Midterms: check! Blog update

Now that the 8 huge homework assignments and the three midterm exams that filled my past three weeks are over, it's time to update my dear blog.  Hello social life.  Hello spring break.  Hello world.

These past few weeks were intense, so intense that not only did I break some personal records but I also missed a few important social events.  The personal records beaten have to do with hours spent in Davis Hall in one day (over 15 hours on March 18th, from 7:55 am to 11:00 pm), and incapacity of solving past exam exercises (when studying for CE221 - Nonlinear Structural Analysis).  This class (CE221) is a pain in the neck.  The average of past years midterm exams grades was about 30%.  After doing that midterm on Thursday, I guess it won't be much different from that this year.  I'm likely to be able to beat the curve so don't worry, I won't fail.  :)

In what concerns to the social events I missed, the biggest one was St Patrick's Parade, on March 16th.  Saint Patrick's Day is an Irish national holiday on March 17th, in the name of a Roman Briton slave who is told to have brought Christianity to Ireland.  However, its festivities (at least in America) include everything but religious celebrations.  Instead, they include public parades, people wearing green attire and drinking like crazy.  Because it was a lovely sunny day in SF, they also included lots of red faces in the following day.  Hehe.  I missed the parade in the city but didn't miss the super cool event organized by the irish residents in ihouse, which included irish food, celtic music and traditional irish dancing classes.  Oh, I love ihouse and how it gives us the opportunity to experience cultural events...!  Who doesn't know that all that the Irish people are known for is drinking, drinking and drinking?  The Irish guys in ihouse, one of them being my good friend Rob, made a big effort in showing that Irish people know how to have fun without being crazily drunk, and they did a great job.  

Another social event I missed this week was the Portuguese Father's Day.  I sent Dad a small present and tried to text him throughout the day but missed a proper post on my blog, wishing him a very, very good day.  I guess Dad could tell I was super busy struggling with CE221 and decided to give me some great news that day: Dad is coming to visit me for two days in two weeks.  It is going to be a short visit but it is still a visit and I couldn't be more excited about it!  I'm already making plenty of plans for us, including going to my "prom" party, going shopping in an outlet, making a little tour around campus and going out for good food.  Yummy!

After the big exam on Thursday, I took some time to relax, partied Thursday night with a surprise birthday party for Courtney and came down to LA yesterday.  I had initially planned to spend the first part of Spring Break in Berkeley just working for my thesis but then I realized I would probably feel lonely and depressed, specially because today is Mico's birthday and all my family except me would be together.

Mico's birthday is the final topic I wanted to cover on this post.  My big brother turned 26 today.  It's still weird for me to think about it.  Isn't 26 already a respectable age?  Isn't he already getting close to being 30?  Yes, he is, but he is aging in a great way.  On one hand, he got much more mature in the past few years.  Mainly due to Rita's influence, he is a man now, and a great man.  He's the best friend someone can ask for, he's been successful at work and has good goals for the near future.  On the other hand, he will be always a child, with an amazing sense of humor, even when he turns 100 years old.  He has the both of the two worlds, right?  Happy birthday Mico.  Hopefully, this will be the only birthday of one of us we spend apart from each other.  I love you.