(Late & half written Valentine's Day Post)

I'm really struggling with finding time to write this term/year. I'm finding that I don't really have much time to myself a lot lately. If it is time to myself it is quickly taken up by doing homework when I can focus in my alone time. I don't get much time to sort out my thoughts, let alone write them here.

This last week, though I know it should've been easy, I stressed out a lot. Homework was relatively difficult getting completed by myself and I feel bad having to ask others or rely on them for an explanation of how to do things. I started to visit with professors this week for getting some clarification on topics (which I should've started doing sooner, but better late than never).

I don't know if I wrote about this last time, but I applied for a Co-op Director position here on campus and we were supposed to get emails sometime this last week.. but I didn't get one today, and it is past the 5pm Friday of week 5, which was when I had anticipated hearing back about it. I'm getting a bit antsy and nervous about it. My sister is also home this weekend, as are RA interviews which I have tomorrow morning, and I wanted to be able to go home and tell them whether or not I got the job, and also to be able to have interviews with that knowledge.

This last weekend Karl and I had gone to Multonomah Falls to celebrate our Valentine's day early. It was really pretty there. The Gorge was windy, but it was still really nice considering its still kinda winter. We hiked up to the top of the falls, which I was skeptical of because I never work out, but I made it and was impressed with myself. I wasn't even sore the next day.. (impressed yet?). After this.. We went to McDonald's for lunch/dinner. (meh... if you do a hike you totally can reward yourself with unhealthy things... right?) While we were at Multonomah I bought those cool mind puzzle things. Those weird trinkets that you have in your office/waiting room for people to play with and try and solve.. I love those things. Flashback: When I was younger at my aunt and uncle's house, we had this weird wooden block drilled with 3 holes in it. So if you think of a wooden rectangle with the 3 holes going completely thru with a rope fed through in a tangled mess where at the end of both sides of the rope it is attached to a ring. It randomly has two beads on the rope right at the edge of the ring where the rope attaches to it. I looked for pictures of this because it's really hard to describe and couldn't find any.. Alas.. when I was 7, I was playing with it one time when we were over there visiting, and I was actually able to solve it. I remember showing my mom and dad and then showing my aunt and uncle... and we were never quite able to make it as difficult as it was before I had solved it (so many other people could solve it too now). There was also the 7th grade where after math class they had these puzzles to play with when you finished your homework. I was mesmerized by this one called 'The towers of Hanoi'

This is what it looked like.. only I think the one I did had less disks.. The point of this one was to move all of the disks to the other side. The rules are that you may not put a larger disk on top of a smaller disk and may only move one disk at a time. It is do-able without knowing the trick to it, it would just take you a lot more time, and many more moves. I had discovered how to do this when I was in 7th grade without knowing the pattern, and the more I did it, the more I realized what was taking too much time or too many moves and eventually discovered the pattern without having looked it up.

So.. long story short, I love mind puzzles and they help me challenge myself intellectually to think outside the box.