Family from Illinois

My younger sister and niece are out visiting for about 13 days, I picked them up from the airport on Wednesday night. Madi (my niece) is adorable and as you can see loves playing xbox with her uncle! She is so ridiculously cute, it makes me sad they don't live closer and I know I am going to be sad when they leave.

I had a lot of fun in SD; played some tennis, hung out with my buddy and his girl who just moved to Point Loma, my other friend Mike, and got to have dinner with another friend who I haven't seen in a bit. It was a nice relaxing trip.

I heard back from AEON finally, didn't get offered a position. No big deal there, just glad to finally have heard back from them. I got my Yellow Fever vaccination tuesday, pick up my passport tomorrow with my brazil visa, and will mail it off to the Surinamese embassy for their visa. I finished the last books in the Chronicles of Narnia series, which was a great read, all 7 books. Now I am reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which is really good and disturbing so far.

I got my waterproof shoes and money belt in the mail, checked both of those out and they should work perfect. My dad had a poncho too so I will be borrowing that. All in all the last purchase I need to make is a sleeping bag and as much as I hate walmart, I think i'll get it there just because they sell them so cheap.

Thesis is finally nearly done. I did a second review with the university and have met all university guidelines and standards for formatting which is nice. Yesterday I went through the pre-pages, chapter 1 and chapter 2 just editing it. I found about 8 sources in my document that weren't in my references, it appears that in all the different drafst, my reference list got out of touch. Just fixing some small spelling and grammer errors too. I am going to do Chapter 3 and 4 after I finish writing this.

Still waiting to hear back from Dr. Pytell, which is making me nervous, its only been a little over 2 weeks. However, I found out that I need to turn the cotton paper copies into the university by this upcoming thursday and I need to coordinate meeting with Dr. Chau in LA to get him to sign off on it. Hopefully he gets back to me by tonight or tomorrow..

Anyways, hope everyone is well; oh ya I wrote a second travel-related post on my other blog so go check it out!

Sunny San Diego

Hey all,

Hope everyone is doing just grand. Things are good here, just hanging out at work for another hour then heading down to San Diego. I haven't been down in a while, so it should be good fun: see some friends, play some tennis, maybe hit up the beach?

My little sister and niece will be here in 3 days, really stoked for that! I know my niece is going to look huge compared to a year ago (she's 1 and a half). Pretty exciting times this last week. I finally got my copies of the journal in which I got an article on arms control in West Africa published. Been doing more preparations for my trip, which includes buying a money belt, water proof walking/hiking shoes, testing out my backpack (passed with flying colors), finished buying the rest of my flights, and I dropped my visa off to get my Brazil visa. I need to go pick it up on August 23rd, then mail it off to get my Suriname visa. I still need to take care of my Yellow Fever Vaccination too. Talked to my main job and got the time off, still haven't notified my second boss yet I should probably get on that...

What else.. oh I rebooted my old travel blog http://worldswerver.livejournal.com/. Also, I listed it on the right side of this blog. That is the blog that I will be updating as I travel and to start it off, I am doing a series of posts on how to prepare for a trip. I still haven't heard back from AEON and its been 3.5 weeks, not sure if that is good or bad but it is what it is. OH! other good news: my thesis has been approved by Dr. Jones and Dr. Chau, so I am just waiting to hear back from Dr. Pytell and if he gives it the green light I am in the clear wahoo! Also, my dad got approved on his bid for a house, so he is a new homeowner! This means I need to pack all my crap up for him because he will be moving in October while I'm gone. It will be really weird to come home to a new house, but I am excited especially for him, he has waited a long time for this.

Well, thats about it. Don't forget to check the other blog for travel-related posts and information! 23 days and counting!

South America

Well, I finished my itinerary and travel map!

You can view the travel map here

And you can download my itinerary here.

Hope you enjoy!

Planning my great escape

Now that this trip has become a reality, I have gone into plan mode. Boy, I sure like to fit as much in as I can. I have a crazy ambitious itinerary and I hope I can fit everything in. Well I guess its my own fault for trying to see the whole continent in just two months. At some point, I would like to take a trip where I just go and meander at my own pace, that was the goal of this trip initially, but the bottom line is South America is just massive and there is no way to meander if I want to fit all I can in.

