Renaissance text and do some studying while I have some free time. So I’ll wrap it up for now. Oh, and iPSotD isn’t going to be quite as frequent for now, because quite frankly, I’m running out of ideas. LOL But I’ll make sure to post ’em when I get inspired, even if they have to be their own separate entry.

Tech life. Word.

Today’s been… I dunno, irritating? I had to go outside to one of the temporary buildings and pull a computer to reimage it, because it was loaded down with a lovely virus. And of course, by the time I got out there, the cold front had blown through. So I had to walk through the chilly mist with a CPU tucked under my arm, which is fun like you’ve never experienced. I’m exaggerating a little, it wasn’t THAT bad. I actually appreciated the cold after the horrid mugginess I had to walk through at UTA yesterday afternoon. Seriously, I thought it was July again. Yuck.

Anyway, really, the walk outside wasn’t too bad this morning. But on the flip side, dealing with a certain coworker has been pretty rough today. I’m certainly not going to name any names, because I have no desire to spread the hate. But I’ve been really disappointed in how unprofessional they were when complaining about the fact that the teacher computer in the lab crashed this morning. The complaining was… prolonged, I guess you could say. Totally unnecessary. Of course, as soon as I start doing something about it, I’m BFF again. Ridiculous stuff.

BUT, I’m not gonna let it get me down. Still not a horrible day, all things considered. Yesterday was pretty silly. The students were released early, so they could go take the PSAT. The teachers used my labs for training all afternoon, Science in one, English in another, Math in another, etc.. Anyway, long story short, I had two printers glitch out at the same, on opposite ends of the building. Yay! It was really pretty funny the way it happened, and it all worked out in the end. The teachers and AP’s were really patient about all the issues that flared up, and we were all kinda having fun with it, so that made life a little easier while dealing with the crappy old printers. This one printer I have here in my “home” lab has been giving me a “service software error” lately. But every time I turn in a district help ticket and James comes out to look at it, the error message goes away. When James was leaving yesterday, I told him I’d call him once he stepped out the front door of the school and the error message popped up again. HAH. Of course, now that it’s figured out that I know what it’s up to, it’s not doing that anymore. It’s just sitting there. Watching me. Waiting…. waiting…….

Anyway…

Check it out! Ignore the lousy drawing on the right side of the box there. Didn’t work out like I wanted it to. But anyway, this is my first shipment out of the toys I’m selling! And so far it’s the only batch I’ve sold. So if anyone’s still interested, please go check out what I’m offering! We can certainly negotiate the price a little, if you want to. Just let me know.

iPSotD:

Mother-daughter talk.

Yesssss.

I totally forgot that we have early dismissal today. Well, the kids do, at least. Plus, they have a four day weekend, so it should be nice and quiet starting around lunch time today!

I’m going to take Monday off to go with Jenn up to Southlake, so we can get started on our wedding gift registries. Very excited about that! We’re planning on going to Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Target, and Home Depot for sure. I think there were one or two other places she wanted to go to, as well. Should be a very fun day for us, especially since we’ll get to go hang out at Southlake Town Square in the middle of the day, when (hopefully) it won’t be as busy as it is on the weekends.

I keep telling Jenn that one of the main things I’m excited about registering for is a really nice set of knives. I’m hoping we can find a really sweet set at Crate & Barrel. I dunno, something about having an awesome set of knives just makes me wanna cook more. LOL Of course, that’s not the only thing I’m excited about, but I definitely can’t wait to see what they’ve got there. Just going to Crate & Barrel and looking at all the cool stuff is fun in itself. Haha

So WordPress is going crazy for this new website called PicApp. It’s a great resource for high quality stock images. I found this really awesome picture of a cellist from 1850:

[picapp src=”7/c/3/1/Cellist_fe6e.jpg?adImageId=4877948&imageId=3345259″ width=”467″ height=”594″ /]

Pretty cool/creepy, huh? I also found this picture of Big Bird:

[picapp src=”d/0/7/4/f6.JPG?adImageId=4877977&imageId=2319203″ width=”380″ height=”556″ /]

I don’t know why.

Anyway, cool site. Bookmark’d fo sho.

Speaking of cool webstuff, heard about Photosketch yet? It’s this new program that makes it possible for pretty much anyone who can draw a stick figure to use Photoshop. Basically, you sketch out what you want. Like, you want a picture of a caveman riding a rocket in outer space while shooting alligators at a bearshark.

So you sketch a stick figure riding a basic sketch of a rocket, draw some stick alligators or whatever, then label everything in the picture. Photosketch then takes over and puts everything in its place for you. Ta-da, fancy Photoshoppage. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to check it out.

Oh, I finally heard from my advisor! We’re working out my scheduling concerns. It looks like there’s an English 3300 class that I can take for my Humanities minor, because it’s a Philosophy and Literature class. Ugh, just saying the name of the class puts me to sleep. I’m gonna have to work really hard to get through that one. On the bright side, it also looks like I can take another English 3300 class as an elective. Why is it the bright side, you may ask? It’s a class about Science Fiction literature, friend. OH YES. That’s gonna rock. Between that and whatever History classes I sign up for, that should make up for having to deal with the PhilLit class. Should be a fun final semester for yours truly. 🙂

Oooh, I like the sound of that. “Final semester.” I can taste it already, friend.

iPSotD:

I clean up nice. Haha

Stressed?

Saw this at UTA last night. Given the context of the flier, I thought it was hilarious (and mildly scary) how the phone number tabs had been ripped off the bottom.

