Not taking kindly to summer time

Today more than most days, I really really wanted to be back at Rice. Summer isn't going too great for me, which is strange because it seems like I have a lot more to do this summer than I did last summer. Yesterday Robyn and I celebrated being officially together for a month, and I remembered that we haven't really even seen each other for 3/4 of that time, and it will be more than another month before I'll see her in person again. But it's not just that I miss her, I miss everyone at Rice. I miss the guys from 3rd south, I miss Ian and Colin and playing Rock Band in Martel 324, I really miss the MOB and all of my friends from that (Thank God that they'll be the first people I'll see a lot when I get back), I even miss going to classes with Kevin, Ryan, Gary, Nathan, Travis, Mario, and Rodolfo. If I could do anything to make August, or at least July, get here I would.

Robyn talked about how happy she was to be home and spending time with her high school friends because they make her feel more positive, energetic, and enthusiastic than a lot of her Rice friends. I found that the opposite is true for me, and that I feel so much better spending time with my Rice friends, particularly those in MOB, Agape, and CSA, and don't really enjoy spending time with my friends from high school as much, though hanging out with my youth group friends is amazing. There tends to be a theme throughout my life of every Christian or band group that I am a member of being awesome. Perhaps I should take this as a sign and try to spend more time with the people from those areas of my life and not try to diversify my friendships too much among people that don't always put me in as good of a mood or make me feel quite as excited, happy, and optimistic.

On a happier note, watching the Tony Awards tonight made my day, especially the opening number and Neil Patrick Harris's closing number. I decided that at some point in my life I want to take a week long trip to New York and see a different Broadway musical every night. It would get really expensive really fast though. Maybe for my honeymoon or if I ever acquire a vast fortune suddenly.

On another happy note, Russell and Alison are getting married on Saturday, which means I get to see Rice people in Houston again in about 5 days! Excitement! Last summer, Patrick and Gillian's wedding was one of the highlights of the whole summer. Hopefully this will be just as awesome!

How much you mean to me

This past weekend I went to Houston to visit Robyn and spent the better part of three straight days in constant contact with her. It was without a doubt the highlight of the first three weeks of my summer so far, but also came with the mildly unfortunate side effect of reminding me of how much I enjoy spending time with her, which can be a bother when I have to spend summer living in a different city from her.

So ever since then I'm reminded every couple hours of Robyn just whenever my mind starts to wander, and how much I miss her and how much she means to me. Today that reminded me that as amazing as she is, there is someone else that deserves my love and admiration even more who I haven't been thanking and appreciating as much as I should. I wonder why my relationship with God never seems to be as present in my mind as my relationship with Robyn is. It's easy to remind myself of how amazing Robyn is and how much she means to me, so why don't I constantly remind myself how amazing God is and how much He means to me. He's done so much more for me than Robyn or any of my friends could, why don't I spend more time praising and thanking him for it.

I realized this earlier this morning, and then came up with an interesting idea that I've been experimenting with throughout the day. Every time my mind starts wandering into thinking about Robyn, I also remind myself of God's love for me, and how he is even more important in my life. Instead of thinking about how I want to call or text Robyn at that moment just to tell her how much she means to me, I say a quick prayer to God to thank him for making my life so amazing, and for being at my side to help me along even in the times when my life is sucking and I feel like I need his support the most. My relationship with Robyn could last for the rest of my life, or it could end tomorrow, but I'm guaranteed that I'll be able to lean on God forever, which means he should be that much more important in my life.

It's an interesting little association to make in my mind, and it's been helping me throughout today to put my relationship with God back where it needs to be. Thanks Lord for giving me a great way to remind myself constantly of how amazing you are and how much you mean to me.

What in the world just happened?

I've now finished my first three days of my first ever, legit, 40-hour a week, 8-5. engineering job. It's been really fun, yet I feel like I've been thrown into a completely different world and I wasn't quite ready for it. I'm enjoying my work, but there are certain things about college that aren't present here that I miss.

