Things are quickly winding down. I really can’t believe how fast the past four months have flown by. What a wild trip it’s been. In two weeks, I should be back down in Southern California for a day, then Dan and I are going to head up for a quick hiking trip into the Sierras. After that, if things work out properly, I come back down and move into a new apartment in Westwood for the next 3 months. This time, I’ll only be an hour and a half from home, which isn’t too bad.

I finally had the real 90-day review yesterday at work. It went completely awesome! I scored a 30 cent raise and they told me to definitely come back at the end of summer. How awesome that went! My last day of work is on Thursday. I’m gonna miss that group of people.

On Wednesday there was a university-wide walkout that was supposed to be statewide, protesting the Guvernator’s fiscal policies that relate to the Cal State system. Not sure how well it went at other colleges, but there was quite a bit of noise at this one. I didn’t participate though. Way too much to do with finals coming up. However, the situation is pretty dire. They are cutting the engineering and dance programs here. The school can’t even afford to print up schedules for the fall semester! Some of us are worried that geology might be next on the hit list since we’re a fairly small program, but apparently we actually bring in quite a bit of money to the school with research grants.

Went to the beach yesterday to do some homework and took some pictures. It’s so awesome since there is a dune right there at the edge of the beach and you can just sit up on it and have an excellent view of everything. I also figured out the mileage and it is exactly two miles from my house.

Looking north
Looking south

This was taken in the evening a few weekends ago. Check out the famous fog. Yes, basically a picture of nothing: Fog!

Stuff for the fall semester is coming together quickly. I had my advising appointment today and it looks like I will be able to take all the classes that I requested. However, it is going to be tough. Next fall will be nothing but geology classes: Stratigraphy, Structural Geology and Mineralogy. Between studying and field trips, that will leave little time to do anything else! However, I need all 3 of those classes to take the classes I want in Spring 2005. Ah!

The more I look at it though, the more I want to do my field camp in New Zealand during January 2006. What an unbelievable experience that would be! If I put my heart and mind towards nailing that goal, I’m positive I’ll find a way to go somehow. Hell, the last year is definitely evidence of this, as I have achieved all sorts of things that I really wanted. That tends to make one somewhat confident. 🙂

Tentative School schedule for the next few years:

*Plus a few GE’s and electives that I will have to throw around in certain area. ALMOST DONE THOUGH!!!

Brandy is definitely coming up to visit this weekend, so that will be fun to hang with her as well. In anticipation of this, I need to finish my paleontology paper tomorrow! We’ll see how far I can get. I’ll also need to turn in my two-weeks notice at work tomorrow too. I’m going to miss that group so much. These are some of the most friendly and awesome people I have ever had the fortune of working with in my life. I hope they let me back in when I return at the end of the summer.

Baseball is back! I have to say last year’s playoffs was some of the most amazing baseball I have ever seen. From the Cubs to the Red Sox and even the Marlins, all the games were just phenomenal. And now that Murdoch and Fox have finally sold the Dodgers, I can like them again without a guilty conscience. Not a moment too soon too, because they are ON FIRE this year!

I just got back from a game tonight with some of my fellow geology classmates. Oakland A’s versus the Yankees. While I’m not necessarily a fan of either team, I am always down for hating on the Yankees. It was a great game and went all the way to the top of the ninth inning, when in true Yankees fashion, they tied it up and then drove in the winning run. While I wasn’t rooting for them, I can definitely appreciate some fine baseball.

Plans for the weekend:

» Wait for more info on that internship.
» Friends from high school, Emily and Brandy may be in town on Saturday night.
» Write a paper for paleontology.
» Finish up TWO late labs for geomorphology.
» Start looking for people to sublet my room for the summer.

Tomorrow is advising day as well. Looks like next semester is going to be another tough one. Currently on my plate is Mineralogy, Stratigraphy and Structural Geology. However, I might not be able to take the Structure class due to some funky prerequisites, so I may be taking Hydrology instead. In the next year I will need to squeeze in Physics 3 and Chemistry 2 somewhere also. Perhaps if I kick butt, I can take field camp in New Zealand in the winter of 2006! That would be so amazing! I think I can save up the roughly $4500 it will cost between now and then. Definitely worth it for 6 weeks!

