Thanksgiving

I am so excited to go home for Thanksgiving. I am just looking forward o relaxing and just enjoying the peace and quiet of home. I am also looking forward to the food! My family goes my dad's cousin's house where all of his side of the family comes to eat. We don't go to my mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving because they live in New York, Hawaii, Florida, Louisiana, and some do actually live in Virginia too! It is always fun going there because my sister and her husband come and we just enjoy each other since we don't get to see each other too often. I have always partaken in being one of the people that eats until they drop. It is one of the many pleasures of being a runner. I love being able to eat whatever I want. I always run the Turkey Trot in my town which is about 4 miles so it makes me feel like I can eat even more. After I do the turkey trot, my friend Kate invites us over to have pancakes (her mom can make the best pancakes!!). Another Thanksgiving tradition that I enjoy participating in is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I love seeing all the floats and performances that go along with it. I want to go one day and actually be a part of it. I think that would just be so awesome. Well either that or New Years Eve in New York. That would be pretty cool too. I really enjoy the holidays. It is just so much fun. We usually set up the Christmas tree shortly after Thanksgiving. I hope we will have time to do that when I am still home! It usually becomes my job to do it but I don't mind it at all. We have SO many ornaments so at the end of putting them on the tree there is usually no space left. We have collected them over so many years. It is cool seeing all the different ones that we have and remembering where they came from. As much as I love Christmas time, I think putting up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving is too early. It just isn't time yet and I think that people should wait instead of rush it. I mean there is still over a month to go and I see Christmas trees in the stores and hear Christmas music on the radio. I may sing along and what not but I don't approve! I am really glad that we get an entire week off for Thanksgiving though. It is really convenient because I think the small one day breaks are pretty pointless for people who have to drive a really long ways or even fly to get home. I guess people leave because they just want to be home but I would rather be home for longer than just two and a half to three days personally, half of that being driving. I hope that you guys have an awesome Thanksgiving break and a very Happy Thanksgiving!

What the Cold Can Bring

I can't believe how quickly the temperature changed over the past day! I was expecting it to get cold but not drop 20 degrees in the span of a day! I went outside yesterday morning and thought it actually wasn't that cold. Then I went outside a little later and noticed how much the temperature had dropped. I then proceeded to go outside last night in the dark and almost froze. I didn't think that I was going to make it across the drillfield! I honestly don't know how I am going to survive winter! Usually at home it gets pretty cold but there is one thing missing there: the wind. If the wind didn't occur here then I would be perfectly content and be able to stand it. I would much rather be somewhere warm than somewhere cold. I think the coldest weather I have ever been in was in Snowshoe, WV. My family and I took a trip up there to go skiing one year right after Christmas. It took so long to get there because of the snow that was coming down. It had started as soon as we left the house and didn't stop for the next few days. When we finally got to the resort, it had already snowed so much. I don't think that I have ever seen so much snow. And it kept snowing! It wasn't just light flurries either. It was coming down. We went skiing when it was still snowing and it was just miserably cold. I think it was eight degrees without the wind chill. My dad and were skiing together and we both had little hand warmers in our gloves and in our boots but they still didn't do much. We had to take so many breaks because neither of us could handle it. the visibility on the mountain was also very slim. We were on the second story of the place we were staying and the snow had built up so much we could jump off the balcony and hit the snow almost instantly so we did. I was a lot of fun being able to feel like a daredevil. After the snow finally cleared up a few days later we went out and really enjoyed it rather than just trudging through it. It was so beautiful. Everything was like a winter wonderland. There were trails that wound through the woods so we decided to take them. Since the snow was real, the ride was really smooth and it really glistened. I thought to myself, "Well I guess the cold isn't too bad." after seeing what it has the capability of bringing! Hopefully we will get a snow like that!

This is me after I jumped off the second story of our building.

