The perfect end to undergrad

I've been pretty busy the past few days unpacking all of the junk that I brought home from Wolf Village, and I still don't understand how it all fit into such a tiny room. Oh well, it's one of those unsolvable mysteries I guess. I'm also going through what was already in my room at home to get rid of all the things I will never use again; I'm going to donate them or give them to my stepdad to try to sell at the neighborhood yard sale. Things like my Will Smith cds, journals I never wrote in and will never write in (I'm not very good at that sort of thing, as evidenced by how frequently I write in this blog...), jewelry I never liked or don't wear... those things. I think I'm going to be trading bedrooms with one of my siblings this summer since I have the biggest bedroom, and I'm going to live in Durham after August or so; I don't want to be moving random junk around :o)

Now, I usually at least try to be humble, but I destroyed senior year (as far as grades go); I worked hard and I'm proud of myself for doing as well as I did. In fact, I've destroyed the past 4 semesters; pretty much once I got into my major classes, I loved them all, so I did really well in all of them. I'm such a nerd. That's why I'm going to take 5 more years of school (probably only 2 or 2.5 years of those will have classes though).

See? Destroyed.

I bought a graduation dress yesterday with Cait! It was 55% reduced and cost $37, so that was pretty exciting. I'll post pictures of it when I'm wearing it at graduation :o) It's halter-style and a lighter blue with white flowers and then navy "accents" I guess you would call them, but I'm not really good at describing clothes.

Today I'm going to be washing my mom's car now that water restrictions are lowered; it's part of her Mother's Day gift I suppose. Yesterday my brother and I bought her four hanging geraniums that are light purple- very pretty! They're hanging out on our back porch already and I'm sure I'll be able to enjoy them when I go out there to read. I've started re-reading some of the books we read in high school that I didn't like then but think I would like now. Some books are just not going to be interesting for 14 year olds; right now I'm reading Jane Eyre and I like it so much more than I did in 9th grade.

Well, I should get started on the car-washing and room-organizing. Only 3 days til graduation! 5 til my birthday! and 6 til our anniversary! What a happy week :-D

End of undergrad

Wow, somehow I never thought that May 2008 would ever get here, but now it's May 1- crazy!

So since I haven't written in awhile, I guess a lot has been happening; I finished classes for one thing, and exams. I was fortunate enough to not have any exams during the exam week, so I've been relaxing since April 25. Actually more since April 23, because I finished senior design on April 22. The symposium out at the NC Biotech Center went really well I think; it was crazy of course, with 24 presentations going on, and I'm still not sure if my feet have recovered from standing in heels for 8 hours, but hey, it's over now. I just get to wait for all my grades to be posted :o)

Now I'm getting everything packed up and moved back into my mom's house for the summer; I might as well just leave most of it packed, since I'll be getting my own place in Durham when school starts, but I have so much cleaning out to do, it's a little scary. Every summer I clean out my room, and every summer I'm shocked by how much crap I've accumulated throughout the year. But this will be the big overhaul summer where I go through all the stuff I've kept since high school (because you know my AP US history notes are really going to come in handy...) and get rid of it all. I've actually just gotten a job at Target for the summer too. I wanted a way to pass the time and make a little money, but pretty much I didn't want to go insane between now and August, because that's a long time. I can't apartment-hunt for 3.5 months, and now I can get a discount to buy things I will need for an apartment :o) I also didn't look for a summer research project because I want the option to take a vacation, and with research there's not always that opportunity. You've got to feed cells every day or check this and that every 12 hours, so that's not conducive to vacationing, and I WILL have a vacation this summer. I haven't had a real one since 8th grade, and it's time. Band trips don't count as vacations, and my family always went to the beach the week I was at band camp in high school... I wonder if they were trying to tell me something?

Keegan and I also went with his mom to see Bruce Springsteen on Sunday, and the concert was amazing! His politics suck and I came to hear his music, not his views on the death penalty. Eye for an eye man, now suck it up and play "Rosalita". I especially like how "earth-friendly" he is, yet he's willing have have 30,000 cars full of his fans idle in various parking lots around the city for 60+ minutes, just as long as he got that $100/seat price and then a ridiculous $40/shirt for each of them. Ahh, I see how interested he REALLY is in the environment. There's only one type of green that actually matters to those guys.

I've started running a lot too; well, not "a lot", but every day at least. Usually I go 2 miles and walk another 0.5, but sometimes more, sometimes less. Gotta look extra-nice in my graduation dress, even though no one will see the dress under my huge gown and various cords. I'll know it's there though, and that's what counts. I graduate in 9 days! I'll be 22 in 11 days! Our 2-year anniversary is in 12 days! So exciting! Man, too many exclamations there, but I am pretty excited. Back to the running thing: it's also a good way to pass time. There's a lot to think about while you run, and when I've got nothing to do but pack, going to the gym is a nice break from my room :o)

Well, I've got errands to run today; I'll try to be a more reliable post-writer for the 3 people that actually read this blog :-P

Happy May!

One month!

Exactly one month from today I'll no longer be an undergraduate! I'll be a graduate of NCSU and a grad student at Duke.

There's a lot for me to finish in the last two weeks of class... senior design being the obvious one, but that's actually going really well :o) Also I need to perfect my Honors Capstone report, help create the poster and slideshow for our BME Symposium, move all of my junk out of Wolf Village and somehow make it fit back into the room at my house (which sounds weird because the room at my house is much bigger than my room in Wolf Village...), submit a story on our senior design project to Rex Hospital's quarterly magazine, find an apartment in Durham that's not sketch, buy lots furniture and a new laptop... the list will keep going the more I think about it. But luckily only about 2/3 of that list has to be finished in the next few weeks.

