Ohrwurm

Ohrwurm (m.)

This is yet another example of the complexity and beauty of the German language — a German speaker would say “Es gibt ein Ohrwurm in meinem Kopf.”, while we Americans would simply say “I have this song stuck in my head!”

You’d think that my Ohrwurm (yes, that literally means “ear worm”) would be the latest Ke$ha/Pitbull collaboration (“Timber”), maybe Katy Perry’s newest song (“Dark Horse”), or if I was feeling a little adventurous, “Pompeii” by Bastille (for the record, I actually love that song).

My Ohrwurm?  Not anything normal, of course.  For the past month or so, every lull in brain activity has led my thoughts to (of all things) “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.  I’ve tried everything — playing it at warp speed on the piano, listening to the Mormon Tabernacle choir’s rendition, singing it all the way through… and nothing seems to stick for more than a day or two!

(For your listening pleasure, here is the Mormon Tabernacle choir’s rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic — listen at your own risk…)

The bottom line:  this song needs to be out of my head in 5 weeks — I can’t bear going through the season of Lent with such an alleluia-filled song on constant mental replay.

Kate

Forever a Tiger

Some of the things I love the most:  black and gold, football games on crisp fall days, the way the Columns, Jesse Hall, Memorial Union, and Tiger Plaza look in all sorts of weather, and the sound of squeaking shoes on Norm Stewart Court.  It should come as no surprise that my alma mater (Mizzou) is one of my favorite places in the entire world.

I had season football & basketball tickets all four years of college, and missed only a handful of games.  It was really difficult going from football & basketball every weekend, to only hearing games on the radio and occasionally seeing them broadcast on CBS or KPLR 11.  So naturally, I jumped at the chance to head back for a men’s basketball game. 🙂 This was my sister’s Christmas present… in part because I really wanted to go to a game, and no one else would want to go with me…

We headed down to Columbia in the morning, and started the afternoon with lunch with Julie. 🙂  Julie is one of the friends I’ve had the longest.  We met in our school district’s gifted program in third grade, and were pretty close friends by fourth grade.  Over the course of our years in 4th through 12th grade, we were annoying, goofy, and spent a significant amount of time insulting each other.  I was her accompanist more times than I can count, and we got away with things like coloring pictures during movies in German class.  I went to Mizzou for undergrad, and Julie headed off to Webster University (here in St. Louis), where she majored in vocal performance.  Now, we’ve swapped cities – I’m back here in St. Louis, and she’s at Mizzou getting her master’s degree!  It’s great having such a good friend who I can stay with and see whenever I’m in town! 🙂

After lunch, Melissa and I parked near  Lafferre (aka the building where I spent a huge chunk of 2009-2013), and took some photos on Francis Quad, with the Columns and Jesse Hall as backdrops.  We finally started making our way over to Mizzou Arena, as I shared so many of the rich traditions that Mizzou has to offer:  the seven things to do before graduating, rubbing David R Francis’ nose before a test, staying silent under the journalism archway, walking across the engineering shamrock … the list goes on and on.

And why is this?  Last week, Melissa officially decided to be part of Mizzou’s freshman class this fall. 🙂 I’m on cloud nine.  I was trying so hard to stay unbiased during this entire college decision process, but if you’ve met me, you know how much I love Mizzou… I’m just really so happy that we’ll be able to share an alma mater, and have season tickets together in just a few years. 🙂

So anyway, back to Saturday.  We headed into Mizzou Arena and found our seats — I really miss being in Zou Crew, but I do have to say that it’s nice being able to see everything that goes on in the game!  We were playing South Carolina, a team coached by one of the craziest, scariest D-1 basketball coaches around… Frank Martin.  He always seems to be on the brink of exploding, and it’s just hilarious.

About 15 minutes before the game started, I got an unexpected text — Audrey (my two-time roommate in college, and also one of my very closest friends) texted me that she was about to go to her first basketball game, and asked how South Carolina was… naturally, I spazzed out.  She came over to our section at halftime, which was really exciting. 🙂 Only got to see her for 20 minutes, but it was still wonderful. 🙂

We won the game (always good, when you spend money on tickets), and Melissa and I stayed to sing the alma mater.  Afterwards, we darted out of Mizzou Arena, to hit up the bookstore (excuse me, Mizzou Store) before it closed at 6 pm.  After much deliberation, I settled on a black crewneck sweatshirt with a sparkly tiger logo, and a kelly green t-shirt with “Mizzou” in white letters.  I spoiled Melissa a bit too, with a white Mizzou t-shirt and a neon pink t-shirt with “Mizzou” in white letters. 🙂

Now that we were stocked up on Mizzou gear, we walked back to the parking garage, and headed out of Columbia, after a quick stop at Starbucks.  We jammed out to One Direction most of the way home, and frankly, it was nice to just escape St. Louis for awhile, and spend a day with my sister. 🙂

And one last thing — MIZ!

