Well, Europe was fun. I should have pictures up on facebook within the next day or so. I ate lots of good food, drank some good drinks, saw countless beautiful buildings, spent quality time with a panda, rode trains, and wrote code for an AI assignment. For once (the first time in quite awhile) I had the time to think through and plan the assignment and write really good, modular code...it was so nice NOT to have to stress out over it last night that it was hopefully enough of a motivation for me to start more things ahead of time.
Uh, I also discovered that I really have a taste for red wine, which I guess is some kind of ironic payback for all the hell I've given my Dad over the years about it. I didn't actually drink a lot of it, but I got used to having a glass with dinner. I think my favorite was in Prague, some kind of local Czech stuff.
What else. The past day and a half have been very strange, but very good (in most ways.) I talked today with the advisor for one of the groups I've been involved in this year, and told her that I'm not going to try for a position next year. Ever since I came to CMU I've been struggling to find a niche - something I'm good at, something I can contribute to in a real sense, some way to find satisfaction externally and internally. Freshman year was me just trying to get over social fears and make a few friends, sophomore year was a LOT of hard academic work and getting into some organizations, and this year has been a lot of hard work as well as some leadership roles. I'm finding that I still haven't quite found my niche, but I'm a LOT more attuned to my strengths and weaknesses, and am starting to get a clearer picture of what I want for myself and my life.
In a much more immediate sense, I realized that next year is really going to be my last year of living a life with as much freedom as one gets in college, and I want to really be sure that I've used it the best I can. For me that may mean being a bit selfish with my time, but damnit, I've got more than enough years ahead of me to live a structured, stressful life, and I'm going to use those 8 months to make sure that I've found and fulfilled myself enough to be ready to really face the real world.
I had two other interesting experiences today.
One of my professors announced near the end of class that she's got an operation scheduled for Friday. I think her exact words were, "I have to have an operation on Friday, and I won't be back." She started to choke up, and got control of herself by changing the subject back to some class material. A minute or so later, she turned her head and said, "It's cancer, that's what it is. It's in my throat and I won't be able to talk for awhile, so I'll still grade your papers but I can't lecture for you guys." And that's how it went. She made a few more statements, telling us how freaked out she was about it, but she wouldn't dwell on it...it was like she was so upset that the only real way to deal with it was to just keep a firm grip on the day's material, and to charge ahead like everything was going to be fine. And it will be fine. It's a scary procedure, but the doctors are sure that she's going to recover and be okay. At the same time - cancer is terrifying. I was struck by the whole thing because it was such a clear example of how people handle tragedy. It almost seems like the bigger, more real, and scarier the problem, the more motivated that the person is to hold onto "real life" and not make a big dramatic deal of things. People get upset and...well, "cause drama" over so many small things that don't really matter in the long run - the small things are the ones we dwell on, the big things seem to be the ones we almost step forward to embrace and get over.
And finally. I was buying coffee at my favorite coffee stand on campus (where I go at least once a day, sometimes more.) Today after I ordered I realized that I'd forgotten my wallet, so I told them to cancel it, but they wouldn't. Instead they told me I could just pay them later, that they knew me and it would be okay. I still protested, but the girl just said ... (see above.) It went back to my whole niche thing. It's just a coffee stand, and I'm just one of a zillion regular customers, but it was such a gratifying, humanizing, comforting experience to be treated as a real, known, person instead of an anonymous consumer. Some day I want all of my life to feel like that, as much as possible.
In other news, I'm going home this weekend. I need to pick up my tax forms, class rings, and a couple textbooks (heh, halfway through the semester...), and I want to give my Mom her late birthday present I got overseas. It's going to be a short trip since I have a meeting on Sunday afternoon, but I think probably a necessary trip at this point.
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