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