Happy May

11 days till school is officially over
36 days till I leave for Orlando, FL
70 days till I leave for London, England

I have about 2 weeks of "official" school left.

I have a test final on Monday the 14th and Tuesday the 15th. A paper due Thursday the 17th and Sunday the 20th. That's my finals week. I won't be attending classes past the 15th, though.

THIS week I have 3 papers and 2-15 minute presentations to do. I also have work on Friday, aquarium on Sunday, SL to do on Tuesday (maybe Thursday), and studying for finals. Joy for me...

I can't wait for summer. It'll be lots of fun and be relaxing for once. England is looking good. We know where we want to buy our book, so that's good. Passport still hasn't arrived, but I bet it won't till the VERY last minute. Still haven't booked a hostel for London yet (oops!). I also haven't done much else for the trip since. School, ya know?

I have a meeting the end of May with an old professor of mine, Judith, to go over doing a capstone with her. She's adjunct, so I can work with her. She's currently at MBARI now, so that'll be cool! If I'm able to come up with a project with her and whatnot, she says she may be able to offer me a student assistantship. That would basically mean I'd be employeed working for her to further her research, but also completing my capstone at the same time. Can't complain with that! Getting paid to do my capstone? What more incentive do I need? Plus, she has her own work with, essentially, putting an economic price on the ocean to give incentive for politicians to want to protect the ocean. So...it should be a good experience for me since I want to do that, sort of. She'd be a good future letter of reference person and source too. She used to be a professor at MIT and now is on the west coast. She co-taught a class with our congressman, Sam Farr. I can just see the benefits. She expects a lot from people, but I learned a lot from her from the 8 weeks of class I had with her, so I'm expecting to get even more out of the experience. I'd do it for free!

After I get back from all my trips, I'm going to start studying for the GREs. I want to take the GRE right when I get out of college because I plan to take a year off from school to save for grad school and do things I've wanted to do (see a Kentucky Derby, travel some more, etc) and I don't want to "lose" what I've learned in college. Granted, the GREs won't ask me to do much of what I learned in college, but you know what I mean. Besides, if I don't do well the first time, I can retake it.  The scores last for a good number of years. Course, I first have to SAVE to take the test. That test is EXPENSIVE! It's also been recommended to take the Princeton Review classes, which are even MORE expensive, so I've gotta look more into that.

I've been looking at grad schools too. So far Columbia is my top pick. After that it's Johns Hopkins, but it's only part-time. U of Penn is also on my list, but it's an "eh" one. UC Berkeley has a neat program too. It's just like Columbia, but more science focused instead of policy focused. Maine has a neat program too, but...Maine? LoL Somehow I've inadvertently been looking at east coast schools and haven't checked out any of the other west coast programs up in Oregon or Washington. I've checked most of the UCs in California. I want an integrated program of science and policy, but leaning more towards a policy emphasis and science backing. Columbia's is a Masters of Public Affairs that also incorporates science. If I do the program, from what I can tell, it's a full-year program. I'd start in the end of May and go till the following May. I'll have a break between summer/fall term and fall/spring term. I also need micro- and macro-economics, which CSUMB doesn't offer a "real" course on. I'll have to take those at MPC before I apply or go to grad school.

Hm....I think that's all for now. I have to go to bed now because I have an academic planning committee meeting tomorrow (the first one!) before class and then I have class to enjoy, while I sit and listen to presentations for 2 hours. I'll probably be sitting through the presentations thinking I could be doing so much more with my time. Oh well. I'll have to get up earlier tomorrow to get some work done then. I NEED to study for my finals and I haven't done that yet!

Laters for now