The Pre-Senior Year Paradox

I want to graduate. Right now.

I miss people.
I miss Golden.
I want senior year to start.
I miss my favorite restaurants.
I don't want the summer to end.
I'm excited to think about grad school.
I'm not excited to write grad school apps.
I don't want to think about doing homework.
I can't wait to have more adventures.
I think the future is overwhelming.
I don't want things to change.
I don't want to leave.
I'll miss Golden.
I'll miss people.

I don't want to graduate. Ever.

First Week in New England

Last Saturday, I hopped on a plane to be the furthest I've ever been from Colorado while living in New England for nine weeks. I'm living in Nashua while working in Westford at the MIT Haystack observatory through a NSF REU (research experience for undergrads). First big difference: green forests everywhere. Second: people drive very fast here. Third: Springtime actually lasts longer than three weeks here, and it's nice. Fourth: I can't walk up a mountain that's a ten minute-jog away anymore. It'll be fun though.

My office building.

Monday

Talk about fire hose. My first day was kinda crazy, and I didn't have coffee in the morning. The drive to work is cool, though. It's a half hour commute through the green forest. My mentor gave me a bunch of MATLAB code. And by a bunch, I mean a boatload. I now have a few subprojects: One looking at a storm on Oct 14, one looking at the convection patterns, and one that is supposed to clean up a former REU student's code (which is terribly disorganized and not well-documented...c'mon people--it's CompSci 101) and check if it actually does what it says it does. Yikes. I've gotten to run some MATLAB code, which I had missed dearly, but no writing. Science-wise, I feel like I need to know what's going on.

Tuesday

Today was less overwhelming. I spent the morning researching what I'm doing and getting the jargon cleared up by reading papers. One of the things I'm supposed to understand is the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. This is an area on the east of South America where the magnetic field is much weaker, which poses problems to GPS and spacecraft flying through this area. So that was cool learning about. I also tried to learn about how sudden stratospheric warmings affect the ionosphere, which is the area of the atmosphere I'm studying this summer. After meeting with my mentor in the afternoon, I had a better picture of where I'm going, at least in the short term. I then fought with MATLAB over shading and interpolating the plots I was making and making a movie out of them.

Right before lunch, we were notified about free food in the conference room. There were delicious muffins and coffee (my would-be second cup). The day before, I went to Target and bought some K-cups because the office does not have a regular ole coffee maker, and buying the K-Cups in the vending machine will add up. Still, my coffee habit will cost me $40 this summer, assuming I drink two cups a day only on workdays and manage to get another box of K-Cups on clearance when this box runs out.

Wednesday

I made a movie before 10AM! Great start to the day. The rest of my day consisted of making more movies and freezing frames that were interesting. Then I looked into what scintillation was before looking at the scintillation patterns that corresponded to the interesting time. What is scintillation? It is bad. It messes up GPS stuff with refraction and diffraction.

We have seminars at 4PM some of the days. Today the Radar Equation came back to haunt me, which I kind of learned in Intro to Electromagnetic Methods. 

Thursday

It was really good programming weather today, as it rained all day. It was nice to drink coffee and code with the drip drop of rain. The only downside is that my hair is super frizzy and poofy. Maybe I should straighten it. 

I spent most of my day looking at one piece of code and making a similar script that gets scintillation data rather than TEC (total electron content) data, and from a different database. At lunch, it felt like I had done nothing, but I got a plot to work by the end of the day. MATLAB isn't visualizing the data how I want to though..so that's the struggle now. 

I'm starting to get into a rhythm now. The days are really running together, and I only have a few hours of free time after work, exercising, and then cooking and eating dinner. The summer is zooming by already. 

Friday

I still fought with MATLAB for hours today, trying to overlay some data on some plots. I might need to do it in Python. My mentor is trying to find me the code that does it in Python. 

This morning a scientist from the MIT electrical engineering dept. came by and gave a seminar. I really enjoyed it because a). There were donut holes and coffee b). She was really awesome c). The technology she was talking about was very interesting. Stuff like being able to track people's movements with WiFi. 