Reminiscing

Getting this far into the semester it is crazy to think that we are almost done with half of our freshman year. Growing up really has shown me how time flies. Although many people, especially young ones, seem to wish their life away saying things like, "I just wanna be older." or something along those lines. I know I was definitely one of those kids. I remember just wanting to be older so I could beat up my older brother because I was too small to then. Looking back though its like where did the time go? I remember my childhood but I question why I wanted to leave it. I had a big backyard, lots of toys, and I was just extremely happy. I was one of those girls that was influenced a little bit too much by her brother so I grew up like a little boy. I always played outside with him and we had forts and built tree houses with my dad. I remember how I would always go on adventures with my brother through the woods at our house. It was quite marshy so we never knew what would happen. We would always have the greatest times exploring in there and something new always happened. I really enjoyed playing pokemon and other games of that nature for a long while. I am glad that I had such a good companion growing up although we did fight a lot. When we weren't fighting we did enjoy each other. In one of my previous blogs I wrote how I lived on the water. I would always go down there are just sit on the beach and enjoy the view. I used to be able to stay down there forever and just watch the waves go in and out. I really miss being able to do that. During the winter, the tide would go unusually low so I would be able to wander farther along the beach than during the summer. Those were the days when I had no cares in the world. I know I stopped doing that when I started having a lot more homework and ultimately when I grew up. I would walk down there sometimes but not nearly as often as I did when I was younger. I started taking it for granted and knew it was always going to be there. Now that it is 4 1/2 hours away, I really do miss it and would give anything to have that comfort of home right outside my dorm. After writing this, I don't want to go and relive the past but I just wish that I would have taken more time to appreciate things that I know I didn't.

Family

My family has shaped me into the person I am today and I know I would not be the same with out them. My parents have lead me in the right direction and I know that they have raised me to the best of their ability. They taught me all the manners and right from wrong. They also taught me to live a healthy lifestyle. I couldn't imagine how my life if I was brought up any differently. they mean the world to me. Another person that has had a huge impact in my life is my brother, Chris. He has taught me many different things in my life too. Some of the lessons were easier to learn than others because of his methods. We used to fight all the time but looking back, those fights really did make me a tougher person. I can handle a lot more than most girls can. It takes a lot to really get to me. One lesson that he taught me was that if you give someone a reaction, then they will keep tormenting you just to get that little something out of you. I didn't think that I could really use that in real life but I have seen cases where it applied in so many different scenarios. I love him to death and I know he will always be there for me when I need him. Although he is tiny, he can take on whoever tries to hurt me! Last but not least is my sister, Jacqueline. She is from my dad's previous marriage so technically she is only my half sister but I would never view her as anything less than my sister. She is ten years older than I am and she lives in Richmond, VA but she has always been there for me. When I was younger I would call her every week and sometimes twice a week. If she wasn't there when I called I knew that she would call back soon. She never treats me like there is such an age difference. When she first got engaged when I was 15, she called me first to tell me. I don't think she will ever know how much that meant to me. In the days following her engagement she asked me to be her maid of honor. Being 15 and having to do all of the maid of honor stuff was a little frightening. Luckily her friends helped me out and it turned out to be a beautiful wedding. She gave me confidence that I never knew I could have by doing that. She always was there to listen in ways that my other family members couldn't. She just informed my family that there is a little one on the way and I couldn't be happier for her and her husband Josh. My family is the best family that I could have asked for and I wouldn't trade them for the world!

Loving my major!

I have heard people talking about wanting to switch their majors recently due to course request right upon us and it brought me to think how much I like my major thus far. I know it is still only the first semester of my first year but I have really enjoyed (most) of my classes and I am very fascinated with my Intro to Meteorology even though it is at 8 a.m.! I have been interested in meteorology for a very long time. I was the kid that would always have her head stuck in a book about weather. I loved looking at all the amazing pictures and just learning the basics of it. Nowadays it is definitely more in depth but that just makes it more interesting. Whenever people ask me what I want to study or what my major is and I answer meteorology they always seem to ow and ah and tell me how they would have done that if they had a second chance. I find that pretty cool that people find what I find fascinating interesting. In a sense it makes me feel like I made the right choice just from a little conversation like that. They then proceed to ask me how I became interested and I tell them it was from watching thunderstorms come across the river with my dad. We would go outside on the porch and just gaze at all of the amazing lightning and I will never forget that. It was so fascinating. I was really fascinated when Hurricane Isabel came through my area. I sat on the porch and watched it as it passed while everyone else was nuzzled away inside. Funny side story about when the power went out during that hurricane: There was a Virginia Tech football game the night the storm came through and we didn't have any power  so we had to find a way to watch the game. We had a generator going at the time but it only ran a few things such as the fridge. We ended up cutting out the power to the fridge and routing it to the TV. Go Hokies! Anyways... I have had a great experience with Virginia Tech and I have enjoyed all of the resources they have provided me for the best learning experience I could have. I had the awesome privilege of meeting one of the people that I only dreamed of meeting. His name is Jim Cantore and he made a visit to my Meteorology class when he was here filming in the Wind tunnel here. This is the link to him here filming there! Hopefully it will open. I couldn't get the picture of him and I but maybe it will make it into another blog!