Some various cleanup on the website too. I’ve added ratings for songs in the music section. Also, for those using Internet Explorer or Mozilla derivatives, you might notice the new background graphic up above. I thought it added a nice bit of personality to this blog. 🙂 The background picture doesn’t render in Safari for some reason though. Not sure why at the moment.

This last week started off amazingly hot weather wise. The past 3 days have been absolutely perfect though. Yesterday, after sleeping through my alarm and ditching a class (doh!), I decided to go hang out at the beach for a while. That was refreshing to do. It’s so relaxing and the beaches up here aren’t crowded compared to the ones down south. Of course that is directly related to the fact that the water is icy cold. Despite that, it was a gorgeous day. Today I did… the same thing! Yes, that is unheard of. Me going to the beach on my own volition, let alone two days in a row! I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather today and go running along the beach.

Of course all this beach stuff has sparked my interest in trying to surf. It looks so fun. Rentals for surfboards and wet suits down at Pacifica are fairly cheap from what I hear and I know some people who would be willing to teach me. They even have lessons, though that is slightly more expensive. However, a few things are stopping me. My fear of creepy, crawly things and other carnivores that lurk beneath the waves and the constant fact that Mother Nature is reminding you of whom your daddy is. The last time I was swimming at the beach was at San Clemente in September and a stingray decided to use my foot as target practice. I pretty much wrote off the beach after that. The other problem is the fact that I am not a strong swimmer at all. I guess before I even consider jumping on a surfboard, I need to work on my swimming endurance skills.

Nate and Christina are coming up later this evening to visit, since they are in the area for some family affairs. That will be nice to see them. I don’t think Nate and I have hung out since before Christmas. Dan was thinking of coming up sometime in the next few months too, though I might be back down in So Cal by then for my internship. It’s definitely nice to see my friends again though. The people up here are cool, but I still miss so many from down south.

Also, the unthinkable is happening! I want a Mac. Not just any Macintosh though, I really would like a laptop since it would be convenient for carrying around all over the place when doing research and school stuff. I’m looking at some of the Powerbooks, and of all the laptops I’ve looked at, the Powerbooks look like the best ones. Though they are slightly on the pricey side. The model I’m looking at is around $2600, and that is with Apple’s student discount. So I probably won’t be getting one of those very soon. Though with my internship and getting money from that, perhaps I will be able to afford it after all!

School is winding down but there is still a lot of work. One thing I’ve definitely neglected this semester is playing guitar. I really want to write more music and even lyrics, but I just can never seem to find the free time to do it. Perhaps we can get back to that soon. Who knows, maybe with me back down south, Dan and I can get back together and lay down some more music. It seems like we’ve come quite a ways from when we first started with our first song, “Fairly Simple” to the latest that are slightly more technical: “Starting to Rock” and “Tsunami Rock” (both of which actually don’t have base lines yet… but they will!).

A few weeks ago I ended up seeing Offspring for something like my seventh time. I wasn’t that impressed unfortunately. Their set list revolved around a lot of their more cheesy songs and I think I was one of the *older* people in the audience! Considering I’ve been less than impressed with their last three albums as well, I almost think it’s time I should just walk away. 🙁 I haven’t even bought their latest album yet and it’s been out for nearly 6 months, and sadly I don’t have any plans to buy it. Ah well! Despite that, I am greatly indebted to their manager, who has hooked me up with tickets and after show passes nearly every single time I have asked. Thank you Larry. At least there’s been a lot of new music I’ve been getting into, such as Muse. Check them out!

What a huge entry! Anyway, catch you soon.

I would like to take this moment to dedicate a special thanks to my friend Tracy. At the beginning of this month, she forwarded an email to me about the Southern California Earthquake Center and summer internships. Mind you, she is in Boston… majoring in Mathematics. How this email arrived in her in box, I will never know. But knowing that I love geology, she forwarded it along to me! I checked out the website and decided to fill out an application, two days before the deadline (April 5th). I’ve been waiting around since then for word of their decision. Something like 70 students from across the country applied for it.

I GOT IT!!!