Sunday

This weekend was the first my fellow interns and I ventured into Boston, and was a lot of fun. Yesterday we went to Cambridge and checked out Harvard. The buildings are so old and cool. We went to Harvard's museum of natural history. I ended up in a conversation with one of the people who worked there about Mines and geophysics. Random. One thing that this museum had that Denver's doesn't is gross animals in clear jars including millipedes, eels, and spiders. Boston was pretty cool. We walked along the whole Freedom Trail, past Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church, and leading up to the USS Constitution. Oh, and along the way we ran into this parade in Charlestown that had colonial-era to current era living history people, as well as bagpipes. It was strange to run into, but a pleasant surprise. We then went back by Faneuil Hall and ate a bread bowl of chowder...yum. 

Downtown Boston

I'm really enjoying getting to see different places. I'm sure we'll hit up Boston again, as well as visit the MIT campus. I really want to explore Nashua as well. But it's been a great week! 

Geophysics Field Camp Week Four: Onwards, Upwards

The view as our caravan left Pagosa Springs, CO

"Remember this moment," Dr. Hale said to us at the end of the final presentation. "There have been only a few times in my life where the geophysics gives something completely unexpected."

We did it. We survived Colorado School of Mines Geophysics Field Camp. And in style, too, as our professors, industry people, and our beloved department head said it was the best Geophysics Field Camp they had seen in their years at Mines. All the early mornings and those two late nights and the weird weather and the orange vests and wanting to kill our classmates and loving our classmates to death and funk music and spilled coffee and being annoyed at geophysics and being convinced that geophysics is awesome went into those four weeks. And in the end, it an incredible experience.

It is such a privileged to be able to do geophysics in every stage of its process on an area that no one has seen down in the subsurface before. "You're right, this isn't Kafadar Commons anymore," Andrei said to me after we got so excited from the preliminary seismic section. Doing geophysics on Kafadar is incredibly uninteresting, when it comes to the subsurface. Doing geophysics on the unknown is exciting. It's like being an explorer.

Here I am getting ready to drive and operate the vibroseis truck.
Andrei is in the background, waiting for me to hurry up. 

***

People hate airports and fly all the time, but for me, it never gets old. I rolled to the United terminal and the sign above me advertised Mines. As if it needs my attention some more.

Where is the water coming from? Where is the water going? Two important questions when doing a geothermal investigation.

Where are we coming from? Mines.  And before that, other various places that all combined to lead us to here.

Where are we going? 

***

"So how does it feel to officially be a senior?" Michelle, the Geophysics Department assistant asked at the End-Of-Field-Session BBQ right after our final presentation.

I responded with 10% sarcasm: "It's surreal. I feel like this year and field session have all culminated in my geophysical journey though Mines as a sort of rite of passage to make us seniors."

"But now there's Senior Year..."

"Yeah. But in all seriousness, as I told Austin earlier, we've made it through Junior Year, and now we've made it through Field Camp. We can do anything."

***

I actually ate breakfast that morning at the airport. I never eat breakfast other than coffee. While I finished my sandwich, the television report showed something about California Chrome. I laughed. California Chrome was the name of Craig's (one of the TAs) van. I guess Field Camp held some fun times.

I was exhausted. My brain had been going non-stop since...well, January. The swift transition from school to Field Camp to summer internship had left me no time for processing (mental processing, not data processing). Even while going through security my brain did not fully comprehend that those four weeks were over, and I was moving on to Massachusetts for my summer internship. I was so glad that Field Session was over. And thinking back, I was pretty miserable academically right before that, yearning for Field Session to start. I had spent my time looking forward to things ending. I even dreamed about graduating during those four weeks.

Where am I coming from? I knew this.

Where am I going?

I buckled up and sat for a while, waiting for the plane to take off. It began rolling. It began rolling slightly faster. Then it pivoted onto the runway. It stopped. Then, WHOOOOSHH! 

It was then when I realized where I was going; where my classmates were going.

Onwards, upwards.

The 2014 Colorado School of Mines Geophysics Field Camp (photo by Dawn)

Geophysics Field Camp Week Three: I Like Processing Things

Out in the field, I had geophysics dreams.