Kate

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Keep Art Happening

So, as most of you know, I am really big into K-12 STEM outreach.  This was something that developed when I joined SWE as a freshman in college, since my collegiate section was very focused on spreading the word about engineering.  Now that I’m a college graduate (and real life engineer!), I don’t have quite the number of outreach opportunities that I had over the past few years, but I still find ways to be involved.  I’m on SWE’s K-12 Outreach Committee, which is made up of people who are really passionate about outreach.  It’s the perfect place for me to be involved!

My outreach efforts aren’t just limited to SWE.  I’m also part of our 0-5 year employee organization at work, and am on the Community Service team.  Since I spent about 3/4 of my application talking about STEM outreach, an opportunity essentially fell into my lap…

So by this point, you’re probably wondering, “what does this have to do with art?”  Well, here’s the answer.  We’re partnering with local arts & education institutions, and this spring, we’ll be working directly with kids in grades 3-6 in a STEAM education initiative:  STEM + the arts. 🙂  I’m really excited about it, since I’m not just an engineer, but also have quite a musical background as well (piano, violin, vocal, even the pipe organ).  It’s pretty much the perfect project for me.

As part of this partnership, a few of us were invited to attend the Arts & Education Council’s annual gala.  It was held at the Chase Park Plaza – for those of you who don’t know, this is one of the most beautiful hotels in St. Louis.  We dined on exquisite cuisine and saw performances by amazing artists, and I felt like I was seeing a celebrity when David Robertson accepted an award on behalf of the Saint Louis Symphony.  (He’s their conductor, and he’s done great things for the orchestra and the community.)

Another cool thing — one of the gifts in our gift bag was a $5 gift card for donating through Power2Give.  Power2Give is a crowdfunding site (much like Kickstarter) for arts & education projects, and we were instructed to log on and donate to a STL-area project.  After much deliberation, I chose one by the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society — they’re using donations to buy guitars and teach kids how to play, especially in areas where they might not otherwise learn instruments.  I can’t imagine my life without the piano, and I firmly believe that economic status should not exclude people from the arts.

We have some absolutely phenomenal arts & cultural institutions here in Saint Louis, and I’m proud to call this place my home! And in the words of the Arts & Education Council:  keep art happening.

Kate

View of the stage, from my seat at table #6.

my Instagram of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra receiving an award for Excellence in the Arts

Instagrammed photo of the event program

P.S. If you scrolled this far:  this is one of my favorite commercials ever.  It’s a PSA for the power of the arts. 🙂

 

A Brush With Celebrity

More to come soon, but here’s this tidbit for now:

I tweeted at the new chancellor of Mizzou this afternoon.  He wears bowties (awesome), has degrees in physics (very awesome), tweets about Mizzou basketball (incredibly awesome), and was an engineering professor (beyond awesome). So naturally, I tweeted out that our chancellor is cooler than everyone else’s (true fact), and he not only favorited it, but tweeted back at me and followed me!

I had to explain the significance of this to my dad (typical), but I feel as if I had a brush with celebrity. It’s a bummer that I had to graduate before our new chancellor showed up, but I am very excited to see what he does for Mizzou Engineering!

MIZ!

Kate

Tigers, Wedding Bells, and a Blizzard

This has pretty much been the perfect weekend.  On Friday night, I got to watch my #8-ranked Mizzou Tigers win over Oklahoma State, in the 2014 Cotton Bowl.  At halftime, we led 17-7, and somehow, both teams combined to score 41 points in the fourth quarter.  I was starting to worry that Oklahoma State would pull off the win, but with 55 seconds left, one of our guys returned a fumble 73 yards… for a touchdown.  (Thank you to this ESPN article for giving me the right words to use.)  I was exhausted by the end of the game (11 pm is late, when you’ve been up since 5:30 am), but it was so worth it, and I’m so proud of my alma mater!

Jesse Hall lit gold, in honor of the Cotton Bowl win (Mizzou photo)

The weekend continued with a day that I have been anticipating for a long while.  George (one of my classmates and close friends) got engaged at the beginning of our junior year, to his then-girlfriend Julie, and they are absolutely perfect for each other, in so many ways. 🙂 I was so happy to be invited to their wedding, which took place yesterday afternoon!