http://www.weather.com/video/sponsored-video/jim-cantore-vs-cat-5-winds-39063?fb_action_ids=584757471583331&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

College Academics

The school year thus far has definitely been different than I would have imagined. The classrooms are mostly lecture halls and you never do worksheets as you did in high school. Pretty much what happens is you take notes and then you study a few weeks worth of notes then take a test. I find that really difficult because I like doing exercises that help me understand the material that I have just learned. As much as I hate to say it, homework is actually somewhat helpful. I used to loathe homework in high school but now it is a welcome thing. I enjoy getting to know the material more so by the time the test comes around I can actually pass it. I hate that feeling when your teacher gives you the test you feel that you are fully prepared for and you actually know barely anything on it so you end up just staring at it hoping that lightning strikes. On my first real exam in my Human Geography class, this happened. I now know how my teacher does his tests. He is one for details and the smaller concepts. Usually most teachers put the larger concepts on their test and that is usually what I study. This test had things on it that he had talked about for maybe a minute then moved on. I looked at the test and almost cried. I felt like I remembered him talking about things on the test but I couldn't remember the exact details. Needless to say, I did not do too swell on that exam. The exams in high school really just cover the basics and you just need to memorize your notes and the main concepts. I really do miss that. After only a month and a half of being a college student, I now realize how much I took for granted in high school academics. I thought things were hard there (Which in some cases they were) but you always seemed to know what was going on and what was going to be on the test and you knew how to prepare. In my governors school classes, we had midterms and finals to help us prepare for college classes since we were getting college credit. The only difference was that we actually did exercises to help prepare for these tests so what I thought college was going to be like and what it is actually like are totally different! I like it though. Especially the gaps between classes and not having to go for seven straight hours of nothing but work.

Going Home

I went back to my home in Middlesex, VA this weekend which is on the Middle Peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. It is about a four and a half hour drive from Blacksburg. My brother goes here so he came and picked me up and we started the trek back home. When I returned home I realized how much I did miss about it. They weren't really big things but they were still things that I wanted to take back to my dorm with me. Some of those things are my dogs and my cats. They were so happy to see me and I them. It was like a little happy family reunion. Another thing I found that I missed was the water. Growing up on the river my entire life and just leaving it was weird. I guess I took having the view of the Piankatank river right outside my window for granted all these years. I also miss being able to watch the thunderstorms that come across the river and how I can see the lightning strikes that hit the other side. This is one of the reasons that I wanted to major in meteorology. Now I just have East AJ to look at. I also miss seeing the stars as bright as they are at home. I live in a very small town with little light pollution so the stars are so beautiful. I love watching meteor showers whenever they occur so being able to see the stars is a must. In big cities where you can't see the stars, you can't see meteor showers. Last but definitely not least is having peace and quiet. Although my dorm isn't that bad, being able to sleep in my bed with no noise from the room over was fantastic. I have yet to get use to having people screaming down the hall in my dorm at two in the morning. The sound of crickets chirping is the most noise that I hear on a normal night at my house. Although I do miss these things, I love it at Tech and wouldn't want to trade it for any other university because it is absolutely beautiful here!


This is the view from my dock of the Piankatank River

Roommates

Coming into Virginia Tech I as a little weary of doing the whole random roommate thing because of the experience that my brother had two years ago here. His roommate was crazy and had a few run ins with the law and was drunk a lot and was just blatantly disrespectful to him. He also had some scary experiences where his roommate just didn't want to be alive anymore and my brother had to deal with that at 18 years old. On the other hand I was kind of looking forward to it because my dad and mom both did random roommate and they are still best friends to this day with their roommate and continue to visit them even though one lives in Washington State and the other lives in New York. Needless to say I got the luck of the draw. My roommate Carson has been great and she respects me in every aspect. We fit together really well and I enjoy talking to her and we have no problems with each other. I was actually surprised when I saw her because she is actually shorter than me, which doesn't happen too often. I am very happy that I can trust her and that she a kind, considerate person. I have heard stories of other people and their roommates might have started having problems after the first month. If that is the case then do you get a new roommate or do you just stick it the rest of the year? I would say that it really depends on the situation and how bad it is. It is so weird making the transition from having my own room to having to share a space smaller than my room back at home with another person. When we had an exchange student back when I was in 7th grade I had to share my brother's room with him because our exchange student got my room. I guess I got a little taste of it then but it is nothing compared to now. I think it is a good system that colleges have. You get the chance to really get to know someone over the course of the year by living with someone. It also prepares you for the real world and shows you just how to get along with other people when you have to deal with them (or however you may look at it). I hope that all of you guys got good roommates and that you won't have problems!

