Man!  I must say, I wasn't expecting to write to you, my readers, so soon, but can I just say that what a relief it is not to be on the college hunt anymore?  Whew!

With all this time that has opened up in the evenings, what is a fella to do?  Well, you know me, I always have hobbies waiting out in the wings, ready to fill the void :-)  In this case, I FINALLY picked up my novel again, after months of being off the job.  Today has been very productive, although I'll admit that it has taken quite a while tonight to get the juices flowing.  That, and the girl next to me at the coffee shop is a bit distracting ;-) but hey, back to the book!

I've spent a good chunk of the evening rereading all my notes, charts, outlines, and rough drafts.  First, I just have to say, this thing is a lot better than I remembered.  I can't wait to share it!  I just hope the details flow as freely as they did before, as it has been a while.  Who cares, it's fiction, I can just make up stuff right?  That's part of the creative process haha.

Well, today has been pretty productive so far, but I'm on a short break for now.  I thought while I was taking it easy, I'd post one of my writing exercises I found.  If you can believe it (I'm sure you can), I bought a book on writing a book a while back, which I have since given up reading.  However, one of the cool exercises that it suggested was writing down 100 things that you love, and then using those in your novel, since you tend to write a lot more passionately about the things you love.

So what are my 100 things?  Here you go, enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed reading this list as much as I did again tonight.  I think there are some duplicates, but whatever.  Some of these things are REALLY random haha.

Alright, enough break time, back to work!  Not sure if I'll keep hanging out at the coffee shop or head back home to work on this, but I'm on a roll tonight.  That and let's just say I'm not to motivated to move my seat at the moment lol.

Until next time, stay classy readers!

-StM

Wow, that was a whirlwind week!  Just got back from visiting the last 3 out of the 4 grad schools I applied to.  Alright, so what's the verdict?  Well, I definitely am glad I went, since it's that "gut feeling" that brought me to a great school like Cal Poly 5 years ago, and I think it is the most important part of choosing a school.  Academics, rankings, blah blah blah...none of it means jack if you personally don't feel a school is right for you.  That's why I went out of my way to travel to each place and meet with people.  That and, well, it gave me an excuse to go on a mini vacation to 3 cool places!

Each of these schools is very different, but I decided that as a good engineer, I can't just decide the whole thing based on my instinct.  Okay, well maybe like half of it is instinct.  The other half?  Pros and cons, data, and other analyses that I've written up and amassed over this trip.

So here we go.  Before any of these schools graded me, I decided I would grade THEM, using some basic categories.  Of course, I'm a push over as a teacher, so I gave out As and Bs only lol.  Let's see how they fared, shall we?

UCSB
Campus Size	B
Cost	A
Housing	B
Program	B+
Research / Professors	A-
Facilities	B
People	B
Outdoor Activities	A
Surrounding Area / Environment / Weather	A
Commute	A
Being "Green"	A

Purdue
Campus Size	A
Cost	B
Housing	B-
Program	A
Research / Professors	B
Facilities	A
People	A-
Outdoor Activities	B
Surrounding Area / Environment / Weather	A-
Commute	B
Being "Green"	B-

Georgia Tech
Campus Size	B
Cost	A
Housing	B+
Program	A
Research / Professors	A-
Facilities	A
People	A
Outdoor Activities	B-
Surrounding Area / Environment / Weather	B-
Commute	B-
Being "Green"	A-

Washington
Campus Size	A
Cost	A-
Housing	A
Program	A-
Research / Professors	A
Facilities	A
People	A
Outdoor Activities	A-
Surrounding Area / Environment / Weather	A
Commute	A
Being "Green"	A

I know, I know, these categories could probably use a little explanation.  Well hey, I have it all written out for myself, but I don't feel like writing it up here lol.  If you look closely at all these grades, you can see UW was the top choice after the initial grade.
But who won the "gut feeling award"?  Well, that one went to UW as well!  The campus was absolutely beautiful, not mention Seattle is an awesome city.  Yes, it rains, I know, but I was loving the 30 degree weather.  Reminds me of home.  I feel like having a little more weather will be a good thing.  Of course, I can't exercise as much, but now that I'm outfitted to bike in the rain, I think I'll make due :-)  I spent one day just exploring neighborhoods, and it was a blast!  There are so many cool little places around town, not to mention the awesome U-District right by campus.
You know, it's funny, but in many ways I see Seattle as my SF.  I mean there are TONS of hills, electric buses running on wires, and the city even has it's Castro district in West Capitol Hill.  It's also great that it has that big city feel, but you can drive a few minutes and be out of town really fast.  Finally, a chance to get my chance to live in a city and be within a few miles of hiking!
What if it's not quite for me?  Well, I see this journey in my life as a two-year trial period.  At the end of my grad school career, maybe I'll stay, maybe I'll move back to the Bay, who knows. 
Ah, the Bay...in many ways I'm gonna miss it.  All the great friends, roomies and connections I've made, I really have grown to love the area.  However, it's always been a goal of mine to get my MS, and by golly I'm going to do it!  I mean, this is the third year I've applied to colleges and my GRE scores are getting a little dusty, so I figured it was time to go.
Alright, alright, so the verdict is...

Are you going to grad school? So where will it be?  What's my top choice? Etc, etc...