First, I feel pretty alone. Most of the people here are much older than me, and while there are several other students, I can't think of any good way to meet them. We all have our different projects, and I feel like it would be kind of weird for me to go up to them in the morning and ask them when they are taking their lunch break and if I can come along. It seems kind of awkward, yet I feel like if I don't start making friends my own age I'm going to start to go crazy. The fact that I spend the rest of my day at home with my parents and younger siblings makes the lack of interaction with people my age even worse. I think my daily skype conversations with Robyn is helping to keep me sane, and hopefully seeing her, Kyle, Ryan, Heather, Nathan, and whoever else I can find in Houston this weekend will help me with my isolation problems.

I also miss Rice as a place. College campuses are fun and exciting, and there are always people to interact with, things you can do outside, etc. Here I'm in a building that is basically a maze of hallways full of people sitting at their computers, in their machine shops, or at some other kind of work station, busy doing stuff. There were always events that I could look forward to. A MOB rehearsal, theater rehearsal, study break in the commons, going somewhere with third south. Here, every day is basically the same. I go to work, I do what Anthony needs me to do, I go home and deal with my siblings fighting about something, dinner never being ready until really late, and then I talk with Robyn on Skype until I get tired and go to sleep. It's nice, but there's no variety. I need something that makes Tuesday interesting, or something to look forward to on Friday aside from just the weekend. The trip to Houston this weekend helps, but that'll only happen about 4 times this summer. What do I look forward to for the rest of the time?

I also am noticing that I can be very bad about getting some things done. I apparently never nag my mom enough to actually get her to help me get my drivers license, something I've been wanting to get since the summer after my senior year (I didn't care much while I was in high school, which I guess may be why my mom thinks I still don't care.) Even now that I seriously need one for my job in order to operate some of the vehicles, she still just tells me "Oh yeah, we can do that sometime this week," and every time I ask for a specific time she either ends up being busy or forgets about it. Maybe I need to just find a personal friend to take me to the DPS office since my mom never wants to.
I also need to call my bank about some overdraft fees that I shouldn't have gotten a couple weeks ago and to ask them about why the UT website won't let me set up direct deposit. Why do I have such a random fear of talking to people aside from those who are incredibly close to me on the phone?

Is it the weekend yet?

Summer isn't supposed to be stressful

I'm about a week into my summer break, though I've been done with finals for almost 3 weeks now. This has been by far the most stressful start to summer ever for me. Most of it involved summer jobs. Last summer I wasn't able to find employment at all, and somehow this summer I managed to get two job offers and had to pick between the two. There were advantages and disadvantages to both the Mexico internship and the job in Austin, but I eventually decided to stay in Austin and work at the Applied Research Labs at UT for a number of reasons. I figured that both would be great ways to spend my summer, and I need to stop worrying about what would have happened if I'd chosen the other one.

Another thing that's been somewhat stressful and annoying is not being able to see Robyn on a daily, or even weekly basis. I miss her a whole lot, and keep thinking of ways to see her. Something on my list of pros and cons of each internship was that I didn't want to spend two months in another country and not be able to see Robyn at all during that time. I've gotten kinda pathetic, but it's true. Similarly on that note, religion keeps being brought up in regard to the two of us, and apparently it's been happening to Robyn too. My parents have both asked me about her religion and if that's a problem for me since I'm a pretty religious person. Part of me does think it would be a lot more convenient if we had the same religion, but at the same time I'm really enjoying learning about Jewish customs and traditions in ways that I wouldn't be able to just from reading about it. I don't see it being an issue at this point, since, if anything, dating someone of a different religion than mine is helping me learn more about my own beliefs and helping me become stronger in my faith. If it doesn't work out between us in the end, sometime down the road, I will have at least learned a lot about the Jewish faith. And if it does work out and we stay together for a really long time, I'm sure we'll be able to make it work.

Another stressful thing. It seems like all kinds of bad things are happening to my high school friends. Well, mostly just two in particular. James is still having health problems that have been keeping him in and out of the hospital this semester, and will probably prevent him from playing much soccer with us this summer. And last night Cameron's dad passed away, and I can't even imagine how terrible that must be for him. It's hard to imagine someone at my age losing one of his parents. I certainly wouldn't want to have to deal with that kind of stress at this point in my life. If any of my readers could keep James and Cameron's family in their prayers I would appreciate it.

