Halfway through fall quarter already!

Totally slacking on keeping this blog up to date. There's just too much happening these days. Unlike when I'm traveling, there's not really a coherent theme to things. Speaking of traveling, I opened a SmartyPig account to save money for my after-graduation-Asia-trip. They have better interest rates than my Discover Bank account O.o!

Did laundry, vacuumed, and cleaned my room yesterday. Didn't manage to do very much homework or studying. One of our geomech friends who graduated last year came back to run the NWM and came down to campus to visit us yesterday. So we spent some time chatting with him. I'm feeling very behind on my classes though. I mean, I'm not actually that behind on doing the homework. But I usually like to read the notes before I start on doing problem sets. I need to read the notes a second time, at my own pace to absorb the material. Looking forward to later this week when I have time to do this.

I want to write a bit about last Saturday because it felt like an epic day. The DFI conference had ended Friday afternoon and my flight out of LAX was at 2pm. So I had some time to chill before the flight. One of the guys I stayed with made pancakes for breakfast. We sat around talking for a while and then decided to go to an In N Out that is really close to the LAX airport. This place is apparently very well known in the aviation industry because you can sit outside and watch the planes come in. It was super cool because the planes were really close and you can even see the vortex and air condensing on the wings. And there were planes landing every few minutes. This would be such a cool place to bring a family for lunch and easy entertainment.

And then I went on a plane myself. The security line was a bit annoying because it was a big bottleneck and took really long. And it felt a bit chaotic. After the security line, it was great. I boarded the plane right away so there was no waiting. I really thought my backpack would get lighter after the conference because I had packed sandwiches and such. But actually I ended up collecting a lot of stuff at the conference and LA.

Once I got to SF, I started calling my friends to figure out what's happening with the marathon. I managed to miss the BART leaving the airport because the people in front of me on the escalator were blocking the entire thing and not feeling urgent about catching public transportation. Anyway, it gave me time to call people and I got to the race package pickup with plenty of time to pick up stuff. The line for the race packet pickup was super long but moved pretty fast. I met up with Mahalia and Ben on while standing in line.

I came out of the tent with another bag to carry. I was already carrying my backpack, sleeping bag, and another bag with clothes. At this point, we really should've gone and dropped off stuff (as planned) but we decided to go for dinner instead. I was all for going to Chinatown because I wanted a haircut (wasn't all that interested in getting food there because I don't know any places). Anyway, we ended up dragging our stuff all over town and got to friend's place after they left for dinner. So we didn't see them until the next morning.

Since I started the LA trip, I've been having a lot of dream filled nights. They've stopped after I got back to Stanford. I guess there's just a lot going on and I literally feel like my brain is working 24/7. Anyway, really glad to be back in my own bed now.

I feel like this quarter I've really gotten more involved in student organizations, especially ones that start with ES(something). I'm not sure how all this happens but I seem to find myself volunteering for a lot of things.