back to my senior design thing, here's the plot of land we are suppossed to design our building on. It's right next to a golf course and also surrounded by several big time gov't buildings. I wouldnt know that except when we were out checking out the spot taking pictures, these two big official looking men came out to us, showed us their badges and were like, "what are you doing taking pictures of federal agencies???" eeek, we all got a little nervous, they had big guns and looked really mean. but luckily after we said who we were and what we were there for they were really nice and told us to build a nice building and wished us luck.
and hey, this shot may not look all that exciting now, but just wait till we get our big exciting "office building" in there ;)

ok, so i was walking to class with my roommate (jess) earlier today....
we see a flock of ibis walking in front of us, which is quite a common thing on campus, they are EVERYWHERE, especially by the lake. well she gets all excited at seeing them for some reason and screams out, "Look at the Ibis!! I want to play with them!" she then goes running after them. They fly away... jess again,
"Hey, I didn't know they could fly!" :(
hehehehehe, look what i have to live with... :) jk

i don't want to grow up, or have to go find a job, start a career, ahhh, i just want to go back to kindergarden where they sat us at our tables, sprayed some foam/shaving cream stuff on the table and let us play with it until it all disolved. those were the good old days. now it's sr year of college, i have never had any engineering experience, i don't know of any places or people i can get a job through, and we have just begun our sr design project that we will spend from now till may working on. it's described as,
"The main objective of our senior design project is to work as team to build an office building while taking into consideration important factors such as safety, environmental impact, cost, transportation, architectural, mechanical, civil, and other aspects. The building will be architecturally and aesthetically pleasing to the eye which will attract business and customers. The project will consist of a single building with an integrated parking garage. Specific plans and details of the design will be developed after our group has been given a site and specifications for this project. Group member’s names, majors, and the field of interest are listed below. Our organizational chart shows the diverse interest and abilities of our group and maps out how everyone will help each other during this project." - and then there are a bunch of charts that describe who is heading each category. but come on now, i still don't know what on earth i am suppossed to do with this thing. well i guess i'll have to see how the semester pans out... ahh and then next semester too 8*

due to all of the "possible" hurricane frances effects, we have been evacuated from our apartments and sent to the dorms. now its not so crouded since most of the local florida kids have gone home for the long weekend, but we are locked in this building until up to monday night and the storm is not coming anywhere near us. if anything we are going to have a lot of rain and a lot of wind, but thats really not much of a danger is it??? ahhh, but this is soo boring. they made it a dry campus for the weekend so not only are we stuck in this building, but we are all stuck sober, cramped, and bored... ahhh, all we can do now is just pray it weekens more and we can get out!!!
well i can't say its been all boring, we were allowed outside today where we "attemped" to play a little bit of ultimate frisbee. aside from the winds carrying it off across the field, we had loads of fun then and the several movies watched today and of course the card games... well more fun to come... hopefully ;)

ok, one more picture because amanda was upset i was only featuring her nostril and not the fact that she was having a good hairday that day so here ya go!!! Look at that scrunched hair!!!!

oh here is a picture of my teeth that i took the night before i left buffalo. i likr the picture because they look soo pearly white!!! i tried to have then as my main picture cuz i don't really like the one up right now, but they took it down :( but here it is again!!!



and then here is a picture ofamanda that same night. check out the poster behind her head, GO KERRY!!! it was one i got down here at a rally last year



and then here is a picture of me ;)

im sooo excited!!! there's a hurricane coming, well it's probably going to miss us here in miami, but they cancelled school for the next 2 days and we have monday off so, NO SCHOOL TILL TUESDAY!!!!
anyone interested in coming down here for a hurricane party get a flight down now!!! we're gonna be having ourselves some fun this weekend!!!!
;)