The wedding was at the Jewel Box (one of my favorite places as a small child), and I was lucky to sit with several good friends from engineering school.  I’m beginning to discover that I have a habit of almost crying when the bride walks down the aisle… it happened when I saw my college roommate Izzy get married last summer, and it happened again when I saw Julie walk down the aisle yesterday.

The ceremony was beautiful, and I was so happy to see George & Julie joined in marriage. 🙂

George & Julie walking back down the aisle 🙂

The reception was so much fun.  I was seated at a table with a number of fellow Mizzou engineering alums (and some future ones!) and had a blast.  The food was delicious, the conversation was goofy and entertaining, and my legs actually still hurt from dancing so much.  The toasts from the father of the bride, maid of honor, and best man almost made me cry, and the father-daughter dance was so very sweet. 🙂  George & Julie’s first dance was really cute — I had no idea that George had so many dance moves!

After dinner, we all danced the night away, with classic dance songs like the Cupid Shuffle, Cha Cha Slide, the Wobble, and more recent hits, like Ke$ha / Pitbull’s “Timber”… which Nathan felt required a few trust falls. 😛  Nonetheless, it was a wonderful evening, despite Trevor picking me up and spinning me around twice… I actually got dizzy the second time.

It was wonderful to see so many friends from college.  I hadn’t been together with all of my boys (Nathan, Trevor, and George) since before graduation last spring, and it was absolutely wonderful to be with them again. 🙂 They’re crazy, but I’m so grateful that they became part of my life in college.  I couldn’t have made it through chemical engineering without them, and I hope to stay in touch with them for many years to come.

I’m wearing heels in this picture… and I’m still dwarfed by my friends, who are all over 6 feet tall. (Left to right: Trevor, me, George, and Nathan)

With all these friends in Kansas City, I’m really going to need to find a weekend to visit!  I have at least three places I can stay, so there’s really no excuse. 🙂

So, this morning, I woke up to snow.  Hard to believe that yesterday, the high was around 50, and tomorrow’s high is predicted to be -3.  (Yes, subzero temperatures in St. Louis.)  My family & I were among the 50-60 people who braved the snow and cold to head to church this morning.  The small congregation reminded me of being at Campus Lutheran, just a little bit. 🙂

After church, we headed home, and I haven’t stepped outside since then.  Sounds crazy, until you realize that it looked like this outside a few hours ago, and things have continued…

So, accordingly, I’m spending the day drinking coffee and tea, and finding things to do indoors…

Overall, this has been an incredible weekend, and a great start to 2014.  Can’t wait to see what happens next this year!

Kate

Another Year Come and Gone

Every year is full of changes, but this one more than most.  The highlights:

• Accepting a full time job in my hometown
• Beating #5 Florida in basketball, and seeing it on the ESPN homepage the next day
• Three more college snow days
• Meeting the FY13 SWE president (Alyse Stofer) at our region conference in Omaha
• Being a queen candidate for E Week 2013
• Receiving the Outstanding Senior Award for the Department of Chemical Engineering
• Getting to know my sister’s wonderful German exchange student
• Developing my SWE involvement through joining three society level committees and a new professional section
• Graduating from college – finally receiving my degree in chemical engineering!
• End of college moments, such as Senior Sendoff, climbing the tower in Lafferre, and having an incredibly social finals week
• Starting my full-time job
• Seeing one of my college roommates get married 🙂
• Trace Adkins concert under the Arch on the Fourth of July
• Celebrating my sister’s 17th birthday
• Spending a wonderful weekend in Kansas City — One Direction concert with my sister, and getting to see some great friends from college 🙂
• Rediscovering STL — the Botanical Gardens, the Zoo, City Museum, Busch Stadium, the Symphony, the Central West End, and new parts of downtown
• Meeting some wonderful new SWE friends in Minneapolis, for Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee training
• Heading to Olathe, Kansas for the SWE Region i Leadership Summit
• Apple picking with friends, both new and old
• My first annual SWE conference as a professional member, and the 5-6 days of memories in Baltimore
• First Mizzou football game as an alum — the seats left something to be desired, but the experience was awesome
• Becoming both a published author (SWE magazine) and photographer (Mizzou alumni calendar) in the same year
• Getting to see so many friends from high school, as they came home for the holidays

Below are a few of the moments that made 2013 so memorable.  Looking forward to all that 2014 brings!

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Kate