I am convinced that I am still in the month of August. What a whirlwind of a semester! There were so many amazing moments and a couple not so awesome moments, but overall I, once again, had the time of my life.
Highlights:
My housing situation for this year has been so amazing and better than I could have ever wished for. I currently live in a six person apartment in the village with five of my best friends. We have had the times of our lives staying up later than we should, playing enough Mariokart to become ranked, and having each others’ backs every step of the way this semester.
Socially, this semester was also equally as amazing. I planned and threw the first ever club baseball/equestrian team mixer. I attended multiple Greek Life events within my fraternity and also went to a few sorority events. In addition, I built many friendships to be even stronger than before. I continued to be the social butterfly I am while balancing my course load, clubs, and research. Academically, I love every single one of my classes and have been learning things applicable to aerospace engineering from day one. My schedule this semester worked out perfectly as I had three days where I only had one class. Granted, that left me with five classes on the other two days, but I prefer to have that off balance week.
As far as my research goes, we made some real progress and even added a project. Our new project is looking at the effect of telescoping wings on basic aerodynamic properties and whether ridges in wings are really a bad thing. See the picture below for more info.
Other things that went I can highlight is the club baseball team. We went to a few tournaments over the fall and did really well. The most highlighty highlight of my fall, however, was Camp Flog Gnaw. My brother came into town and we attended the music festival for the second year in a row. I lost my mind and gained so much in my soul when Kanye and Kid Cudi took the stage together. It was absolutely insane and the entire experience was one I will never forget.
Beyond all that, I can not forget my second favorite weekend of every year: parents weekend. My parents came into town again for Trojan Family Weekend which conveniently coincided with my birthday. I ate the best meal of my life at Nik and Steph’s, tailgated with my parents, and loaded up on snacks for the rest of my time at USC by taking advantage of the car my parents rented.
Not-so-highlights:
With every semester, there will always be moments that are not exactly smiled upon when thought about.
Although Halloween was a blast, I will forever be scarred by my costume. My friends and I decided to be Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward. We wanted to go all out, so we dyed our hair the color of our respective characters. I, being Patrick Star, conquered the night with a completely pink head. Everything was great!… Until the next morning when I realized that emptying an entire can of hairspray onto myself was going to take some effort to take off. It took my 3 hours in the shower to look slightly presentable and the rest of the week to rid of it. My pillow is still stained.
Even though Flog Gnaw was amazing, it was slightly tainted by a hospital visit. I had been sick with a virus for over two weeks, and Saturday night it rapidly escalated to the point where my tonsils were so swollen I could not breathe. Long story short, I had a procedure done on Sunday, and returned later that night to the festival to witness Kids See Ghosts and Post Malone live.
In the future:
Right now, I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and being with family to have a much needed break before I prepare to demolish all of my finals (in a good way of course). Following my finals, I will be travelling to Israel on Birthright and can not wait to explore the roots of my religion. The semesters keep on going by faster and faster, but the memories I am making continue to grow as well.I loved this semester, but I am very excited to move on and see what life has in store for me next.