I was walking along the survey line taking measurements with the magnetometer. I wasn’t the only one who had geophysics dreams out in the field. Our professor and field camp coordinator Andrei (more affectionately known as "Swiddy" or "Dr. Drei.") said he had dreams about driving around in his truck, making sure everything was going well. My classmate Roy said he had a dream about a geophysics survey as well.

Back in Golden in front of a computer, the hours are less intense than when we were out in the field. Geophysics doesn’t take over our entire lives…well, at least we get weekends back here.

But geophysics still takes over my dreams.

I’m part of a two-woman team that is processing the gravity data from our geophysical surveys down near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Gravity processing is fairly uncomplicated, and as a result, we have been able to get things done relatively quickly. First we had to apply some corrections to the data, since gravity measurements are sensitive to elevation, latitude, and terrain/topography. Then came the fun part of creating a model for our data. This consists of drawing a geologic model of the subsurface in a program. The program tells us how well our model matches our data, and we tweak the model to reduce error but at the same time to agree with the interpretations that our classmates in other methods are producing. The past couple of days have mostly consisted of forward modeling for us.

Our working forward model of the subsurface created in GMSYS. It fits the data pretty well.

All this gravity gets into my head I think, because I had a dream that the Gravity and Magnetics team was racing to get everything done before everyone else. Which is weird because in real life, we really don’t need to race.

At any rate, I'm enjoying the computers part much more than the exhausting part. It’s not as fun in some ways of course, but I love the fact that my team is on track and that we don’t have to do geophysics stuff from 7AM until 6PM anymore. Our classmates in charge play funky music. Sometimes there are donuts. One day I ate two donuts. It's a good environment for geophysics. 

Out in the field, I would shovel my lunch into my mouth and be done in ten minutes.

Back in the lab, I go make myself a nice sandwich and savor the hour lunch break we get to take.

Out in the field, time would fly in the flurry of activity that geophysical surveying is.

Back in the lab, it’s more relaxed, at least in this third week. We get time to process processing.

I like processing things…I like being able to think about something and understand it. I have also had time to mentally process the field part of field camp and catch up on sleep. As one of my friends in the GP class of 2014 said, "It's the most fun you never want to have again." So true. 

I had another dream. I was helping the EM team (electromagnetics) write their report while they did some processing stuff. That dream was way too realistic, because it ended up happening. To add to the list of realistic geophysics dreams, Roy said he had a dream that he was processing the EM data. This also continued to happen. My classmate Tiffany had a dream about a bear, which makes sense because we saw a bear almost every day out in the field, but the part where the bear attacked did not come true.

I wonder if I will ever have ordinary dreams again, such as the ones I used to have a a kid; dreams containing tornadoes, tsunamis, and giant earthquakes that are geophysically inaccurate. 

Geophysics Field Camp Week One

Geophysics knows no weekends.

I completely forgot it was Saturday in the midst of surveying. We're working for eleven days straight of data collecting without weekends. Whatever. One week down, one more week in the field, and then two more back in Golden. It's gone by pretty quickly, mostly because we're constantly busy. I'm also extremely exhausted. My feet hurt. Quiet or alone time is hard to come by. The food's okay.

Alright. I think I have my complaining out of my system. Field Camp is mostly cool, a lot of hard work, and some parts awesomely weird. I wake up at 6:15AM angry at the world and myself for not getting to bed sooner. When I have my coffee at 7, I'm extremely happy and cheerful, sitting down at our morning meeting saying, "Good morning, Terry! Good morning, Andrei! How's it going, class mates?" and such. Depending on what's being talked about, around 8 I feel meh. Then we get out in the field after driving for a half hour, and then I'm like, "Yay, Geophysics!" until 4. Then we go back to our meeting place and then I start getting frustrated, especially if the data takes a long time to download. I become extremely hungry and moody until 6, and then I'm happy but exhausted. At around 9 I stop being tired and then don't get to bed around 11 or 11:30 because I don't think I need to. But then I wake up at 6:15 again the next day.

Field camp is also awesomely weird. Our class is weird. Our professors know so, even if they are weird themselves with their own quirks. Geophysics people in general have this awesome weirdness about them. We're the weirdest thing to happen to the small town of Pagosa Springs in...well, a year.

I hope to blog every week, but here are a few quotes from last week so far. I have been taking notes in my field notebook, but the TA didn't give it back to me tonight.