I have nearly completed an excel spreadsheet with all of my information as well as a travel map showing my journey. I'll post both of those when I finish (probably later today). Also, I am going to post a few blogs about how to plan for a large trip, what you need, what you should bring/do, etc. About time I put this blog to good use no?

At any rate, I emailed my thesis out to my committee and Dr. Jones, here is hoping there is not too much more that needs to be done. Still have not heard back from AEON, no big deal there as they said 2-3 weeks and it will be 3 weeks on this upcoming wednesday. My little sister and niece will be out for 2 weeks on August 18, really excited about that. I saw Inception last week, that movie is brilliant. I highly recommend everyone go see it, there is definitely something for everyone in it.

Oh and also, I am going to revive my old travel blog over at http://worldswerver.livejournal.com/ for this trip. I need to see if there is a way I can post pictures in the text like you can with Google blogger, otherwise I might have to make a new one or something. Anyways, I'll post those things a little later on tonight.

Los Angeles Dreams

I'm trying to come up with some catchy titles to mix things up, how do you like it? haha. Well, I am currently in Hollywood staying with my friend Matt. Last night we hung out with my friends Kendra and Stephanie for a bit, then hit up a couple bars down here.

Not too much new to report.... finished my last teaching class, got my first draft of my thesis back, oh and I am going to South America for 2 months... haha ok ok so maybe I do have a few new things to talk about. I fly out to Cartagena, Colombia on September 8 and fly home on November 4 from Bogota, Colombia. I'm really excited as I wanted to do this trip in the spring and it will by far be the longest trip I have ever taken. 2 whole months?!? its going to be amazing.

Yesterday, when I drove down to LA I bought Footprints' South America 2010 handbook, this is the 86th year they have done it and by all accounts is the best guide book for S. A. Now typically I just research where I am going and kinda write the things down I want to visit. However, the fact of the matter is I am going to be visiting roughly 10 countries with different languagues,visas, currencies, etc and it just made more sense to have 1 guidebook to have that knowledge. I still have been doing a lot of research and such, but this will be extremely useful to have on the ground.

Today I am just going to work on my thesis. I am finished with both Dr. Chau and Jones corrections for the first 2 chapters, about 2/3 of the way through the chapter 3 corrections, and haven't really started chapter 4. I worked on it the last 2 days as well and feel that if I work hard today and tomorrow I should be able to finish by tomorrow night. I met with Dr. Pytell tuesday and he seemed very relaxed and confident that I would finish, which makes me happy.

Aeon called both of my references, so I could potentially hear back from them between today and next wednesday. Got on a torrent program, so I got Rosetta Stone with 20 languages, about 20 cd's and about 7 movies in the last week lol.

So ya lots of planning to do, I need to get my brazillian and surinamese visas, figure out how much time I want to spend in each country and all that jazz. Hope everyone is good!

The Starbucks Monologues

So, Starbucks now offers free wi-fi at all of their stores... pretty brilliant right? And that is where I find myself at this moment. I am meeting a friend at 1 to catch up in Roseville, then I am driving back home. I just had brunch with my 2 cousins which was really nice. This will cap off a fun-filled week. Interview with Aeon went really well in LA, both the group and personal ones. Ill find out in 1-2 weeks whether I am offered a position. San Francisco was a lot of fun. I finally got to go to a dueling piano bar, do pub trivia, see some old friends, make some new ones. And to top it off, the weather was PERFECT. It was in the 60s everydays, I mean how can you go wrong with that.

Then on Saturday was the wedding. Shane and Monica both looked amazing. A big group of us shared a hotel room, walked to the wedding, went out after the wedding, and met part of the bridal party later on. Good times. Also, got to see some really old friends from high school (Marcus, Jackson, Scott); reminescing about the good ol days haha. Lunch with Stowers and his family. Then yesterday, played some tennis, swam in the confluence, saw my friend Nicole. Then, I had dinner with Sara and her family which was great and here I am.

Need to get back to work when I get home. I haven't worked in a week and I need to get cracking on my thesis.

Wedding Bells and Travel Plans

Congratulations to my good friends Shane Trimmer and Monica Escajada who are getting married July 24 in Sacramento. I will have the pleasure of attending the wedding and I am quite excited seeing its really my first wedding to attend as an adult.

Quite the busy week planned. Tonight I am going to Palm Springs, Tues-Wed I am in LA for an interview with a company that runs english schools in Japan. Then either Wed night or Thursday I will leave for San Francisco, stay there until Saturday morning, then go up to the wedding. After that I will probably stay in Auburn until Tuesday and drive home.