Looks like I will be moving back down to Southern California for the summer to work at UCLA! Words cannot describe how excited I am to have gotten this. There are a few issues I need to work out, namely if I will be living at my parents and commuting or renting a place in LA somewhere. We’ll figure this out as the time draws near. It is supposed to start at the end of May. What a great experience. All thanks to Tracy for informing me too!

Anyway, I flew back up here yesterday morning after spending the past few days in So Cal. It was beautiful weather and definitely nice to see my parents and hang out with many of my friends again. It was a fairly relaxing experience from the non-stop tedium that is going up here at the moment. My research paper is finally almost done and only 3 weeks late. Good thing too, cause two more papers are coming up soon, plus a final presentation. Ah, to live life in a stressful environment!

Braces supposedly come off in four weeks! You can tell it’s so close, my teeth needs to move just a little more…

Alright, off to write a few more things in my paper before I go to bed. Until next time!

Alright! Courtesy of their manager, I get to see the Offspring tomorrow night at the Warfield. I have backstage passes too! I’m looking completely forward to that! I haven’t seen them in over a year and they put on a really fun live show, so I am definitely looking forward to that.

I’ll be back down visiting Southern California from April 21 – April 24, mainly for an orthodontist appointment. I am supposed to get my braces off! We’ll see though, since it still looks like there is some moving that needs to be done before then. I miss a lot of people, so that will be good to see friends and family again, although for a very brief amount of time.

I also applied for an internship this summer for the Southern California Earthquake Center. It looks like the competition is pretty tough. If I get it, I’ll be moving back down to So Cal for the summer while I work on that. We’ll see what happens with that, but I think that would be such a great experience. I was looking through the list of people who have had internships with it and I found an old friend from high school that I haven’t talked to in years! I sent her an email recently, so that was cool to talk to her again. Considering all the news reports about possible earthquakes in Southern California this summer, I think this could be a perfect timing for an internship.

See everyone soon!

I’ve been sick the last week! It all started out as a simple cold and developed into this horrid sinus infection. After going to urgent care yesterday, they gave me some antibiotics, and I already feel 100% better! Too bad I didn’t do that earlier in the week, since I am missing a geology field trip that is currently going on this weekend. Doh!

Between school projects, geology trips, work (and lack thereof, due to being sick), being sick in general, this has been one of the most stressful weeks of my entire academic life! Luckily, it is coming to a close.

So I’ve moved into the new pad! What is it like so far? Well first off, check out the view:
First, Second and the stairway I have to climb to get to the house! I need to do some fixing in my room though. The curtain rod decided to fall out of the wall for no good reason, so for now, I have the curtains nailed to the wall.

In other news, it looks like NASA has extended the missions for both the Mars rovers too. That is exciting to see. I’ve been following those things like mad the past 3 months. NASA is hoping they can both last until September, which would put them at 8 months of being operational on the surface, or nearly 3 times longer than scientists had initially planned.

Evidentially I spoke too soon in my last post. The people at that house called me back! So we set everything up and I will be moving all my stuff over there tonight. Once I get pictures of the new place, I’ll post them. I’m looking forward to this so much.

Alright. Doing some cleaning up and redesigning of certain parts of the site. First and most notable (or not…) is that I’ve eliminated the news page entirely. It really conveyed no important information, and any news that I need to pass on will just be written in my blog anyway. So, goodbye news! Secondly, I’m trying to setup a forums section for discussion of certain topics. The forum is basically up and running but I don’t really have a public link for it yet since I’m still trying to sort out some basic issues. This is probably a useless feature that will most likely involve discussions mainly about geology between myself and me. Anyway, once I get all the kinks worked out, I’ll make the link public.

I spent part of this week apartment/house hunting for rooms to rent. I came across a good offer on craigslist and went to go check it out. $490 for a room in a 2 story house in the Golden Gate Heights area. It had an AMAZING VIEW. The people who lived there were very cool and the whole setup seemed great. I was really looking forward to it and thought I made a pretty good impression on them. Evidentially not, since they never called me back, even after I called them a few times during the past couple of days. Argh! Oh well, my closet will have to suffice for now.

Anyway, I just realized that it’s 3 in the morning. What on earth am I doing up at this time? I guess trying to enjoy as much of my last day of spring break as possible. Though thanks to this, I’ll probably be sleeping through most of it!