Going to see Bruce Springsteen on April 27, yipee!! That's only two weeks from Sunday. And a month from Sunday is my two year anniversary with Keegan :-D And a month from Saturday is my 22nd birthday :-D And again, a month from today is graduation! So this next month is going to be reeeeeally exciting!

And the winner is...

... Duke! I'm going to Duke!

Now I'll just have to train myself to wear Duke apparel and maaaaybe even put a bumper sticker on my car. I've got an NCSU engineering one, so I should be fair :o)

As much as I enjoyed visiting Georgia Tech, the program at Duke suits me much better. After meeting the professors I had interviewed with on the phone, I'm sure I would be happy with either of them; I'll most likely be working with Dr. Reichert though (I posted a link to his research in an earlier post). He has 4 students graduating in the next 2 months, so I have a lot of free reign over the research I'll be doing, or I could even design my own project around his research interests, which are my research interests also :-D

It also doesn't hurt that Duke offered me more money and a nice supplemental fellowship, is closer to my family, friends, and Keegan, and is more affordable as far as living expenses go, but the campus is gorgeous and the students in the Reichert lab are really nice. Now I'm going to be ready to start my own apartment hunt! Oh goodness...

It's been too long

I thought I should elaborate about my trip to Ecuador, so here goes:

I went with a group of 20 people and we started the trip by spending 2 days in Quito, where we landed. Our first night there, we just sort of explored and ate some local cuisine. The food in Ecuador was delicious, and I tried a lot of things that I couldn't ever see myself eating (like guinea pig and wolf!) not to mention about 15 fruits that I had never heard of before my trip. I miss eating like I did while I was there; 3 different types of freshly-made juices each day, 3 fruits for breakfast, some sort of rice and meat for lunch (usually served with homemade banana chips- so good!), and then another form of meat and rice/potatoes for dinner. Not to mention all of the crazy snacks I ate while I was there. We're talking like... 3000 calories per day! Well, maybe not that many... but a lot :o)

Our first full day in Quito, we went out and visited an ancient volcano crater, the equator, and the cable cars that I mentioned in my last post. All of those experiences were pretty sweet, and definitely once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. The next day (Sunday) we drove from Quito to Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, which was about 4 hours through the gorgeous Andes mountains. Once we settled in to our hotel in Santo Domingo, we went on a tour of the Tsáchila community a learned a little bit about their culture. It was pretty neat to see the community and their way of life; I've read about Native American tribes in the US, but it was really neat to see a tribe that lives mostly the same as it has for hundreds of years.

Monday we started our work; it was pretty back-breaking honestly, but totally worth it. We made the foundation of the house, so it was a lot of concrete mixing, digging holes, moving rocks, cutting iron... basic foundational tasks. I was really surprised at how well our group worked together; it was really nice that we didn't have any people who didn't get along or were obnoxious to each other. It's rare in a group that size to not encounter problems, so it was a really good trip overall :o) We also worked briefly on another housesite, which was near completion when we got there. On Friday the group worked a half day, so we were able to present the keys to the house to the family; it was really emotional, but very nice to see the whole project come around. It was difficult to envision a house where we first started with 9 holes in the ground, so I'm glad we were about to see the whole cycle. Then we drove back to Quito later on Friday afternoon, went out for our last night on the town, and a lot of the team members just stayed up all night because we had to leave for the airport at like 4:30a.m.

So that's my trip... in a nutshell :o) Then I landed in Raleigh, spent 18 hours there, and boarded a plane to Atlanta for my interview, which went very well. I'm very excited about having offers from both Georgia Tech and Duke, and now I just have to think over my situation carefully and chose where to go. Also, I turned down NCSU/UNC and Johns Hopkins already, for anyone who really wanted to know...

Well, I should get back to work now... get a jumpstart on the week. Only 25 days of class left! 5 solid weeks... but then I'm no longer an undergraduate! As of 7p.m. on May 10 :-D

Spring break updates

Soooo it's been awhile since I've written anything in this blog. I'm such a slacker! No really, just crazy busy, but as Cheryl told me this morning, there are only 30 days of class left. 30 more days of classes as an undergrad... whew!

Anywho, I spent Spring Break in Ecuador working with Habitat for Humanity, which was pretty sweet. I got to see some volcanoes (granted, very ancient volcanoes), a mudslide, la mitad del mundo (the equator), a native Ecuadorian group called the Tsáchilas, traveled in cable cars up over Quito to see the whole city (13K+ feet in elevation!), and I saw some really sweet waterfalls too.

I actually overestimated the time I had before I needed to leave for a senior design meeting, so I've got to go, but I'll add more about Ecuador and my Georgia Tech interview (and offer with full stipend in addition to fully paid tuitions!) later.

Counting the days til Easter break!

Interview number three

I have an interview at Georgia Tech also! The number 2 BME grad school... yipee! The only thing is that the interview weekend is March 9-11, and I come home from Ecuador on March 8 in the late afternoon/early evening, so that's going to be a lot of flying for me in a short span of time. No complaints though! :o)

GA Tech is flying me down to Atlanta, putting me up in a hotel, paying for all my food, and even having current grad students meet me at the airport. Pretty sweet accommodations! It's unfortunate that I have to miss several classes, but hopefully my professors will be understanding.

More to come later!