Also, I got thesis corrections from my Thesis mentor and from Dr. Jones that I need to get working on; first draft is due July 29. I finished "Last days of Socrates" which was great, and am now working on The Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus. Also, got my Xbox back so have been playing that a bit a well.

Christian came up Thursday from Laguna Beach and we went and played tennis on the clay court in Riverside. It was fun but HOT. Its been 105 for the last 3 days and today is no different. Lets see, Spain won the world cup (vamos) and today a South African named Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open out of nowhere by 7 shots.

Im getting really ancy for the end of summer, when my thesis will be (hopefully) finished and I can go travel. Either teaching english abroad or just traveling on my own, either way it will be great, Im really looking forward to it. Just trying to decide where and in which manner I should do it. If I happen to land this gig Im interviewing for this week, I would go to Japan in Feb/March; which would give me several months to go travel on my own. If this is the case, then I would probably do a South America/Europe trip.

Anyways on to other things.. Lets talk music. I have recently really gotten into John Mayer (apparently 5 years late) and man he makes some great music. I bought Battle Studies and Continuum. Great stuff. I also got Enrique Iglesias's new CD, Euphoria. Its not bad, a good mix of spanish and english songs. Not as good as Seven or Insomniac, but definitely has some good songs on it. OH, I finally broke down and bought another Ipod. Shoutout to Jackson for sending me the link to Apple's store, I got an 8 gig vid Ipod in black for 100 bucks including shipping and tax. Pretty sweet since I havent had one for like a year.

I feel like I should post more deep, intellectual posts of like my deep thoughts as this blog is really just like a recap of what I do each week, but I have deep thoughts all week with all my free time and I would literally post 10 times a day if I did this. Oh well haha.

World Cup Final

We are about 15 minutes to the kick off to the World Cup Final which features Spain vs the Netherlands. Neither team has won the Cup before, and this is Spain's first visit to the final so it plans to be an exciting match. Germany won a wild one over Uruguay yesterday 3-2. I'm sad to see the tournament ending as I have really enjoyed it.

I had a really fun week. Monday I played some tennis. Tuesday, I hung out with my friend Christian who I met in spain. He is visiting his cousins who live in Laguna Niguel. We had some dinner in Laguna Beach and walked around and then went to World Team Tennis in Newport Beach. Michael Chang, former world #2 and French Open champion was there and he was nice enough to take a picture with me. Good times.

Wednesday, I worked out and ran and then my buddy Mike drove up from San Diego that night. On thursday, we went to the cabazon outlets and got some shirts. Then we drove up to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear lake for the day, where we ate lunch and walked around. It was gorgeous up there, I had not been to Arrowhead in a couple year and had only been to Big Bear once as a kid years ago. Then, we rolled back to my house and just hung out.

On friday we went to my work and hung out. Afterwards we saw "Get Him To The Greek" at the 2$ movie theatre, it was ok, had some pretty funny parts. Saturday I went to work and then drove down to Anaheim to see my buddy Rocky from high school. He recently got a job at ATT there and got an apartment right by his job. We got him settled in then went to 2 cool bars in downtown Fullerton: Bourbon Street and Slidebar. Both had good crowds and themes, you can tell that downtown Fullerton has a pretty good nightlife. Then, we went back to his apartment for some margaritas and headed across the street to the bar/club/lounge that is right by his place. Unfortunately, we got there a little late and they weren't letting people in anymore. However, the place was packed and seemed like a good vibe so we will have to go there again.

Woke up this morning, got a bagel at starbucks and drove home to take a quick shower before work. For today, Im just gonna watch the game and complete the 2 assignments I have for my teaching class that are due by midnight. I finished "A Midsummer Nights Dream" which was great and am now working my way through the "Last Days of Socrates" written by Plato, which is really good so far.

Some thesis news: turns out the first draft isn't due until July 29 so that gives me 6 extra days to work on it. My graduate coordinator emailed me back and was happy with the progress that has been made which is nice. I am just waiting to get my chapters back from Dr. Jones so I can get working on it because there isn't anything I can really do until then. Also, I got an email from the journal in which I had a paper published a few months ago and they are sending my 5 copies of the article so I am stoked for that.

