Can't sleep, the future will eat me!
There's so much going on in my life right now that I can't even sleep for thinking about it. I feel like I'm on the edge of a really great term and a really great end to my college career.
I'm doing my senior project with PSAS this term and next term. We've already started on the design process, and it's just great to be involved with so many smart people working on a project they really love. I wish more people would find out about PSAS, because it's really cool.
I'm running for vice president of PSAS this term (although Bart, the faculty adviser for the group, thinks no one is going to run for president, and I should just run for president). It's kind of a "figure-head" job, but no one else wants to be the liaison between PSAS and SALP/ASPSU. Jamey will help me, of course, but he can't run for an officer since he'd only be eligible to be an officer for one term. I'm going to do my best to make sure he graduates next term (we have the sophomore inquiry class together, which is supposed to be his last class).
A couple days ago, I sent out an email asking for letters of recommendation for Google's Anita Borg scholarship. Three people agreed, and I only need two letters, so I'm set in that respect. Now I just have to write some kick-ass essays.
I have ideas for most of the questions, but some I'll have to think about. Like, "If you had $1000 to plan an event or project to benefit women in technical fields, describe what you would do and what impact it would have." I would probably get a lot of women from different engineering fields (architects, computer programmers, mechanical engineers, etc.) and do a "what can engineering do for you" sort of event to introduce middle school to high school age girls to science and engineering. It would have to have a cool acronym, and the $1000 would go to buy a laptop that I'd raffle off (maybe along with some prizes donated by the business community). But the idea seems so...done.
I have a little better chance to get an Oregon Space Grant scholarship. It's for students who have career goals that NASA likes. I'm sort of interested in communications, so I'm going to trump that up, along with my involvement in PSAS. It doesn't hurt that they'll give preference to women and minorities. It's less money than the Google scholarship, but I have a good chance, since it's only for students in Oregon. There was five people selected from PSU last year, and only one of them was a minority (a black guy). One of the students who won I recognized from the picture, and I have no idea how his career goals relate to NASA (maybe he wrote he wanted to design printed circuit boards for them?). But I didn't ask people for letters of recommendation for that yet, so I'm going to have to do that sometime soon.
Oh, yes, and the Google scholarship is supposed to be postmarked by January 20th, and the Oregon Space Grant scholarship is supposed to be at OSU by January 31st. So I've got a lot of writing to do in a short period of time.
Then there's classes and other projects I'd like to work on. I haven't touched my Google Summer of Code project since September (which is probably bad, since they wanted people to continue on with them). The NWAC grant that Bart got to purchase the hardware I used in my project is up this March, and Bart told Jamey that "we need to come up with a cooler demo." Which probably means digging out my code again.
I've also got an idea for a project I want to do next summer after I take Bart's combinatorial search class. I also "need" to take a stats class that summer if I want to be done with class by spring term 2007. Oh, and my mom wants to start planning our wedding. It's going to be a hectic summer, and I won't even have an internship to supplement my income. I could probably find one, but I like the idea of having a summer off from working. Now if only I could find someone who lives close by who will have a car for that summer and doesn't mind taking Jamey and I on trips to the Gorge...
In any case, I feel like I'm on top of things project-wise. I haven't done as much research for my capstone project this weekend as I'd like to, but I've still got today and tomorrow before I have to send out my weekly progress report to Faust.
While Pepe was at the vet, I started reading the book for the UNST class. I also requested my CS202 book through PSU library's Summit system, and it's being shipped up to PSU from Southern Oregon University. It's great because I can check it out for three weeks, with a three week renewal, meaning I'll have it for most of the term. I already started on the first program for CS202 (which isn't due until the end of January).
It's nice to have a head start on things.
I'm doing my senior project with PSAS this term and next term. We've already started on the design process, and it's just great to be involved with so many smart people working on a project they really love. I wish more people would find out about PSAS, because it's really cool.
I'm running for vice president of PSAS this term (although Bart, the faculty adviser for the group, thinks no one is going to run for president, and I should just run for president). It's kind of a "figure-head" job, but no one else wants to be the liaison between PSAS and SALP/ASPSU. Jamey will help me, of course, but he can't run for an officer since he'd only be eligible to be an officer for one term. I'm going to do my best to make sure he graduates next term (we have the sophomore inquiry class together, which is supposed to be his last class).
A couple days ago, I sent out an email asking for letters of recommendation for Google's Anita Borg scholarship. Three people agreed, and I only need two letters, so I'm set in that respect. Now I just have to write some kick-ass essays.
I have ideas for most of the questions, but some I'll have to think about. Like, "If you had $1000 to plan an event or project to benefit women in technical fields, describe what you would do and what impact it would have." I would probably get a lot of women from different engineering fields (architects, computer programmers, mechanical engineers, etc.) and do a "what can engineering do for you" sort of event to introduce middle school to high school age girls to science and engineering. It would have to have a cool acronym, and the $1000 would go to buy a laptop that I'd raffle off (maybe along with some prizes donated by the business community). But the idea seems so...done.
I have a little better chance to get an Oregon Space Grant scholarship. It's for students who have career goals that NASA likes. I'm sort of interested in communications, so I'm going to trump that up, along with my involvement in PSAS. It doesn't hurt that they'll give preference to women and minorities. It's less money than the Google scholarship, but I have a good chance, since it's only for students in Oregon. There was five people selected from PSU last year, and only one of them was a minority (a black guy). One of the students who won I recognized from the picture, and I have no idea how his career goals relate to NASA (maybe he wrote he wanted to design printed circuit boards for them?). But I didn't ask people for letters of recommendation for that yet, so I'm going to have to do that sometime soon.
Oh, yes, and the Google scholarship is supposed to be postmarked by January 20th, and the Oregon Space Grant scholarship is supposed to be at OSU by January 31st. So I've got a lot of writing to do in a short period of time.
Then there's classes and other projects I'd like to work on. I haven't touched my Google Summer of Code project since September (which is probably bad, since they wanted people to continue on with them). The NWAC grant that Bart got to purchase the hardware I used in my project is up this March, and Bart told Jamey that "we need to come up with a cooler demo." Which probably means digging out my code again.
I've also got an idea for a project I want to do next summer after I take Bart's combinatorial search class. I also "need" to take a stats class that summer if I want to be done with class by spring term 2007. Oh, and my mom wants to start planning our wedding. It's going to be a hectic summer, and I won't even have an internship to supplement my income. I could probably find one, but I like the idea of having a summer off from working. Now if only I could find someone who lives close by who will have a car for that summer and doesn't mind taking Jamey and I on trips to the Gorge...
In any case, I feel like I'm on top of things project-wise. I haven't done as much research for my capstone project this weekend as I'd like to, but I've still got today and tomorrow before I have to send out my weekly progress report to Faust.
While Pepe was at the vet, I started reading the book for the UNST class. I also requested my CS202 book through PSU library's Summit system, and it's being shipped up to PSU from Southern Oregon University. It's great because I can check it out for three weeks, with a three week renewal, meaning I'll have it for most of the term. I already started on the first program for CS202 (which isn't due until the end of January).
It's nice to have a head start on things.