"Last one in the vans is a geologist!"

"There are more buttons in this truck than the MT equipment!" Andrei

"Do these trucks automatically downshift? Because mine just did." - Andrei

"Look! Geology IS useful!" - Batzle, after propping a door with a rock.

"Geophysics girls get frisky." Craig the TA, who might have been joking around.

"That DC inversion was beautiful." "And it's not even smoothed yet, just raw beauty." "No makeup and still a ten."

"Geophysicist uses GPR...it's not very effective." Roy

"I'd rather grades you all's tests than listen to Rod Stewart." Rich, who hates grading exams

"We can fill up at the Flowing Well." - Shane, on this oil seep in a field (we almost ran out of gas).

But yeah. The highlights of my day include hanging out with professors on the line, in the car, and elsewhere, watching a pickup truck accidentally roll into our headquarters building, getting malts at the malt shoppe while the boys got girly temporary tattoos, having way too much fun on the walkie talkies, getting called an idiot after I asked my professor Rich to (it's an honor, believe me), having Dr. Bob call our geologic cross section "elegant", our department head's sense of humor, and joking around with the TAs.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday left for data acquisition. I will make it to the weekend after the longest week of my life.

These Summer Nights

Week 10 in Fort Collins came, rushing with it the weeks of August. It's still summer, but August contains the twilight days of summer.

Never have I consistently woken up so early in the day, for never have I had a job that didn't promote insomnia. My blinds of the east-facing window of my Fort Collins apartment hardly shield the sunrise, and that's okay, for I'll wake up just a half hour later. When my alarm startles me from my dreams, I'm looking forward to going to bed that night already.It's not that I hate the day. I love it. Who wouldn't love coding for 8 hours or making pretty pictures and writing about them?

Time flies like the wind flies through my hair speeding down the CSU Foothills campus parking lot. I've enjoyed this taste of grad school, a buffer to the "real world" life.

It ends so quickly, though I'd be perfectly content to spend many more nights trapped in summer with these people I've met and grown attached to so quickly. I do miss the people I spend my winter nights with, but not the winter.

***
It's stifling hot in my new bedroom location upstairs in the Enchanted Palace. Fans are blaring, but the sound of crickets provides a nice background noise.

School starts tomorrow. I haven't really thought about it (on purpose), which is probably why I haven't had those recurring nightmares where I can't find my classes. I'm not ready for summer to end. I've loved these summer nights where I've gotten to enjoy life without the brain-breaking work that our typical "study parties" hold.

I'm tired already. I know many more tired nights lie ahead of me. Yet, this is not the same kind of tired. It's not the tiredness that dreads the impending and passing deadlines then passes out from exhaustion in the Green Center lobby between classes. It's the kind of tired you get after a good, long day. It's content.

Parallel Slope Lines

TIME = 1:(infinity);

1:length(TIME)....[or in English: from now until the length of time]...

Lately I've been thinking. Well, not like that's big news (I think I think too much), and screw it- I'm usually thinking about the past, future, or present unless I'm not thinking (which is entirely possible and probable when I feel like a zombie)- so let's just get to the point.

My thoughts take me back to the summer of 2010, the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. Yep, back in the day.

Finishing up what was a hell year of junior year, I took my ACT and SAT tests and was planning on majoring in Meteorology at Metro State College of Denver or University of Northern Colorado. My mom found this program for minority students interested in math, science, and engineering. I applied, and was accepted, along with twenty-something other high-schoolers.

There's really no way to completely prepare for being on your own for the first time, and for three weeks straight. And there's really no way to know what to expect of the Colorado School of Mines when you've never been exposed to it before. Thus was SUMMET. I had no idea what I was getting myself into for the next five years. All 16-year-old me knew was that I would get a taste of college.

There are certain undeniable stages of growing up. The first is when you are only allowed half a package of Swiss Cake Rolls. The second is when you have the freedom to buy your own box, as I wrote in a note one night:

Swiss Cake Rolls and Junk Food. Yeah! 

Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:19pm
Isn't it weird when you buy your first box of Swiss Cake Rolls by yourself with your own money and you're looking forward to eating them all by yourself....something you've never been able to do before in your whole life...then you don't really feel like eating the whole box, and you decide to share them...weird.Oh, yeah, we went to Safeway and we were the crazy kids buying junk food at 9 oclock; some of us were in pj's (not me!)

So, what's the best method of picking out an ice cream flavor? First, you see what's the cheapest personal size. Then, you choose the brand that has more ounces. If you have it narrowed down to a few varieties, than choose the one with the most calories! Yeah! Now that's what I call the best way to pick out junk food!

Before the days of Sodexo, Mines' dining service was provided by Aramark, and boy was the food awful. I lost weight during the three-week stint, and grew tired of the bland concoctions in the poorly lit room called Slate. Needless to say, I was excited to spend what few money I had on junk food. And I had the common decency to not wear pajamas to the Safeway down the road.

July 17, 2010  Tonight's schedule (proudly brought to you by the school of mines)....Finish Chemistry Lab report (4-8pgs), study for tomorrows exams, take a shower, and sleep. If I have enough time, that is.

I complained on Facebook a bit. But looking back, I had no idea what a true late night finishing reports and homework would be like. 

July 18, 2010 Hey I might have gotten an F on computer science! Woo!!! That's like, 50%!!! Yeah!!On a more serious note, NO MORE HOMEWORK NO MORE EXAMS! Just research.

I actually did well. 

July 20, 2010 Just got back from project meeting interviews...SUMMET could totally be made into a reality TV show.

Yes. The stress definitely got to some of us, and living with people we didn't know had its challenges as well. There was also a winner at the end of the program for those who got the best grades. 

July 21, 2010 Starbucks dark chocolate mocha bottled frappaccino + Milky Way dark midnight = e

I should have capitalized the E. But I was learning quickly. 

July 21, 2010  My Panda Express fortune cookie: "Your sense of humor will see you through difficult times".

Ha. Haha. 

July 23, 2010  WOOOO!!!! Presentations are DONE!!!! The hard part of Nerdland is DONE!!!!!! YAY!!!! I'm FREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, kid. That was the tip of the iceberg. (But props on aptly naming CSM "Nerdland").

It was a great experience. At the end of it all, I wrote this note in reflection. I was so wrong. I would eat breakfast at Slate again (man, I miss those hashbrowns), two summers later I would eat lunch while the sports camp kids yelled when I would be an RA for Challenge, I would most certainly sleep in the dorms again, although that was my last night in Randall Hall, I would get up at an insane hour in the morning, and I absolutely would push the handicap button to open those doors to the Student Center.

We Worked Our Butts Off. Was It Worth It? Yes.

Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 5:11pm
Today was the end of SUMMET and other things. Yesterday was the last of many things.
Yesterday was the last time I ate breakfast at the cafeteria at Mines. I probably won't be getting up at 6:30 ever again to eat that junk, so it was a last.
After that was the last time we would do anything hard at SUMMET, then we were free after our presentation (fistpumpz!). 
Then was the last time we ate at the cafeteria for lunch. The last time we would hear those little brats buzzing and yelling. The last time we would eat pizza cause it's the only acceptable thing.
Our last fun activity together was Eliche's. It was also the last time our lives would be in danger because of Gerame in the driver's seat. The last time we would have to squeeze into those vans- all twenty-something of us. 
That night, it was the last night I would sleep in the dorms. It was the last morning our alarm clocks would go off at an insane hour in the morning. 
Today after waking up, it was the end of saying "good mornin'" even if it wasn't. It was the end of taking your toothbrush and tooth paste to the bathroom and finding a sink to brush them in. 
We ate breakfast burritos: that was the end of all of us eating together.
We all began to pack. The dorms began to look empty. It was the end of hearing my fan humming constantly, Zofia sitting at her computer listening to music, and Brooke's poster of Justin Bieber on our wall. 
We ended our tearful and humorous farewells with Rosana and Marchana, while smiling because Greg had already left.
Graduation was the end of everything SUMMET, it was also the last time I would get to push the handicap button for the doors to open to the Slate building. 
We took pictures, then gave farewell hugs. 
We then walked back to the car that brought us here. 
It was the end of a month together.
But yes, it was worth it.
THE END 

There definitely were things that were unique to that summer though. Such is time, life, and experiences. Lines have slopes, sometimes intersect, sometimes are parallel. Experiences make up our lives, but I think you can't have the experience twice. It'd be like trying to draw the same line over the piece of paper but never seeing it show up.

