Hey everybody!
It's been a couple of busy weeks here in Pittsburgh. I've been up to my neck in school work while settling into the new city. I'm having a real blast, but it is a truly exhausting experience. (Anyone that follow my twitter: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.) Between all of the work and balancing socialization time, I've been teetering in my usual emotional levels of "Everything is amazing!" to "What in the world am I doing with my life!?" I have been assured that this is a completely normal human response and that it will level out fairly soon.
I've started fencing again so that I can keep my skills from completely rusting away. I found some people to swing swords at and carpool, so I've got some motivation, though I made the distinct tactical error of forgetting my electric equipment back in the lovely state of Michigan. Of course this means I will have to recover it before I can even think about becoming more competitive. This also involves having free time to actually travel to tournaments, and since I currently lack anything that amounts to free time or spare cash, this could be regarded as a positive problem.
(On a side note, it doesn't appear that the state of Pennsylvania actually uses the AskFred database. That means that I have no idea about what sorts of tournaments and ratings are doing around here, which is quite aggravating.)
As far as writing goes, I've gotten a couple of rejections for some stories (which is still promising) and a possible novel outline to completely ignore during my first draft. I'm mostly putting my stuff on the back burner until I can get some solid classwork footing. Possibly jumping into Nanowrimo if everything seems to in good shape. I've only got a month to work myself into a frenzy before that prospect becomes impossible, but it looks good in the distance.
In the "spare time" that I have left for reading, I've been working through Ted Chiang's collection of short stories "The Story of Your Life and Others" which has been an amazing read so far. The story Division by Zero was especially poignant as I'm frantically working on my proof-based math homework. If I write anything that approaches what Ted is able to do with his pieces, I will be exceedingly happy with myself. I doubt that will happen for a while, but I feel it's a good, lofty aspiration.
I've also picked up the third volume of "Locke and Key: Crown of Shadows", written by the ever talented Joe Hill. It should be noted that Gabriel Rodriguez's art is gorgeous as usual. It is an excellent continuation of the storyline and I'm really excited to see where the series is heading in future volumes.
Other than that I'm just polishing my resumé and ironing my suit for interview for possible internships this summer. It seems like all of the companies that I'm looking at are arriving on campus in the next few weeks which gives me plenty of time to panic uncontrollably. Hopefully I'm not just stuck watching Netflix and eating popcorn during a few months this summer, as appealing as that sounds. (It would let me catch up Breaking Bad though, so not an awful plan. Still not ideal.)
Oh! If you guys had science questions that you wanted answered in simple terms, feel free to aim a tweet or comment my way. I'm always happy to give my best attempt at clear answers, and as you can tell that something that I've been trying to work on for the blog.
That's about everything (minus stressing more about homework load) so mostly I just need to keep my head down and keep working. I've got a lot of good things happening, and it's nice to be doing something that I love. I'll try to update more as things go forward!
Have a great week everyone, and take some time to relax and enjoy yourself!
~ Patrick
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