In a related note of things happening to people way too early, I found out yesterday that my first girlfriend back from the summer after my freshman year of high school and my best friend in my boy scout troop are getting married later this month. I was invited and will of course attend, since they are both very good friends of mine, but it seems so weird for people that are my age, a 19 year old and a 20 year old, that I grew up with are already getting married. That fact that I dated one of them for 2 months in high school makes it even weirder. Part of me is ok with it since they've been dating for 4 years now and are definitely right for each other, but at the same time getting married at 19 seems kind of ridiculous. Well, it's their decision and I wish them both the best.

How did I do?

At the beginning of the school year I made some resolutions, a list of things I wanted to get accomplished during my sophomore year. They were originally listed as "new-semester" resolutions, but I'm talking about them at the end of the school year as I am getting ready to leave, so they were kind of new school year resolutions. So for those who don't remember, here's what I wrote and how I did.

"I'm now at home at Rice, safe and sound, and need something to do before rehearsal this afternoon, so here's a list of things I'd like to get accomplished this semester.

1. Be more active. I've established a workout schedule for the semester which I hope will encourage me to run more than I did last year. I'm hoping that by setting specific times (Sunday after mass, Tuesday and Thursday after my 9:25 class) I'll be able to actually convince myself to get it done."

Haha. Well, I'm 0-1 so far. I didn't necessarily work out as much as I would have liked, but I definitely developed some better eating habits which helped me lose some weight which was kind of the original goal anyway. I guess there's always next year to start running the outer loop regularly.

"2. Better grades. My grades second semester sucked, and I don't want to have 3 C+'s at the same time again. I vow to get at least a 3.2 GPA for this fall semester so I can get back above the 3.0 mark. And no C's. I will tolerate a B- at minimum."

I didn't meet the 'No C's' mark because I got one C+ last semester, but my gpa is up to a 3.03 right now. While I haven't gotten all of my grades back for this semester I'm pretty sure that my gpa improved this year from last year, and I learned a lot more than I did last year because I studied harder.

"3. Try to get a good relationship started. Now that I'm totally settled into Rice, I really feel like I should start dating again. I did a little bit last year, but now that I'll have a bit more free time with fewer labs and hopefully fewer plays that I'll be in, I might have the time necessary. My trouble with girls in the past is that I'm very quick to find something wrong with a girl, and usually it's something silly like how she spends too much time studying or isn't quite religious enough, or not as intelligent as I am, or too much smarter than me. All kinds of stupid things that I tell myself mean a relationship won't work, so I don't try. However, I met someone about a year ago at Rice who continues to be more and more amazing each time I talk to her, and I actually haven't been able to tell myself there's anything I don't like about her. Someone who shares a ton of my interests, and who I can hold a conversation with for hours. Really funny, great personality, and I think that's where I should start."

Nothing happened between me and the girl that I mentioned last August because I met someone else during the first week of classes who was just awesome. And the funny thing about the comment about being in less plays this year is that I was in at least twice as much theater this year than last year. But I do now have a very amazing girlfriend, the girl that I mentioned two sentences ago that I met at the beginning of the year. Robyn is fantastic, and though it took us about 8 months to finally start being officially together, it was worth it.
However, my future blog posts about relationships will soon shift directions. The new question is what am I to do about dating someone who doesn't share my religious beliefs? Robyn is very Jewish and I am very Catholic, and while we both love God a lot and share very similar ideas about morals and how to live a good and holy life, I know that this difference will become an issue if we keep dating for a while, which is pretty likely to happen based on how things are going between us right now.

"4. Make 3rd south the greatest floor in the history of the universe. About 70% of my really good friends at Jones have all congregated on one floor, 3rd south, for this school year. I feel like we need to make it even greater than it was last year. We'll do awesome things as a floor, put up some awesome posters like last year, and have a great time."

