Counting down the days…

This summer has been up and down, but I can’t wait to get back into my rhythm and feel productive again. As I have previously stated, this hasn’t exactly been the best summer. I have done some really cool stuff because of my inability to find an internship. However, this free time has also left me bored and looking forward to next year and my future.

The high points of my summer so far have definitely been the trips I have taken. In my last blog, I talked about my family trip to Point Reyes. That was really fun and it was a great opportunity to spend some time with the family. Since then, my other big trip was going on a cruise down to Mexico over 4th of July weekend. We left on Friday morning from Long Beach and went down to Ensenada, Mexico. It was neat to walk around and explore the town of Ensenada. I got bothered by one merchant who eventually convinced me to buy a sweater. We’ll see if I ever wear it. On Sunday, the ship slowly traveled back to Long Beach, and I enjoyed all the fun things to do on the ship. I rocked it on some karaoke, won $40 in craps, and ate wayyyy too much food. All in all, it was a great trip and a good way to spend the weekend.

I have also tried to get out during the week to do some fun things when I am not working at 21 Choices. One day, I drove out to  Temescal Gateway Park to hike up to Skull Rock. Skull Rock is a neat rock formation that, as its name explains, looks like a skull. It sits along Temescal Ridge and from the top of the rock, you can see Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and out to the ocean. It was a little hazy the day I did the hike, but I still got pretty good views. It would be fun to go back there and do some bouldering with a friend on some of those rock formations. Other than the hike, I have been trying to get out on my bike as much as possible, doing rides down to Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. It’s always fun biking along the ocean and watching all the beach bums.

I wish I could be going on more adventures, but I have been recently buckling down on grad school. I have decided that I want to pursue graduate studies in Nuclear Engineering, so I have spent time contacting graduate schools and going over admission requirements. The biggest thing for me to do right now is prep for the GRE. Like I explained in my last blog post, the GRE is the main graduate admission test. I am trying to take advantage of the lull summer I have to study for the test, so I can prepare myself well.

I am really looking forward to this coming year. Even though it will be very challenging and stressful, it will also be my last year of undergraduate studies and probably my last year at USC. I can’t wait to get back into the swing of things again and grab the year by the horns.