Goodbye Fall 2011, Hello Winter Break, USC Football Champs 2012

Hello All! I am writing this from my humble abode in the Cincinnati, Ohio, 2500 miles away from midterms, finals, papers, and any stress whatsoever. IT’S WINTER BREAK!!!!!!! WWWOOOOHHOOOOO!!!!!! Does it show I’m a little excited to be done with this semester?

This past semester was probably the hardest/most stressful one that I’ve had in college to date: turns out 18 units, 3 jobs and several student projects would take up a lot of time…who knew. Yet in retrospect, I would almost say that everyone needs a semester like that because I learned A LOT about myself both as a student and as an individual. I realized that if i’m ever going to have to be that busy again, it better be doing stuff I love.

But this semester also had a lot of cool opportunities that I was fortunate to be chosen for and partake. First of all, my Alternative Energies Class was a huge success as we got to design and construct solar charging stations that we demoed to the university! Then, I found out that I will be interning at SpaceX over the summer, something that I had always dreamed of doing.

For this, a little background is necessary. NASA has a program called the Microgravity University where students can propose research that requires a near zero gravity environment to perform it. If chosen, the students get to test their experiment on NASA’s KC-135 (aka the Vomit Comet) which is an airplane that travels in parabolas so that you can experience weightlessness at the peaks and 2gs at the troughs. And guess what? Last week we found out that of 60 groups that submitted a proposal, we were 1 of 15 to get chosen!!!! I get to do something that I have dreamed of doing since I was 5: FLOAT!!!!

After the end of the semester, I went to Colorado to visit some of my friends and went skiing in Vail (it is amazing there)! Then I went back home to Ohio where I’ve been catching up on sleep and spending time with friends and family. Next week, I am going to Chicago to visit some of my USC friends and celebrate New Years with them! All in all, it has been an awesome winter break thus far and I hope it will continue to be so.

I wish all of you Happy Holidays and a splendid Winter Break!

Also, for those of you that follow USC Football, just thought I’d let you know that Matt Barkley is staying another year! Therefore, you’re reading it here first (take that ESPN): USC 2012 Pac-12 Champs, 2012 NCAA Champs, Matt Barkley 2012 Heisman Winner. Just saying.