Is it bad that I’m already starting to count down school being out? I think it’s only because I’m tempting death and taking *18* units this quarter! After two days of classes, I am already beat. At least I have tomorrow off… however, I have some stuff to do for our geologic mapping class.

What is my geologic mapping class? It’s on Fridays, from 9am until 5pm. That is no typo. It is somewhat fun, but at the same time, insanely stressful. There is a lot to learn and being out in the sun all day doesn’t help. Granted, we’ve only had one class too! Ugh!

Anyway, this is quite a short post. I’m happy to be on this new domain. Check it out! I hope to implement some cool stuff soon… like COMMENTS for each of these posts. That would be rad! Of course, I doubt the 3 people that read this would comment, but I digress! See you next time.

[Updated: 11:16PM] – Testing the new comments system! Have at it. If this works, we should have comments for EACH post! Nice!

Well, the title is somewhat misleading, it should probably read, “I forgot what taking a shower feels like!” I’ve returned though, and now I’m all clean and shiny again. I absolutely LOVE the Sierra Nevada mountains. The scenery is just so gorgeous. It’s hard to believe beauty such as this is only about a 4 hour drive from the “controlled chaos” that is Southern California. After spending 5 days up there, it is such a depressing sight to drop back down through the Cajon Pass and see… nothing. The air is so thick you can chew it. 😛

We did quite a bit while we were up there. One of the highlights was hiking to Bishop Pass, which is one of the many entrances into King’s Canyon National Park. The elevation is at 11,972 feet so it definitely takes your breath away. Took some awesome pictures while up there as well as geeked out at all the glacier related geology. Definitely awesome.

Did some fishing while we were up there too and I caught my first fish ever! That was rad! I proceeded to catch two more as well. I ended up letting them go however. They were too small to be worth anything, but regardless, that made my day!

We pretty much took the day off yesterday and drove around. We went up to check out the June Lake area, then recreated a geology trip (I’ve been on 4 of them to the Owens Valley alone!) where we checked out Obsidian Dome, Devil’s Postpile (my first time seeing that. Check out the top, where you can see glacial polish and striations), the “Earthquake Fault” in Mammoth and the Mammoth Hot Springs. One interesting thing to note: Since we made that day technically a “geology” day, we found this sign at Devil’s Postpile to be quite humorous. Especially since we came to Devil’s Postpile to learn about geology… not geography. 😉 All in all, we logged nearly 200 miles of driving around yesterday.

We also decided to do some off-roading trails that we’ve seen on some previous trips. We took a trail and ended up following it nearly right back to our camp (22 mile trail). It basically ended on a glacial moraine that was 500 ft above where we were supposed to be. By this time it was pretty dark and the trail looked treacherous, so we ended up stopping the truck on a few occasions and walking parts of the trail in the dark to determine whether or not it would result in us plummeting to the valley floor. We safely made it though! However, that excursion took nearly 2 and a half hours. Good fun all around though!

It’s nice to be back home though… of course it may only be for a day. A friend’s cousin is going up to San Francisco for the weekend and she invited me along. So I think I may go and visit my sister while I am up there. Yes! This summer has just been awesome.

[Updated: 10:46PM] – Uploaded a short video clip from the trip. Yes, we’re idiots. View “Playing With Fire” (477kb). Also, for those of you who care, new Offspring album due out in December. Thanks to their manager, I have a DVD that features a music video of a new song entitled “Da Hui” 🙂 Uploading it sounds tempting, but that’s how I was nailed the first time!

Alright, I’m writing this at about 12AM, I should be in bed. In roughly 9 hours, my cousin and I are heading off into the High Sierras to do some hiking/camping before he starts work and before I go back to school. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for awhile, so I’m looking forward to it! One last big shibang before school starts. I will definitely need that.

We are tentatively scheduled to return around Wednesday (that is how much food we have if we don’t resupply). However, we may stop by the ranger station in Lone Pine and see if there are any available walk-in permits for Mt. Whitney. If there are, then we are going to try to climb it! I’ve been wanting to do that *forever*! Hopefully we’ll be able to pick up some canceled permits. We’ll see. I’ll have my camera, so expect pictures of the whole trip!

In other news… it is OFFICIAL! I got accepted to San Francisco State University for Spring 2004! I didn’t have too many doubts, but it is still exciting to hear the confirmation. I’m quite ecstatic! Still waiting to decide what to do. I’m waiting to get some questions answered by one of the professors up there.

Providing we don’t get eaten by bears or some force of nature smites us, I’ll return later this week!

The new quarter at Cal State San Bernardino starts in just under 3 weeks. Technically, depending on what I decide to do, it could be my last quarter there. I applied to San Francisco State University for their Spring semester which begins in January. Most likely, they will accept me, since the accepted a previous application from me.

After spending some time up north a few weeks ago, it reminded me how much I love that area. I was dead set on going up there. So I filled out that app for SFSU and sent it off. Now as I sit and wait to find out whether or not I am accepted (and also wait for school to begin), I’m not sure what I want to do. There are pros and cons to each side of the issue.

I’ve met some awesome friends in the geology department during my first quarter there. That group of people just makes this major that much more fun and they will definitely be missed. As will all my other friends from this area too. I’ve also met some awesome people up north too! That is part of what is drawing me to that area. Everyone I’ve come in contact with up there is just amazing: whether it’s their creativity, knowledge, ingenuity, humor or even political views. They are just friendly. (Well, except for the people who try to mug you of course, but besides them…) There are already people up there offering me a place to temporarily stay and even a potential roommate as well! Though a potential drawback to this is that I would have to make sure I get a job that way I’d be able to eat at night as well as pay the bills. So I couldn’t just focus on school. But it would be fun to finally get out of the house and be on my own. I’d be all grown up! 😀

The weather is another aspect. While it is somewhat on the colder side up there, the bay area is BEAUTIFUL. I think I could easily put up with the weather. Southern California is so damn hot sometimes. You can only take so many clothes off, but you can always put on more 😉 Also of note is So Cal’s smog problem. It is disgusting and that is a major thing I would love to get away from.

The academic side of things is what is really giving me second thoughts. SFSU is on a semester system, as opposed to CSUSB’s quarter system. So not as many classes are required to get a geology degree there. This is somewhat of a mixed blessing. The lazy side of me thinks “heaven!” but my geeky side is somewhat depressed. I really do love to learn, and I’m afraid I’ll be nerfing that opportunity if I go to SFSU, where not as many classes are offered.

I may email my old geology professor at RCC and ask him what his opinion is on SFSU. If the geology program isn’t any good, then there is no point in going really. I’d love to be able to attend UC Berkeley, but for undergraduate work, they only offer a BA in Geology, while I want my BS. However, they are the number 3 ranked graduate school for geology in the country (behind CalTech and MIT). So there is always that option if I decide to stick around the Inland Empire for now.

I’ll have to spend some more time thinking about this issue. I can see both sides of it so clearly and it is extremely hard to come to a definite conclusion at this point in time. Mainly, we’ll have to see how this quarter at Cal State goes. Perhaps that will ultimately decide the question of “Should I stay or should I go?” Until next time…