Hopefully will have a good week, get some work and exercize in! Take care!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

This marks the 234 year anniversary of the declaration of independence. Im very thankful for living in this country and all the freedoms we have and I hope everyone else is too.

World Cup is getting interesting Germany, who has dominated, plays Spain in the semis and Uruguay plays The Netherlands. My money is on the Dutch and Germans advancing with Germany winning it all. The Wimbledon final was today too, which was won by Rafa Nadal in straight sets over Tomas Berdych. Im a Federer fan, as most people know, but I definitely respect Nadal's game and I hate Berdych so it was nice to see.

Read a few books this week: Waiting for Godot, a funny french play about two guys who sit around waiting for some guy named Godot. Also, I read Crimes against Logic a great book my friend Kat let me borrow. Its about logical fallacies and how present they are in today's society. I'm about to start Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, which I have seen performed, but haven't read.

I had a pretty productive week overall. Ran 4 times, worked out once, and played tennis once. I am also making a conscious effort to eat healthier. My calorie intake is good, but I have been eating shit. So I'm trying to eat better and you can really feel what a difference it makes when your exercise. Also, I emailed Chapter's 3 and 4 to Professor Jones and Chapter's 1 and 2 to Dr. Pytell, so I've had a few days break from the thesis.

I start my last online teaching class on tuesday, I am excited to get it over with. I am hoping to get my chapters back hopefully next weekend, so I can begin making those corrections. The first draft is due July 23, so time is a ticking.

Hope everyone is good.

I can't think of anything clever to write here...

Not too much exciting news,

The US got knocked out of the World Cup, which sucks. Hmm, work is going good (both jobs); I finished 2 online teaching classes so only one more left woohoo. Read Three cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, I recently read the sequal Stones into Schools, and the latter book is much better although the story in the first one is still awesome.

I am currently in correspondence with a college in West Turkey for a teaching gig there, I have also applied to a school in Japan and am waiting to hear back. I got my money from school, so I am able to do a few things I have been holding back on such as getting some new tennis shoes, buying rotors and brakes for my car, paying bills.. haha.

Got invited to my first wedding as an adult (besides my cousins when I was 19??). Shoutout to Shane and Monica congratulations!!! Thats at the end of July, which works out perfectly because I was planning a trip up north at the end of july anyways so that will work out quite nice.

I have been getting some good work done on my thesis. Im going to email the final 2 chapters to my professor in the next few days as the first draft is due in about a month. I dont think im too far off, so Im feeling pretty good about it.

Other than that, just gonna keep reading, working, exercising, and all that fun stuff. See ya

Pictures finally: grass court tennis and graduation!

Well, my friend John and I finally went out and did it. We went and played tennis on a grass court and I have to say its one of the coolest experiences of my life. We played at the JW Marriott in Palm Desert and had a great time. Its 20$/hr for the grass court (not bad considering there is only like 15 public grass courts in the USA now).  We played 3 sets (I lost the third in a tiebreaker), but man it was fun, definitely want to do it again soon. It was the perfect start to the grass court season and Wimbledon starts tomorrow which is exciting. Then, my aunt, cousin, and sister came down on Thursday, so we all watched Game 7 of the NBA finals and just hung out. My sister stayed down until today, but my aunt and cousin left early Friday morning.

I got a second job doing research for an accounting firm from home. So far I've only worked ten hours but it seems like a sweet gig. Its 10 dollars an hour, and its cool I call a phone number to clock in, and I just have to do the research and email it in as I finish. My boss seems like a cool guy. It will probably be 20-25 hours a week, so between my 2 jobs I will be working over 40. It will be nice to be making a decent amount of money for the first time in two years haha. Oh ya, I am still watching the World Cup a lot and the US tied with Slovenia and then England blew it and tied against Algeria. As long as we beat Algeria, we will advance to the knockout round for the first time since 2002, im really excited.

I walked in my graduation ceremony yesterday so I am officially graduated from CSU San Bernardino woohoo! It was cool, I got to sit with my friend and I saw two of my professors working with me on my thesis. Then, I had a little barbeque at my house and had some family and friends show up which was low-key and fun. We played some basketball, ping pong, and just relaxed. I just need to finish my thesis now and I will be completely done. Thats what my main focus will be in the coming weeks is finishing that up. I only have one more week of my two teaching classes so those are almost done too and then I have one more next month, but after doing 2 in one month, one should be a walk in the park.