Triple check. 3rd south this year was amazing. We have our own t-shirts, got campus-wide recognition for pulling a prank on the university, and hung out a lot. I got to know the people on my floor, Aaron, Monica, Gary, Carlos, John, Andrew, Nathan, Joey, Becky, Stephanie, Rick, Reagan, Travis, Rodolfo, and Mario, very well and we're gonna continue being close next year I'm sure.

"5. Meet more people, make more friends. As crazy as last year was with meeting hundreds of people for the first time and making strong friendships with several dozen people, I'd still like to get to know more people. Over a quarter of Rice's student body is new this year between freshmen and transfer students, and I'd like to reach out and make them feel welcome as well as find ways to include them in things I already do with my old friends."

While I didn't meet that many new people, I became very close to many friends that I already had. Mithun's advice at the beginning of the year was very sound, and I've learned that the quality of relationships is much more important than the quantity. I feel like I can talk to Kyle, Gary, Rick, and Ryan about almost anything, and I'll be roommates with two of them next year which will be amazing. Only problem is I'm gonna miss some of the seniors a lot, and I don't want to see them go.

4 out of 5, not bad.

Sometimes God answers prayers a bit too quickly

So, less than 24 hours after I "resolved" my lack of a summer job crisis, my summer internship prospects skyrocketed. To sum it up I'll copy and paste part of a message I just sent Andrea on Facebook.
I talked to Dr. Ajayan again about working in his lab today (I've been hounding him about it for about a month or so) and he said it might be hard for me to get a spot in Houston, but he could probably send me to Mexico to work with one of his research groups there, which accomplishes my goals of
1) Going abroad
2) Improving mi espanol skillz
3) Making lots of cash moneys ($2000/ month for 2-3 months= furniture for my apartment, yayuh!)
4) Improving my resume with an actual engineering related job, with one of the world leaders in nanotechnology research!
5) Not being bored over the summer
6) Spending even more time with my friend Miguel Angel Ibarra
So, hopefully with some prayer, good luck, and some sucking up, I can get to go to Mexico this summer for a few months and spend the extra time in Houston/ Austin.

So from what Dr. Ajayan was saying, it seems like I've got a pretty decent chance of getting to do this since I've been so persistent and enthusiastic about helping him with his research, and it would be amazing. Hopefully God will continue to be amazing. I may even get to use this as a chance to be a witness for Christ while I'm there, since my common Catholic background with a majority of Hispanic populations could be a helpful platform to begin sharing the ways that God has blessed my life. We'll see what he has in store for me, it's definitely far from being set in stone yet.

Still trying

I should be finishing my caam 335 problem set now since it's 2:30 in the morning, but I just had an amazing conversation with my roommate for next year, Rick, basically about how I've been feeling about life the last week or two. Ever since I got my last caam test back a couple weeks ago, I've been having lots of inferiority issues, and feeling like I'm not quite up to being an engineer at Rice or even a successful person in general. I've been getting close to the lowest grades in my class in a couple classes, haven't been able to find any kind of meaningful summer work, and have had a lot of trouble grasping a lot of the concepts in a lot of my classes, and it's only my sophomore year.

So I was telling Rick about this as the two of us were walking back to Jones from Will Fisher's room at Will Rice and how it seems like everyone around me is being successful, has plans for their future, and have things figured out and how I've been trying to catch up and do well and be successful but have been failing at it. He encouraged me by reminding me of all of the things that I do that all of those other people haven't. I've been extensively involved in so many things at Rice, MOB, theater, Catholic Student Association, RSDS, and the list goes on and on, all while taking 20 hours of classes and working part time. I should be proud of what I have accomplished, not get upset about what I haven't. He said that fact that I try so hard and am so determined in everything I do to constantly improve puts me above a lot of other people. Sure I may have stretched myself a bit too thin, but it's a lot better than not stretching myself at all. Not everyone gets cool internships during the summer, and now that I think about it, there aren't even a dozen of my friends who have neat internships lined up, and I don't even know that many people who are doing that much better than me in my classwork. I shouldn't be dwelling on what other people have accomplished (which is really hard with all of the amazing people at Rice that surround me every day), but rather be happy with what I've done, which is more than I like to give myself credit for.

So thanks Rick, I really needed that.