I had climbed a slope in what would become a mountain, and did it with some pretty cool people.

***
 I found out in the Linux Lab while coding in MatLab, ironically (the program I would be using to analyze data this summer).

Dear Katerina,
Congratulations! You have been accepted into the 2013 CMMAP Summer Internship Program....

I was given a week to make a decision, and was waiting from responses from other internships as well.

There are some decisions, or paths that we will take, that will affect our course long-term, possibly for the rest of our lives. I was (am?) afraid that this was going to be one of them, and wasn't sure what to do: wait for another opportunity, or accept the one in front of me. But one of my professors said something along the likes of, "It doesn't end up that way when you look back at it in the end."

I accepted the research position at CMMAP through Colorado State Univeristy. Many of my geophysics friends will end up scattered in many different fields such as oil, seimology, hydrogeophysics, geothermal energy, and others. And here I am, a geophysicist among mostly atmospheric scientists, 13 other interns beside myself. 

I suppose I was somewhat prepared for spending a summer writing MatLab scripts, yet it is still my first taste of "real life". I have an office I'm supposed to sit at for eight hours a day, and I get paid for it. It's pretty great. And when I get home, I don't have to do homework, which leads to slightly more delicious meals than I have during the school year.

The second stage of life, as I discovered Fall 2012 semester, is when you are faced with such hard times that you go through a box of Swiss Cake Rolls per week. The third stage of life is when you can buy Swiss Cake Rolls, but you buy salad instead.

That is now- organic leaf mix with creamy Caesar dressing. I'll bike to work in the morning, just as I have every morning. It's weird, this pretending to be healthy thing. The bike ride is killer. It's only four miles one way, but the last hill to reach the atmospheric science building is so steep, you'd think you'd start rolling backwards. It's too slopey.

Don't tell MatLab, but time isn't a finite vector we can open up on the computer and check out what happens. Back in 2010 I didn't know where I would end up, and I have no idea where I'll be in another three years, in 2016. Perhaps in the future I will discover that this summer experience will parallel experiences yet to happen. Maybe it won't.

But I won't know everything until the end of time.

Prelude

Summer has a song.
It's a song with no particular melody, but somehow it reminds me of my childhood.
There's crickets and junebugs, cars driving on the freeway, the wind rattling wind chimes.
Sometimes there's a radio on and the crack of a bat is heard.
Maybe a mosquito is zapped as someone pours another glass of iced tea.
Somewhere, kids are yelling.

And at one time, I was the kids yelling.
But now, it's different.

The days of mud pies and bike rides are waning.
Summer changes time signatures and tunes.
And it's not necessarily a bad thing.
I guess I'm just growing up.

So it became that in the summer between freshman and sophomore year:
I end up in a tower, with a job, making sure kids don't yell, along with more important things.

I realize I like talking about school.
I realize I keep my room much neater when I have a roommate.
I realize Weaver is filled with haunting noises (kidding).

But this isn't mostly about me.
I'm just a note on a sheet part of a book.
And Challenge is the prelude for 39 Class of 2016'ers.

They're mostly awesome kids.

They complete pre-calculus and chemistry homework.
Sometimes complain about how late they're up.
I smirk.
But they're hard workers.

They ask me to tell them a story.
I tell of my trippy EPICS teacher, all the D's I've received on exams including the most fateful one on my Earth final.
Why you should probably sleep the night before your Chem final.
Nights exploring the roof of Brown Building and creepy elevators in Maple Hall.

I listen to their story.
How Challenge is their gateway into Mines.
For some, a dream that looked bleak, but now has a chance.

Okay, they're pretty awesome kids.

They know how to have fun already, and are now acquainted with dorm pranks.
In four weeks, they form many inside jokes, sayings, and sounds, a quartet, and friendships.
They know how to decorate a suite window pretty well.
And do the Harvard Baseball dance to Call Me Maybe.
Within a couple weeks, I could tell they are all nerds at heart and belong here.