My focus as far as jobs go has shifted away to finding something now since I found this online gig, to what I am gonna do when I finish my thesis. More and more, I think I would like to teach english abroad for a year. In fact, today I am going to apply to places in Japan, Turkey, and Dubai. I just think its something I would enjoy a lot.

Anyways, hope everyone is doing well, talk to you all sooooooooon.

I'm feeling my philosophy

I'm currently listening to When I look at the World by U2, which is currently my favorite song. Moreover, this song makes me feel... peaceful? I don't know how to explain it. My life currently revolves around: music, tennis, schoolwork, reading, and movies... not too shabby ya? But I'm missing that human connection, the deep connection you get when your surrounded by those you care about. Not to say I'm unhappy because I'm not, I'm quite content actually. I feel like I'm coming out of a long stretch of being buried in a tunnel and emerging into the open air.

Just some thoughts I've been having: true strength is not present in the ability to grasp something and hold on to it with everything you have. I have believed this for a long time, but its just not accurate. This strength is really demonstarted in the ability to let go of events, experiences, people, and things. I am by nature an extremely hopeful and optimistic person; but as I get older a tone of realism creeps into my belief system that tempers my imagination. This is both good and bad. I have always believed in the power to create and manifest the things you want most in life, and I still do. BUT, you do not create and manifest specifics. You create and manifest the concept, and life fills that concept in for you.

As a result, what is life's experience truly about? It is about growing, learning, and loving on one hand. It is also about experiencing hurt, loss, and pain on the other. We all love things that are not destined to last forever, including ourselves. For myself, I am really discouraged and tired of losing the things I love, but I'm sure everyone feels this way, no one has the pleasure of gaining and holding everything they lose in their life forever. Another aspect of this is loving yourself, which for some reason so many people struggle to do. And if you do not love yourself, life is not nearly what it could be. This is not to say to be a narcissist or egotist, but to be confident and at peace with who you are: emotionally, mentally, physically. All in all, everything is about balance. I used to know this to my soul, and it seems I have forgotten it for so long.

Bottom line is, I care/feel/love TOO hard, TOO strongly, and TOO intensely for my life situation. People are not ready for this at this stage in their life. For some reason, I am not afraid of these feelings, but I really am in the minority. It isn't even about thinking long-term or jumping into something, its just that when I feel for someone, I let everything else go. I used to always think this was a great quality, and it is on some level, but for this society and this timeframe and age, it isn't. Its a one way ticket to getting hurt, yet I haven't changed my action. So either I am a lot stronger mentally/emotionally than most people or a lot stupider... hmm... However, I think it really is time to change.. Like I already said, having the ability to let go is true strength and this includes letting go of your past and parts of who you are. I guess I feel sorry for people who fear love and deep emotions, because they don't know what they are potentially missing out on, but everyone has to find it on their own. At any rate, this is basically a compilation of my last 2 months of thinking, but its taken until now to have enough of an outside perspective to put it down.

Anyways... went out last night with some friends in Temecula.. had a fun time down there. I graduate in 6 days, which I can't wait for. I have been playing a ton of tennis, thank god. Its become my outlet, instead of coaching, my aggression goes out through tennis. Federer lost in a final today which sucks. OH, the WORLD CUP is on!! US battled England to a tie yesterday, which is huge for us. I think we have a legitimate shot of making it to the round of 16.

Have a great day everyone.

Summer is definitely here

It finally is starting to get hot down here, its been in the 90s the past few days. I finished my first week of teaching classes up, which are going well; and got a little bit done with my thesis too. Im reading a great book called Stones into Schools written by Greg Mortenson, the same guy who wrote 3 Cups of Tea. This guy builds schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and focuses on female education. Since I took a class on Central Asia, I know some about the region and its amazing what Mortenson has been able to do so far.

I woke up at 6am today to watch the French Open Final, and it was disappointing. Robin Soderling got throttled by Rafa Nadal 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. I must say I have to finally give Nadal is due, he has an amazing game and work ethic and even though I like Federer I do respect him a lot. Speaking of tennis, I have played 3 times this week after not playing for 6 weeks and have been playing really good. I have won 8 out of 15 sets, by far the best I have done against John. Watched Hayao Miyzakis new film Ponyo last night, it was really good, more like a My Neighbor Totoro than a Spirited Away type film. Like all Miyazaki films though, it was warm, well-written, and Joe Hisashi is always amazing with music.



