College Station in My Rearview Mirror

The day has come and it is gone. I feel like it's the day after I turned 21. A huge milestone has been achieved; yet, I really feel no different than the day before. Yesterday I got to walk across the stage and shake President Gates' hand (one that had no doubt loads of germs from the prior 437 handshakes) with my right, and received my diploma with my left. A simple action, but one that signals the end of one act and brings on the intermission before the next act comes into full swing.
Looking back I'm so glad of all that I've done. Even the bad things have served to teach me a great deal about who I am or more about those whom I know and love. It amazes me how every little step in life prepares you for the next. It makes you think, perhaps there is even more in store for me? Or perhaps I just need to lead a small life that is significant in meaning to those around me. I don't know, but now is the intermission, and the play doesn't really begin for a bit, so I can worry more about those things then.

For today I'm going to simply head off to the next and most exciting thing to happen in awhile. I'm about to leave College Station for a bit, and train to be a summer camp counselor. Honestly, I can't even express how excited I am about it all. I'm so excited to get my kids, to learn about them, help them grow as people and challenge them in new ways that will help them in their metamorphosis into grown men.

Camp won't really start for me until July, but the training is now and I know that the relationships forged over the next couple of weeks will be the foundations for helping our kids grow. I just pray that all goes well, and that God helps bring all of us counselors really close for the benefit of our kids.

I won't be able to post for the next couple of weeks, but I just hope all of you recent grads know that you'll be sorely missed. If you're off doing an internship or whatnot, then work hard, cause it maybe the best chance you get to prove how great you really are. And those off you in CS for the month of June; I'll see you in a couple of weeks!

New Things Coming with Blogger

At least I'm leaving A&M in good hands...even if they are tiny

I'm kind of excited with all of the new changes at Blogger. I now have a profile posted off to the side, I've added some links, I can change the date format for my archived blogs, and I can post pictures now! But best of all, you can now add comments to everything, so others and I can now view your opinions!

Google is quickly becoming my favorite company. With Gmail, Blogger, and how much they're trying to change to make the internet a cool place...it's no wonder the geeks love them!

Well, my best friend Kelly is coming in tomorrow, so I should probably hit the hay.

I'm done with undergrad! WHOOP!

Despite the amount of time that I've had to ponder since my last entry, little has happened that would inspire truly 'deep' thought. However, that doesn't mean that little has changed. Since the end of April I've found out that my plans have changed in many ways, that my departure from Aggieland may not come for awhile, and that this summer is going to leave me with less free time than I thought. Things are going at such a breakneck speed; yet, I'm lacking desire to do almost anything in the school department. It's been fun though, I had my last few days at work, today we got to share ideas for improvements to our department, this weekend I'll have some final parties with some of the friends I've made, and everything is quickly drawing to a rather happy close. It still boggles my mind to think that in one week I'll be walking across a stage grabbing a tube with my diploma in it. But fortunately that will not be the end of my career at A&M.

A while back I wrote something about shooting for your dreams and wondering if it was really worth it. Well, I think it's going to be. What happened is I applied for a program called the Certificate for Advanced International Affairs (CAIA) through the Bush School. I didn't really think I stood much of a chance of getting in since I've got a strictly technical degree, but turns out I made it! I still didn't know much about the program though, so today I went and talked to a lady at the Bush School about it and it sounds really neat. Basically it's a certificate (non-degree) program that would help me to either:

a) Start a career in the area of international affairs (security agencies, political branches, etc.).
b) Would help to increase my knowledge of international business practices that would greatly help to benefit my climbing the corporate ladder at National Instruments.

Since both of these options sound like pretty good deals, then I'm going to go ahead and do the program. Although, I am very sad, because by doing this it means that I won't be able to do the road trip that I was hoping to do this summer up to the northeast and Canada. I'm really sad that I won't get to visit some of my friends and see some of the sights that I've yet to see. But then again, I really think this is the best move for me as a person and accomplishing some of my larger life goals.

Besides graduation entering this program is the biggest thing in my life. It means I'll be in College Station until July, then going straight to summer camp, and then having a short break before starting at NI. But, I think that anything truly worthwhile will have to cause some sort of sacrifice. I just hope the small sacrifice helps me to reap rich rewards. Time will tell.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”
-Douglas Adams