End of Spring 2007

Well I write this today as I’m on my flight to Australia, to start a completely new type of summer experience. As my girlfriend Catherine reminded me, I haven’t spent a summer in Atlanta since 2003. Looking back on my summers since college began, 2002 was spent taking courses in Boston and then being at GT to help with FASET. 2003 was in Atlanta working and doing FASET, 2004 was in Asia (Singapore, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Malaysia), 2005 and 2006 were both spent in Los Angeles, with high school students. In whole, I really can’t complain about my summer months, they all have been really new, exciting, and an adventure. But now that I’m off on a tangent, I really want to get back to describe my last few weeks in Berkeley, going home to Illinois and returning to Georgia.

I’ll start this story with how Spring 2007 ended. Being in city planning is sure grand. Compared to engineering (e.g. problem sets, endless study sessions, and scary final exams), I would much rather have the stress-pace that city planning provided. Granted I ended up writing at least 100 pages of term papers and reports, I really enjoyed the work, partially because the topics are interesting, but more so, I felt that it was a level of work and stress that I could handle versus the rough first semester that I had at Berkeley. One big bump in the road of a smooth finish was this little thing called the oral exam. It happens once in the career of a transportation engineering student (and for some, it can happen twice). So I spent about a week preparing for an academic’s nightmare… standing in front of a group of faculty members (who are all pretty much aces in their field), and explaining and describing answers to problems which they give you on the fly. Comparatively speaking, my panel of faculty was easier than the others, but still, it gives you plenty to worry about.

So my last two weeks of school, I spent studying for the oral exams, preparing to pack my bags and leave Berkeley, windsurfing a bit here and there, writing papers, and wishing my friends off as they left for summer. The oral exam pretty much came and went, I had it at 10am on a Thursday. After walking out, I felt that I had a 80% chance of them passing me, and luckily they did. Whew, check. After that it was only one final, and about 3 more reports to finish. It’s amazing how things always manage to get done. This is on top of my research project at CCIT which super stressed me out. Luckily, I had the help of a French student who seriously helped me in completing the project. So with academics and research complete, I had the chance to relax and finish off the semester. Which I got a 4.0 , (I know its grad school, but hey, this is the first 4.0 I’ve ever had in my entire life)

So on Thursday night after my last exam, I went out for a fantastic dinner at LaMed in rockridge with some of my good friends from Berkeley. A few of which who are graduating, which will be very sad for next fall…. But it was good to see them again and reminisce on the good and bad times we spent together in our first year of grad school. After that, I hopped on my flight from Oakland, CA to Chicago Midway. I have those red-eye flights pretty much down now. Even better, they stuck me in biz class for some nknown reason, funny thing though, biz class usually means hot meals and special treatment, well on ATA that means a box of food that looks similar to one of those firework variety packs. But it was good. I arrived in Chicago fresh as 6am can be, hopped on the train to meet my good friend Heather who was letting me borrow her car (she’s fantastic) for the weekend. So after that, I headed south to the bustling metropolis of Gibson City where I would meet up with Ben and Matt (high school buddies) for a good ole Midwest cookout. So you can ask that, but my cooking didn’t go the greatest (that’s what happens when you live on cafeteria food for a year), But the guys and their girlfriends were good sports and we enjoyed a night hanging out by the fire. The next couple of days were pretty laidback as well, seeing my childhood friend Justin (who is now married and has a child… wow) as well as seeing a few of my teachers. Going out in the town of Strawn (population of something like 50.. seriously), and going to turkey run for some hiking and kayaking down the raging sugar creek in Indiana.

After that trip, I flew back to California to meet up with my parents for a 10 day camping and hiking trip. We do this approximately ever summer starting in 2004. This year, we would be just roadtripping around portions of northern and central CA. The opening night was capped off by my dad realizing he had bought child-sized sleeping bags for he and my mom. Hilarious, just a way a family hiking trip should begin. But all in all, the winner of the trip is the California State Park system, they have awesome campsites, showers and all. So to not get into too many details, our trip campsites consisted of Lake Tahoe, a central CA resevoir, Pacifica, CA, Big Sur, the SLO area (where we met my sister Ann), and a bit of Marin County and Point Reyes. We also had a chance to stop by the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. My dad has been studying one of the teachers at this center for years, and it was pretty interesting to actually be able to see him (Jack Kornfield) teach in person.

So back to GA, as soon as I returned, I had the chance to visit Birmingham, AL with Catherine in honor of my college-friend Tyler’s wedding. The weekend was a blast, Birmingham is a pretty fun town if you have the right people around! The wedding was great, Cat and I both had a chance to see a ton of our old friends. On that Sunday, we went back and caught the Atlanta Symphony who were playing Gershwin and Copeland (I usually don’t like most classical, but I like this stuff).. but that was absolutely amazing. I had a great time hanging out with Cat since we don’t get to see eachother that often, it’s too bad she had to work, but we did manage to sneak in some good dates and good trips like going to the new world of coke museum and playing some Frisbee. I’ll be seeing her next in New Zealand, so we’ll definitely have that to look forward to. I also got to spend some time with my parents at home, which is always nice to have a meal at the house. Versus on the go at a campsite or hotel.

But that’s pretty much put me at the present, so with that I think I’ll go ahead and sign off until the next note comes around, which I usually do when I get bored of writing or my hands begin to hurt.