Developed some electronics trouble the last week. First, my cell phone now will only charge thru my car charger, the wall charger will not work anymore. I even bought a new wall charger and that didn't work so its the phone. Next, I dropped my laptop off at best buy to fix the display (I had these weird colored lines running verticle through the screen) and I won't have that for a month or so. This is both inconveniant and refreshing as weird as it sounds. Im always in front of a computer so its forcing me to do other things. Third, My xbox has frozen several times over two straight days so I think that is going to need to be sent in. Luckily my laptop was still one warranty (by a day) so that is free but the xbox will cost about 140$ so im going to have to wait. I have a wii which i havent played in a while but its time to bust that out. I ordered the software disc from netflix that lets you stream on the wii too so i will still be able to watch movies and shows which will be nice.

Anyways, thats about it. Hopefully Ill have some interesting pics for next week since I havent had pics in a while. Take care.

Gap week

Sorry for not posting last week. I took a week and went up to norcal. Visited lots of friends and family, saw stacy off to grad school, which was nice. I went up to the high school and chatted with all the coaches and teachers which I really enjoyed too. I stayed with my buddy Garrett the whole time, and we had a lot of fun. Also, had dinner with an old co-workers and her family: I made Sangria and Garrett cooked dinner so that was really cool. Then, I went down and spent a day with Shannon and Rob and then the night with my buddy Matt and his girlfriend who just moved into San Franciscio in a really nice apartment.

So I was gone May 17-25, then I got home and finally got some stuff done. I sent out my grad announcements the few days before I left. I re-enrolled in my teaching credential program, I only have 3 classes left woohoo. Im taking 2 in june and 1 in july, so im really excited about that. Then, I finally bought an external hard drive and recovered the data from my old laptop. The guy who did it lives where I work and he did it for like 40$, super cheap. If anyone lives near Riverside and needs CPU repairs, hit up http://www.ewsss.com/. Anyways, I got all my music back which is like 4000 songs, about 1000 pics, and all my old documents including my coaching stuff.

I have been watching the French Open a little bit, this marks around 2 years that I have been watching tennis a lot. Crazy it has gone by so fast. Anyways, Federer is in the quarterfinals and will play Robin Soderling who he beat in last years final. It should be a good match, but I think Fed will take it. John and I are going to start playing again next week which will be nice since I havent played in like 6 weeks. Im going to be so rusty.

Other than that not too much new going on.. Couple of potential teaching job prospects back up near Auburn, so we will see how those shake out. Still graduating June 19, still working on the thesis (kinda), I need to really get on that this next week. Oh yeah and im going to vegas tonight for a couple days so that should be fun.

Anyways, hope everyone is well, see ya!

Yepppppppppppppp

Hey hey,

Just watching the Federer-Nadal final at the Madrid tourney. Its a good match so far, Nadal just won a first tight set.

Not too much exciting this week, hung out with Omar friday night and had a good time. Lots of running, working out, and thesis. Printed out my grad announcements friday and im going to mail them out tomorrow I think.

Going up north on tuesday to see some friends which will be fun, wish I was going up today because Lance Armstrong is riding through auburn and it would be cool to see him.

Anyways, not much else going on, see ya all later.

Happy Mothers day

Happy mothers day to all the mothers out there, thanks for bringing us all into this world and doing what you do.

Just got done chatting with my own mom for about 30 minutes, good talk, we don't speak that often so. Spent all week working on my thesis really hard, got a lot done. Im meeting with Dr. Jones tomorrow, to discuss the layout and argument of the thesis some more. Just trying to push through it.

Went down to USC for a night to hang out with some buddies, good seeing those guys. Also, Friday night I hung out with Omar, one of my tennis buddies down here which was fun. Nice to get out. Yesterday I played golf with my dad for the first time in 9 months, I bet everyone can guess how that went haha. We also had dinner and tonight are going to see Iron man 2, which will be fun.

Trying to plan my summer out. I graduate June 19, which will be nice. Then my sister and her fiancee are moving to Boise, ID in the beginning of july, so Ill probably drive up and help them move. I dont know if this means Im going to Boise too or what but I can at least help them pack. Omar is going to Europe for a month in July and wants me to tag along. I really do want to get back to Europe, its tempting to have the opportunity to travel with someone too. I just dont know if I can swing it financially, Europe is expensive over the summer. Also, my other tennis buddy John is going up to Vancouver for several weeks and wants me to come hang out for a week or so. I definitely want to do some traveling, just need to figure it out money-wise and time-wise with my thesis.

