As time barrels by and I find my graduation looming closer, I find myself floating between feeling elation and anticipation. To tell the truth, it is more elation than anything. I feel ready to go out there and explore the world outside of the classroom. Perhaps it sounds naive, but I am fully aware that this won’t be easy. It is perhaps easier to go straight to graduate school, to pick a known path for myself. I just can’t let myself do that. I want to make sure I discover myself and my potential outside the classroom before I decide what I want to do with myself.
I will not be going straight to graduate school, as I want to give myself a chance to try new things, to travel, to work different jobs and eventually find the path that’s meant to be. I like this position I’m in right now, standing right at the edge of the unknown where anything could happen.
Author Archive for charity
I thought I’d try to explain what I’m doing here in Durham, NC, but it’s gonna be tough without delving into all the scientic terms that are an important aspect of my internship. I am here on a Fellowship, which is part of the Duke University REU Fellows program under the Pratt School of Engineering. I am one of 11 fellows from all over the country that were admitted into this prestigious 8-week program.
Rain, Rain Go away, Little Tommy Wants to Play
Childish, I know, but this phrase reflects how I feel right now. Perhaps ‘Little Charity’ wouldn’t fit so well, and since I stand at 6′1, just isn’t true. I have spent the past two and a half weeks in Durham, North Carolina. Everyone I’ve talked to about the weather has said that it is abnormal so far this year, being cooler, cloudier, stormier and rainer than usual at this time of the year. As I look out my window a steady rain is coming down, not quite a downpour but something like the rain you read about in the Irish or English countryside. However, there are no rolling hills of green.
Bah, enough about the weather ; ) Actually it’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow and in the mid 80’s so perhaps I should stop complaining while I’m ahead. So, perhaps you are wondering what I am doing at Duke University. I am on a Fellowship under the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and am one of 11 people who were selected for this program. So far it’s been a great experience and this entire experience will be something that I will never forget, that’s for sure. Actually, the weather isn’t bothering me so much but thought it’d be a good topic to start with. After all, many conversations start with the weather forecast. “Isn’t the weather gorgeous?”, ” My, how dry it is for this time of the season”
I will explain more about my internship in my upcoming blog, so look for it.
I’m not graduating this May, but I am already wondering what it’ll be like after school. I’ll have been through 19 years of school by the time I graduate May 2007, and more and more I look forward to the end of this extremely long period of my life. I look to the period after the BA degree as a time of choice and extreme freedom, but it’s a scary transition as well. My excitement outweighs any anxiety i may have, though.
Continue reading ‘Life After School’
Not a very creative title, I know, but spring fever is here, and it’s presence is strong. You can see students laying on the Gallaudet mall, soaking in the rays between classes. With the sun’s persuasive rays making their way to every crack, through blinds opened and closed, a 50 minute affair (class) becomes agonizing. Open windows reveal gorgeous blossomed trees and milling Gallaudet students. Very few students are not wearing flipflops and shorts/skirts. Those unlucky students in class are peering outside, and I can bet you they’re thinking, just 5 weeks left till summer vacation. Spring fever has hit, at full blast. ; )
Backpacking Part IV: An Eventful Turkish Border Crossing
Published by 3 years, 11 months ago in blog. 1 CommentWhew, I’m glad I was able to get this ‘notebook’ at a booth near the train station in Istanbul, because I have a lot of writing to do- I’m six days behind! It’s hard to believe, the time flies by, that it does. Last I left off (in the other journal), I was on the train to Istanbul, Turkey. That train ride was pretty uneventful, until the border crossing. When night came, we took shifts sleeping. The people on the train looked suspicious, and, on heightened alertness because of the contractor’s warning, we were paranoid. But taking shifts isn’t paranoid-it’s smart.
Continue reading ‘Backpacking Part IV: An Eventful Turkish Border Crossing’
Backpacking Part III: Romania Part II- More Deaf People in Unexpected Places
Published by 3 years, 11 months ago in blog. 1 CommentAgain, this is an excerpt from my journals written live during my travels in Europe last summer.
We paid for a two-hour metro ticket (they allowed us both to use it) with money we had ‘set aside’ and which I hadn’t included in the amounts stated before. We arrived at the train station, and they have this section cordoned off where people have to pay to get in the train station, run by people in official uniforms. I still have no idea what it’s for or why they make people pay, but we got in without paying, acting lost and confused and deaf (great acting, huh?)
Continue reading ‘Backpacking Part III: Romania Part II- More Deaf People in Unexpected Places’
Catching Up: Backpacking Part II- Romania Part I: Beauty in a Third World Country
Published by 3 years, 11 months ago in blog. 3 CommentsHere’s another journal excerpt from my European travels last summer.
Me on a train ride.
Picture taken by Robyn Girard
6-22-05 (Tuesday)
We were stuck at the Bucharest train station for maybe 20-30 minutes before getting onto our next train, to Suceava! They were getting ready for this broadcast there, though what the subject was, I have no idea. There were three different channels there getting ready to broadcast, I’m assuming at 1 pm.
Women and their female children were selling blankets, tapes, etc. throughout the ‘waiting’ area, outside the trainstation between tracks. When we got on our train, we had to wait perhaps another 45 minutes before finally leaving. During this time, people were constantly coming in and out trying to sell this or that. Some came in, dropped several products onto the seat next to us, then proceeded to the next car. When done, she’d (always a female) come back to see if we wanted anything (nope), then take it all back and perhaps move to the next car.
Continue reading ‘Catching Up: Backpacking Part II- Romania Part I: Beauty in a Third World Country’
As I sit here in my chair in the Ballard West RA office, I have some time on my hands and observe the lobby that’s often full of life, with freshman seated on the lounge chairs and couches, chatting, goofing around, and discussing what to do tonight.
Continue reading ‘What becomes of everyone?’
One thing I’ve gotten used to about college life is not going home for Thanksgiving Day, usually for several imposing reasons such as: it’s expensive to fly home especially when I’ll be going home soon for Christmas, I have to remain for a basketball tournament (which isn’t a factor this year as I decided not to join the team), etc.
Continue reading ‘Turkey Day’