Finding My Niche

Since my time here I have had many opportunities to go out and make many friends. Before I came to Virginia Tech I went to Hokie camp and met tons of awesome people that I run into all over campus. It really gave me a chance to get to know some people before setting off and joining the Virginia Tech community. During class I have also met some really interesting and diverse people. I always enjoy meeting people that are in my major because they have similar interests as me and want to do the same thing with their life. Another cool way to meet people is by joining clubs. There is bound to be a club out there to fit your fancy due to the fact there are around 800 clubs including the Bendy Straw Club. While walking around Gobblerfest and it was quite overwhelming seeing all of the clubs come out and show what they have. I know that I didn't see about half of the clubs there. I have officially signed up for the Running Club and the Meteorology Club. By joining the running club I have met really nice people that have really made me feel welcome here. They always have something nice to say when I show up for practice. I joined the Meteorology Club but accidentally missed the first meeting on Tuesday. (oops)  I am looking forward to all of the cool things that they participate in. The thing that I am most looking forward to is when I am able to participate the in the Storm Chase in the Great Plains. That sounds so cool and I find severe weather fascinating. I am sure I will find more things to participate in throughout my four years here but thus far I have found these two clubs and it is a great start to my year feeling like I belong somewhere.

Why I Decided to Attend Virginia Tech

My story is a pretty average recollection of the reason for attending this fine university. It had what I was looking for and a lot of my family members have gone here too. My grandfather graduated in '33, my mom graduated in '79, my sister graduated in '07, and my brother is a junior here. Initially I had planned on attending The College of Charleston in South Carolina. My mom and I went down there and toured it and I fell in love with the school and the city. It was perfect. I had my mind set. I was reading some reviews one day about the school and they were written by former or current students. I really didn't like what I was reading. These posts made Charleston sound like a place that I would never fit in at. I then went and looked at the reviews about Virginia Tech and the only bad thing I read that people didn't like was that they had too much spirit. What kind of a complaint is that? I thought, "I can definitely deal with that for the next four years!" The weird part about this story is that I hadn't even considered Tech even though I had been coming here for my entire life because they didn't have my major. Two years or so before I would be attending college my mom told me that there was a new major at Virginia Tech. When she told me it was Meteorology I thought to myself that someone or something was telling me that this was the place for me and they were definitely right! I have yet to find a mean person here and that is something that really surprises me because I feel like they should be here. It is such a different atmosphere coming up here as a student than it was when I would come with my family as a child to the football games. The difference is that there is now a real sense of belonging. That is the kind of place that I want to be a student at.

A Little About Myself

            My name is Nancy Barnhardt and I am a freshman at Virginia Tech. My major is meteorology. I am for Middlesex, Virginia over on the middle peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. In the town that I went to school in there are no stoplights and everybody knows everybody, especially my family. The reason for that is because my dad's side of the family had the largest employer for many years in Middlesex County: The Barnhardt Duck Farm.
             The Barnhardt Duck Farm raised ducks from eggs to adult and when they were ready they were made into meals. This farm was home to hundreds of thousands of ducks at a time. When My parents went somewhere in France one year, on the dinner menu was, "Barnhardt Farms Duck." The industry had gotten large enough to expand overseas. One year they got a shipment of bad feed and that was when the business went downhill.
             Over the years, my dad has gotten some ducks and brought them home and we have kept them as pets. My brother, who is two years older than I am, and I would always try and name each and every duck but we could never tell them apart because they were all normal white ducks. We had twenty one the first round and twenty the next. Last May, my dad brought home twelve ducks. This time some were different kinds of sucks so they were easier to tell apart.
              I have enjoyed growing up with a small piece of my parents' past and I have also enjoyed the part where I get to keep ducks as pets. Although they always run away from me (with the exception of one who actually will come to you) they have always seemed like part of the family just as most normal pets do.

Test Run

This is just a test to see if I can actually blog.