Anyways, hope everyone is good. Take care.

Better week

Hey everyone,

Just at work, working on my thesis. My thesis has a total of four chapters (Intro, literature review, main body, and conclusion). Im just about done with my first 2 chapters and am going to email them out to my committee tonight.

Seems like everyone around me is going through a hard time right now, its very disconcerting. Maybe people are constantly having issues but I just have been blocking them out the last few months? Hard to tell.

Nothing new really to report, just really need to keep working on this thing. First draft is due May 14, so its coming up in a hurry.

Take care.

Hello

Well if anyone saw that last post (cousin Jordan) forgive me it was a bit of frustration. Anyways, things are good, I talked with some friends and I feel much better. Hope all is well with everyone.

Spring Spring

Springtime has definitely arrived in southern california or so it seems. By pring, I mean 80 degrees which will soon be 100 here in a little over a month. Anyways, first to school stuff: never met with my graduate coordinator apparently he is gone this quarter, but I have been emailing with him. Spent all week going through sources and have a few more to go. May start writing today, but probably tomorrow. Filed my grad check, I just need to enroll in my continuation "class" and Im all set.

Stacy got officially admitted into Antioch University of NE in Keene, NH so congrats to her and that is where she will attend for graduate school, big exciting news there.

Won my second match ever against John on.... Thursday the 15th I think? It was a 5 setter that went 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4. The 5th set was serve and volley only, so that was exciting to come through on that. Going to play again tonight, hopefully eradicate the vision I watched today of Nadal pummeling Verdasco in the Monte Carlo final 6-0, 6-1 blah.

Finished up Fable and ME1, so I can give those back to Shannon. I tried Knights of the Old Republic, a star wars game that was really popular about 6 years ago, but I just couldnt get into it. So I have really been playing alot of Final Fantasy, I have about 16 hours into I think, its a great story and game.

Been doing really well with my fitness lately, my last off day was last sunday. Ive run 3 miles twice this week, worked out twice, and played tennis twice. This is the pattern I want to settle into if possible. My diet has been ok maybe 75% where I want it to be, so I need to keep trying to improve in that area.

My friend Mike from San Diego is coming up tomorrow night for his bday and will stay until wednesday afternoon. That should be a lot of fun to have him around for a few days. Tough to never have friends around but it will be a nice change. I just need to really focus in on my thesis and keep plugging away at it. I feel good because Im working through these sources but ultimately I havent done any writing and its a little intimidating. Oh well, Im confident it will be ok in the end.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

Where does the time go??

Hello,

Wow so its been a bit since ive posted. Well lets see, my birthday was good, I won my first tennis match (against John) so that was a nice bday present. Then the trip up north with stacy was great, we had a lot of fun in wine country I was bummed to leave. Wine tasting was fun, it was a cool experience, I defintely want to try it again. We took a back way home too that was really pretty so it was awesome to spend some quality time together. Then my friends Jon came for a week, we had a really good time. Saw San Francisco, Stanford, Palo Alto, the Google Complex, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego, and went for a hike. Fit a lot in for just 6 days, he had a really good time and loved it though so Im happy about that.

Tomorrow, Im going in to meet my graduate coordinator to get all my stuff sorted. Im going to try to enroll in the comp exam class and dump the thesis. I just have no motivation to finish it, and I NEED to graduate in june. I dont want to waste anymore time and money here. I finished all my classes, and I got all A's and 1 A-. I just need to finish this one stupid culminating experience and Im set. So cross your fingers I can take care of that tomorrow.

Other than that, I have been playing tennis a lot, my serve has really improved since I have been practicing it a lot more. I have been losing a lot of close sets that were just decided by a few points. Um, Im playing fantasy baseball for the first time and Im in second after the first week which is good. Trying to beat the first Fable on my cpu and Mass effect 1 on the xbox so I can give those back to Shannon and Rob. Also, I have been looking for other jobs in the area, but there just isnt much out there right now. It can be a little frustrating but it is what it is I guess.

Thats about it, things are pretty good. Ive had a rough last few days just dealing with boredom, trying to figure out my school stuff and crap. Hope everyone else is good.