Looks like it's been awhile. I've graduated college, road tripped, worked a temp job, gone to geology field camp, and am now looking for a job in Philadelphia! Yesterday I saw glass blowing and ate something that made me feel kind of sick.
Everyone: at some point in your lives, go on a road trip. Preferably across much, most, or all of the country. It's absolutely amazing how much different stuff we have in here, and how different people are, though there are still things that are always "American" and the same. Also, it's beautiful.
A random road trip memory: While in Oklahoma at a Waffle House, my cousin and I witnessed a huge (verbal) fight between the daughter and the friend of two people who were working there. Everyone in the restaurant, plus the fighters, came over and apologized profusely, and we got 10% off the bill. Entertainment and a discount! Also, if you go to Texas, you can see the largest cross in the world. And you can see it from miles and miles and miles because the panhandle is the flattest flat that ever flatted.
Perhaps not the most inspiring endorsements for cross-country travel, but I remember them fondly and it's too early in the morning to craft a stirring collection of compelling tales. Go. Drive. Enjoy.
EDIT: Hysterical. I didn't read my journal before making this post, and did not realize that the last entry I made was about this road trip. I guess I have travel on my mind.
I am at the tail end of an epic 6-week-long road trip with my cousin. The trip was ostensibly for him to visit graduate schools. I think that constituted less than seven days worth of our time. We went from NH to New York, Philadelphia, DC, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Illinois, and on Wednesday we're going to Toronto before packing it in.
I suffered from the boarding school curse and didn't learn to drive until I was almost 19. And it wasn't until this trip that I finally became comfortable driving on the highway, passing trucks (used to make me hold my breath), and driving in honest-to-goodness cities. Woo hoo! Also, somehow I always ended up being the one who had to drive in bad weather.
I also got to help teach some kids on a reservation in NM and I learned how to shoot guns in WY. There are more highlights but my trip journal is not within arm's reach, so you, my faithful readers, will just have to wait to hear more another day.
The number of states I have visited in my lifetime has increased from 26 to 35. Still to come: the South, and most of the states on Mountain Time (plus AZ).
On the road with Shay for six to eight weeks. I'm accompanying him on a whirlwind tour of grad schools across the country. Right now we're in Baltimore. Next stop: Ohio. We'll eventually get to Colorado, Chicago, and Toronto with many other stops along the way.
I graduated in December, but I don't feel very graduated at all.
When I came home someone had made a cake for me and the dinner was geology-themed. I am so many kinds of emotions I just cried and cried and cried. I'm too exhausted to sleep.
This past weekend I went to the Geological Society of America national meeting in Portland, OR. It was fantastic. I did a lot of grad school searching and meeting with people and I actually had an impromptu-but-serious interview with a guy from UC Santa Barbara. I wanna be a geologist!
The view out the windows when flying out of the Portland airport is fantastic; you get to see the Cascades volcanoes:
Mt. Hood sticking up through the clouds.
Either Mt. Adams or Mt. St. Helens in the foreground (I think Mt. Adams) and Mt. Ranier in the background.
Why yes, I do take my camera on plane flights. Don't you?
Speaking of classes, I'm missing some! Hooray! Just bought my ticket to Portland, OR, where the Geological Society of America is having its annual national meeting. Hoping to schmooze it up with potential grad school advisors and such. Oh yeah.
(It's like online dating, you see. First you browse their website and personal info. If you like what you see, you send an e-mail and exchange information. If you're feeling good about this person, you arrange to meet in a populated area to get to know each other with the possibility of something more...)
Collected rock samples today. Amphibolite! Rusty micaceous schist! Gneiss (niiiiice)! Hopefully the samples can be processed in time for me to use in my thesis...
Also. Classes are starting. WTF? Who takes classes in college?
A poll: anyone still read this thing? I'm curious who my audience may be.
In other news, my college offers "Moral Obligation" scholarships for students staying longer than 8 semesters. Financial aid is only given for those 8, but if you need to stay they will give you money but tell you that you have a moral obligation to pay it back sometime in your lifetime. No legal obligation, though. Oh, Amherst.
My knees hurt and my eyes are sleepy and I have to get two cavities filled tomorrow. I can't remember any of my 8th-grade math for the GRE. I look at my previous post about Obama and cringe; that man is not currently in my good graces, though I am guardedly hopeful he may redeem himself in some fashion.
Amherst will be over before I know it. And then? And then.
I read and watched Obama's speech on his reverend and racism. I read it first, and intended only to watch a little of the speech because I knew it would be long. Since I haven't really watched him speak before (more on this later!), I thought I should at least look.
I watched the whole thing. If he is not elected as our next president I will cry. I don't care about every single detail of his views on every single issue: I, and we, will never find a perfect candidate. Just to see him handle himself, and express himself in complex, musical sentences was enough. I don't think I've gone ga-ga or been charmed off my feet. The last political speech I watched was this year's State of the Union: I realize comparing Bush and Obama is kind of like apples and oranges, but speaking style can be quite indicative of the person who is speaking.
Compare Bush's short, direct sentences and his focus on one topic at a time to Obama's style. Look at how many issues Obama can weave together; someone on planworld commented that Obama's speech was really an essay. Look at his discussion of successes and failings. He came across as intelligent, thoughtful, articulate (that word!), imperfect but cognizant of that imperfection, and more.
From my limited understanding of politics, and especially world politics, it is the nature and character of the politician as much as what he or she stands for that decides what happens. A person with great ideas who is shy or one who blows up at the least opposition will not get as much done as the person who is thoughtful and communicative. Bluntly, if people like you, they will be more willing to do business with you.
I don't know a thing about Hillary other than that I've been kind of sick of hearing about her since Bill's administration. This isn't to say that she's some shrill harpy no one likes. It's just that, man, I've heard her speak, and I didn't find what I was looking for there.
Also, dude: hating on CNN right now. And news sources in general that have blinking lights and scrolling words and little captions reminding people about what the speaker just said. (Yeah, I know that's for people who have just tuned in, but GOD it's annoying.) This is one of the major reasons I don't care to watch the news anymore--you know, along with shitty, uninteresting reporting, a general focus on stupid topics (I once watched two anchors try to play tennis for twenty minutes while news bites scrolled by on the bottom of the screen), and a growing realization that news reporting is really just a business that all comes back to the bottom line.
Anyway. Back to Obama's speech. Anyone else immediately start thinking West Wing? Anyone? I could see Toby and Sam or Will just like all over this thing. When Obama made a reference to OJ Simpson, I could hear Toby saying, "Yeah, and any speech with pop culture references has a shelf life of about twelve minutes." But in the complexity and tenor of his sentences, I could see them and Bartlet, too.
Please realize that I've spent the past four years or so since I discovered the show wishing and hoping that one day we would have a president like the West Wing's Jed Bartlet. If Martin Sheen made it to the White House, I would die happy.