They learn a lot in four weeks, and more than academics.
And they got a bunch of pretty cool people to teach them all that stuff, if I do say so myself.

Scary to think it's already been a year since I was about to start Mines.
I kind of miss the feeling, the uncertainty.
The 'freshness'; the first-ness of everything.

I talk to them like I might have it figured out.
But I only have freshman year figured out.
Sophomore year will have it's own rises and falls.
And though last year I was scared and uncertain, and anxiously excited,
I'm now scared but respectful, and patiently excited.

Some summers are for ice cream, but maybe this one was for growing up a little bit.
And again, not just me, but everyone who needed a prelude.
A short taste to the event to come.
A way to turn high-schoolers into college freshman.
To turn me from a freshman to a sophomore.

Sophomore....It doesn't sound so weird saying that now.

Not-So-Love Letter

Dear Mines,

I don't know how I feel about you. I mean, I think I really like you, but I've only known you for a year. I've missed you so much over the summer. It's weird...but yet it's how I feel.

Gosh, I miss you so much. But sometimes you're a jerk. You introduced me to them, but it seems you don't give me enough time to hang out with my friends like I want to. You constantly try to take me away from the things I love. You're so distracting. Demanding my full attention. It's not convenient. You make me emotional when I don't want to be emotional. Make me feel stupid at school. Nerdy. Socially awkward and dorky away from school. Insecure and alone when I shouldn't feel that way. You take away the feeling that I have it all figured out and make me come up with this thing called living life, crammed in and intense as an exam.

Now that I think about it, maybe this time away from you has been good. Of course it has been. But gosh, I miss seeing you every day, thinking about everything you bring. I feel this longing for me to go back, no, for you to come back to me. I'm here in Golden right now, waiting during the few weeks until you come back. Everything reminds me of you. Some place will bring up some memory. A picture will bring back a day. Some nights...I even dream about you. 

I'm scared a little bit, of course. The next two years are gonna test our relationship. But I'm really excited where the next year might take us. Maybe that's why I miss you so much: I need the constant pressure back in my life. The excitement and uncertainty of what I want and what's going to happen. I'm ready. Because, again, I think I really like you. I just wish you'd show me that you might feel that way too. Please? Can we just have the time of our lives this year and the next? And the next? (Until the sad day when I'll leave you?)

-Kat

Bright Lights

It is Day 34 without school... I have done a whole lot, and then a whole lot of nothing. Which has been great.

I've also taken a vacation from blogging, as you might have noticed, but have no fear. I intend to wrap up the year with great quotes from crazy Mines kids (my friends), tales from Mines Athletics, a recap of things put in dry-erase, and a post involving my conglomeration of t-shirts acquired after one year. I think. I hope. I will get to it, okay?

And then in July I will begin new adventures, as I will be an RA for MEP's (Multicultural Engineering Program) Challenge Program. Challenge is for incoming freshman to prepare them for Mines to happen to them. That is, they will live in the dorms and take pre-classes to prepare them. I'm really excited to work with MEP, as I was a SUMMET kid in 2010. I'm also really excited to meet some of the Class of 2016.

And then school will start soon after that. But for now, let me rewind and drop a couple pictures of what I've been doing the last couple of weeks:

Visiting NY was great. We did everything we wanted to, going non-stop for seven days walking and walking. The lights are bright, and they sing you can make it anywhere if you can make it there (to which I object with "Try making it at Mines"). Seven days was nice to spend and get a taste of the Big Apple. But it confirmed to me I don't want to live anywhere except Colorado.

Maybe it's because I'm missing everything. (Well, mostly Golden and the people. The studies can wait a few weeks). New York City is too humid for me, too loud, smells on some street corners of trash. There are people everywhere, a lot of them, although I don't have to talk to any of them. Of course they are awake at 3am, which is nice, as opposed to the time at school when I'd be alone at 3am and there would be no food places open.

But I miss looking at Mt. Zion and the Table Mountains everyday, all around. I miss looking at people's faces and recognizing most of them. It's going to be so great to see how pretty Golden is in the summer again, although I think it looks (and Colorado in general) best in Fall and Spring.

I don't ever want to leave.