The next 4 months...

Did you know it snowed here in Cambridge while I was away? Amazing. It was so warm in January and February that we gave up all hopes of snow. Anyway, glad I managed to miss out on terribly cold weather this year. I was only in Boston for one blizzard.

Life this past week has been really boring. All I'm doing all day every day is studying. I don't have any more engineering classes to go to. My Chinese classes don't start until late next week and they're 3 hours of class max. I've found out that I really like routines. I am much more efficient with things if I have more things to do and less time to do them. E.g. sophomore year, very productive.

So somehow I will survive through this monotony for another 3 weeks. And then I have to do these projects which, for various reasons are not looking too exciting for me. I don't plan to put a whole lot of time into them anyway. Hopefully my group mates will be chill about these projects as well. My Chinese classes will end in 4 weeks and then I don't have exams for them until probably the first week of June. So after my Engineering exams are over, I plan to do some traveling around Britain and Europe, probably on the weekends. I'll still have plenty of time for these projects and studying for Chinese.

Life will get even more exciting starting the last week of May. Yalu is coming to visit on the 28th (a Tuesday) and is staying in England with me until June 1st (Sunday). So we'll spend some time in Cambridge and then head over to London that weekend. I think the plan is to try to see as much of London as possible as well as hopping over to see Stonehenge and maybe Bath. Again, I have Chinese exams that following week and will also be finishing up my engineering projects. So after that Friday, June 6th, I'll be free of all academic stuff.

So that Saturday, June 7th, Yalu and I are planning to meet in Amsterdam and stay there for a night. I'll fly there while she takes the train. And then I'll spend the 2nd week of June in Paris with Yalu. And then that Saturday I'm taking the Eurostar back to London to meet my parents and Victor who are coming to visit. The plan for their trip is that we're going to Cambridge first and staying for 2 nights. Then I'll pack up everything and we'll all go to London and stay there for 3 nights. We'll spend a good part of one day in Oxford as well. I don't think we can fully explore London in that amount of time but we'll be able to see all the tourist attractions. That should be enough. It's not too rushed although our last day in England will just be getting up and going to the airport. Not very exciting but it's enough. I mean, it's not like we're staying anywhere for only one night, which is what I usually do and that's pretty rushed for a family trip.

So I'll be flying back to the States on June 19th and then starting work on the 23rd. That would conclude my year in Europe. Well, I wasn't really in Europe for a whole year, more like 9 months of a period of 13 months starting from late May 2007 to late June 2008. Will I come back again? Probably. MIT has this program where you can take Spanish II in Madrid...

Anyhow, this summer: I'm planning to work 9 weeks, stopping on August 22nd. I'll probably spend the weekend with my family before flying back to Boston in the middle of orientation week. Yalu is not going to be back from Paris until the 27th, a Wednesday. Which is not bad since I was planning on going back on a Tuesday or Wednesday anyway. That would give me the weekend at home and a couple of days to straighten out things at home. And when I get to Boston, I'll have time to unpack, get over the jetlag, and maybe do a fun thing or two in Boston before the school year starts and while it is still warm. My brother will mostly likely start school the week I fly back to Boston so no point in me staying home for that whole week anyway. Yup, thinking about the summer, picturing a blue sky, bright sun, and warmth on my skin made me happy.