ok, so i don't really know what ot write about so i guess i'll just do a little of a whole lot of things...
So im back down in miami, living on campus for my 4th year in a row, yeah, im a dork, but whatever, it's convienent, and a whole lot easier. im living with jess, a coxwain on my team and alex and imani, two girls on the basketball team. they are all really nice girls, and they all crack me up constantly. i just met alex and imani this fall really, alex is a transfer and imani is in her second year so i guess i just didn't really meet her last year. anyways, its a lot of fun here, but our front door sucks and locks automatically, unlike any other door i've had here, and i've locked myself out once and alex did it for her second time today.
well aside from the living arrangements, "stuff" seems to be going well. we havent started rowing yet but we have started lifting and as a result my ass hurts. all the squats and lunges really do a toll on my hamstrings and butt muscles. OUCH. but we have done a lot of our team meeting things and such. but oh, i cnat wait to get on the water!!!! it just makes my day to get up at 5:30, head down to the boathouse and have a good row then back to campus by 9. It really just sets my days up. but im a little worried about when that time will come. we have been getting up at 7:00 lately and not doing neirly the amount of stuff as we will soon be doing and i'm exhausted as well as sore. so i guess im not really looking foreward to getting up at 5:15 just yet.
and relating to rowing, i have been working on fundraising stuff for our team to go to australia over thanksgiving this year to row in a race there, but plans changed and they aren't going till next year, well that sucks for allof us seniors :( but we are still going to do the stuff. we are planning an ergathon that will help rais money for "their" trip next year and for habitat for humanity. and also going to try to build a house for them too, im thinking that will be awesome fun and group bonding for us. i think its hard to get 30+ college girls to really bond, but anything is worth a try right? my co-captain, anna and i have been trying to think of things to bring unity to the team all summer and still now but we really havent come up with many good ideas. but we still all love each other ;) and have a great time together.
ANd then there is school, classes seem boring this semester, well all except for my sr design class which just seems scary. it means im finally a sr and that im almost done which means i need to figure out what i am going to do with myself for the rest of my life. and its really scary because i really don't think i know how to do what we are suppossed to be able to do. we are in groups of 6 people and we are all either civil, environmental or architectural engineers, i'm an arch engineer of course. and we have to design some building, EVERY ASPECT OF THE BUILDING. thats crazy, i really hope those civil and environmental engineers know a lot cuz there was a lot of stuff that i was looking at for the first time the other day. and we all had to kinda break off to group up and pick our buildings and the options were stupid but there was a school building which all the "smart" kids had to go to, then some water piping something up in jacksonville that a lot of environmental guys had to go to then a housing development that a bunch of guys who are notorious for cheating and just being smelly went to so i definitly avioded, then the marina which looked really cool, but they already had a bnch of ppl, so i couldn't join them, and then the shopping center. Now i am really not a fan of shopping centers and such and this is the project that we will be doing for the rest of the year and take with us to our job interviews, but whatever, i got stuck with the shopping center. BUt ideally, what i would love to do is stadiums, anything like that would be amazing, i lo
ve
sports and arenas and such and i was dying to do one of those. but no, im stuck with the shopping center which after discussing with my group, we kinda changed it to office building and to make it even simpler, an warehouse. now i really don't want to spend a year on a warehouse, but we'll see what works out. oh, but the thing that galls me, is the group that was doing the marins somehow changed the marina idea into a stadium!!! now they get to make a stadium!!! how the hell did that happen??? so now i want to up them one and have a warehouse with a shopping center and offices and a dodgeball court in the warehouse!!! suppounded by slip-n-slides!!! or ya know, something!!! but who knows, im still excited about it, we can really do just about anything, but not too hard that its tooooo much work but not too simple that its just too simple. oh, im sure it will be fun!!!
and then of course i can't leave out "someone" who i'm not gonna name, he doesn't need to be named. but its kinda a sore subject this year, he graduated last year, well actually 2 years ago, but was around last year. but now he is gone. it's really so sad. I would see him EVERYDAY every other year. it would really make my day, just brighten up everything. i'll explain him at a different time maybe, he needs an entire entry to fully understand. But he's gone now. my only contact with him is through AIM. how sad is that. I don't even have a phone number, or hell, i don't even knwo where he is right now. i just want to see him again, everyday, just like before, but a little different than before. but im working on that kinda.
but as for now, im tired. its late. i have to get up at 7 to run stairs, ahhh, 15x8 flights. its gonna hurt, but its worth it. and hurricant frances is coming, maybe, but ofcourse its coming over the weekend and into our long weekend. come on, i just wnat them to cancel a few days of classes. or at least a day, and not a friday, come on, who really has friday classes anyways. oh well, the rain is gonna be fun to play in but now im just thinking of my sheets ;) its bedtime for julie. wow, this is long and look at all the typo's and spelling errors, i think im just gonna leave them in ;) byebye for now