Isn’t that just classic? It’s kinda sad, though. I mean, either people are trying to be funny, or they really are THAT stressed. I feel bad for them. I mean, I have my share of stress, of course. The stuff I talked about yesterday, for example. But I’m able to calm it down after a while, whereas it looks like some of the people interested in this seminar just don’t have that ability. It’s sad. They need some Jesus.

Both tests went well last night. The Criminal Justice test had a couple of challenging questions, but I think I did just fine. The History of the Renaissance map quiz was a breeze. There was ONE place I wasn’t able to identify, and I still feel stupid for not remembering it. I can’t even remember it now! It’s silly. But I got all the other ones just fine, and I got both bonus questions, so I’m not worried about it.

Business Comm. and Pirates of the Caribbean tonight. Also, the Arlington High Orchestra is doing a concert at UTA tonight with a couple other high schools, so I may see if I can track down Keefer while they’re there, just to say hi. Not sure if I’ll have time to do that, though, because I’m going to get my hur-ah cut at 4:30. We’ll just have to wait and see!

Ever have a song really get to you at the most bizarre and random moment? I just heard this song on K-LOVE by Mark Schultz called “Walking Her Home,” and listening to it just made me think about how much Jenn and I love each other. And mercy, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I can’t even look up the lyrics to post them on here, it got to me that much. I texted Jenn to tell her about it, and I think I might have made her cry a little. Heh.

Whew. Yeah, that whole situation didn’t help this headache much. I took some ibuprofen earlier, so that knocked it down a little. But I still feel it behind my right eyeball, and it’s driving me nuts. Sinus pressure sucks. I still have some crud wandering around in my head, and I hate it. Jenn’s feeling a little better though, thank goodness. I was a little worried about her, given the fact that she’s a kindergarten teacher. Not the healthiest atmosphere when it comes to viruses! Speaking of, a good friend of mine and her little boy are both home with the swine flu today, so please pray that they get through it quick enough. Sure is spreading like wildfire now. I think I heard yesterday that a teacher in Weatherford died from it? Awful stuff. Be careful out there, friends. It’s only gonna get worse!

iPSotD:

Thing? The hand of the space cadet of a tech specialist I had to work with yesterday.

One ring or two to rule them all…

So this weekend was about as awesome as it could get right now. Jenn and I got our wedding bands! Wanna see them?

Well, this is all you’re gonna get. LOL! We’re not showing them to ANYONE (except our parents) until the wedding day. But friend, I gotta tell you, they look fantastic. Jenn’s matches her engagement ring perfectly, and looks absolutely stunning on her. And my ring is just freakin’ sweet. It’s a very unique design that I haven’t seen used before, and it feels amazing on my hand. I can’t wait until I’m wearing it all the time. These next eight months cannot be over with soon enough!

After we picked them up from Robbins Bros. late Saturday morning, we went and hung out with my family all day. Talked a lot about wedding stuff, ranging from finalizing the guest list to planning out the rehearsal dinner. It was a great planning session, and it made Jenn and me all the more excited about the wedding. 🙂 We also got to spend some great quality time in general with my family, which is something we rarely have time to do these days. We drove out to the place where we’re having the wedding reception, since my parents hadn’t seen it yet. They were setting it up for a reception when we got there, so we got to see it pretty close to how it’ll look for our reception (minus the color scheme and table arrangements). My parents definitely loved how it looked, so it was exciting to finally show it to them.

Oh, funny side story. The Sheraton offers (relatively) cheap parking for people going to events at the new Cowboys Stadium, since it’s right up the street from the hotel. And since the A&M/Arkansas game was at Cowboys Stadium this weekend, there were all manner of crazy/drunk folk parking there. But one vehicle stood out amongst all the hubbub:

Is this not one of the most awesome vehicles you’ve seen in your whole entire life!? Seriously, AWESOME. It looks like it only accepts the blood of terrorists for fuel.

Anyway, yep, overall it was an excellent weekend. And of course, to celebrate this awesome weekend, I… came back to work on Monday. Buuuuzzkiiiiiill. *sigh* At least it’s a relatively quiet day. Only one printer jam. I spent a good part of the morning trying to figure out my schedule for the Spring semester. I’m down to 14 hours: 12 hours of electives (including 3 advanced), and 3 hours of an advanced class from a list of required classes for my Humanities minor. Well, I’ve got the electives taken care of for sure. There are four advanced History classes that I can use for all four slots. The only problem now is taking care of that Humanities course, because NONE of the classes on that blasted list are freakin’ available in the afternoon/evenings. AUGH. So I’m not really sure what I’m going to do. I’ve emailed my advisor, so hopefully she’ll get back to me first thing tomorrow morning when she’s back from out of town.

Please pray that I can get this worked out. I HAVE to graduate in May, and it’s gonna be horrible if it doesn’t work out because of of one friggin’ class. I’m confident that we’ll figure it out, just gotta get a better picture of all my options from my advisor.

iPSotD:

I hate Xenon Headlamps. They stab my eyes like knives of light.

Something a little different…

Not a whole lot on my mind today (other than PAYDAY WOO-HOO!), so I think for today, I’m going to post a couple of reports that I’ve written this week. They’re nothing fancy, but they give an idea of what I’m doing right now at school… which is pretty dang sweet. They’re both internet-based assignments, where I had to look up a website and answer some questions based on what I find. They’re both based in the archaeological realm, but the report on the Queen Anne’s Revenge is for my Pirates of the Caribbean class. I’ll do a separate post for each one.

iPSotD:

So... many... birds...