so hello from miami, i got her a few days ago but havent gotten online until earlier today. sounds like you guys had a blast at the big birthday party!!!! I wish I could have been there, actually could have met some of you, I’ve actually only met mike once… oh well, later I guess.
juxtaposition time:
ok, so here’s my rant… So I was at church this evening with my mom, it’s a nice little church right off campus, gets quite a mix of college students and families and old people. But what I saw today just bothered me. Now first, I’m just gonna say how shocked I was 2 years ago when they started announcing before mass for people to please turn off their cell phones so they don’t disrupt mass. And of course people still don’t always turn them off and they ring, but immediately people still grab for the phones and silence them. But today, oh today… this girl in the row right in front of me of all places first lets the phone ring obnoxiously loud, then plays around with it a bit, then, oh then she starts text messaging back and forth with someone. And I guess if it was actually a big emergency that would be ok, but it wasn’t. She carried on giggling as she fumbled with this little phone, pounding little messages. Now I guess she could have been relaying the priest’s sermon to someone, but that wasn’t even funny enough to be giggling that much. Oh well whatever, I know this just shows how sometimes people just really bother me, ahhh!!! Ok, I’m done ranting, wow it feels good to get that one off my chest ;)
ok, well have a good day and i'll get some stuff from here later, i need to finish unpacking and settling in and sending my mom home so i can finally clear my head and begin my sr year of college!!!! :)

... to finish packing and days I have left here in buffalo. Im leaving to go back to school in Miami on wednesday, and it feels like I really haven't been here that long at all this summer. I've been back since the very beginning or july but it feels like its only been a few weeks. I guess i spent most of the summer rowing, but even that didn't seem to hardly last long at all. and then i did a few other things here and there like laser eye surgery and an eric clapton concert and the music thing on the 3rd (i think) when i met mike and i went to the fair the other day and a bills game this evening (well that was exciting though, i love those games!!!). And of course i hung out with amanda a little, but i really havent even seen her that much and really havent seen anyone else from buffalo at all. maybe i've just lost contact with ppl or hell i know i've broken ties with others a while back, but it just feels like i've wasted the past month and a half. Maybe thats not how i should say it, but i can't think of any other way to say it. I guess i just can't figure this place out. I've really tried to enjoy it here, i know the summer is my time to do it cuz once winter break comes along when i come back again, the cold and snow always turn me off right away. i just can't stand the cold, and despise being surrounded by snow with a passion. that's all from bad snow experiences when i was younger but i can't forget about it. but yeah back to summer being my time to let buffalo shine, the weather this summer has been terrible. I really can't remember a summer in the past 21 years here in buffalo when it has been so cold and just not nice. buffalo is supposed to be one of the nicest cities in the summer, but it really dropped the ball on this one.
All in all, i still really havent discovered what so many of you love about buffalo. maybe i will some day, but i really don't think it's gonna happen in the next 2 days.
maybe next summer i'll try with a different approach, try new things, figure this all out. Oh, and that still all depends if i do come back next summer. once i graduate i'm probably going to have to figure stuff out with jobs and stuff. eeek, once i graduate, when am i going to graduate??? herm... well who knows...
wish me luck on my last 2 days!!!!