Have a Kickass Senior Project

Mission Fucking Accomplished.  I couldn’t be prouder of the final product my team produced for our senior project client.  Our client was blown away by the work we did, out adviser was blown away that our client was blown away, and in the end we all got expensive steaks at a very nice restaurant in Terre Haute.  Did we get top senior project, as was my ultimate goal?  No, and while I don’t entirely agree with one of the projects that received the award, I think we got something better.  The week of final project presentations to the juniors, my project adviser (who I have as professor in another class), wouldn’t stop talking about how great my project went.  It came up at least once in every session that week.  I may not have gotten my team on the best project plaque, but I left an indelible mark in our adviser’s memory, and that’s just as good.  I can’t wait to see what’s done with our final product — we were 85% of the way to a professional iPhone app.  The extra 15% shouldn’t be hard to finish on their end.

Get a Job

When Liberty Mutual didn’t work out, I was bummed.  It was the closest I had gotten, but it didn’t go all the way.  I think I knew in the interview, though, that the job wasn’t entirely right for me.  Following up on a job I had applied to using the career center’s website, I got an interview for a QA position with Veson Nautical.  The interview was with a Rose alum, and while things seemed to go good, I had that same feeling of not quite fitting things.  I think my interviewer felt the same way, but he suggested another role at Veson they were hiring for.  I agreed to an interview — the position had the mix of software skills and technical documentation skills I was looking for.  I interviewed for that position a week later, and it went really well.  I knew coming out of the phone interview I was being flown out, and it was confirmed only a couple hours later.  I’ve never had things go that fast with a company.  In mid-April I flew out and interviewed for the position.  I ended up talking with about 1/3 of the company by the end of the day, and had a really good feeling that I had found the right place, even if it wasn’t Seattle like I had been working towards.  After about a week of waiting, I got an offer, which I accepted.  I have a job now!  In an exciting locale!  Everything is coming together and it feels great.  Now to find an apartment.

Cook at least once a month

This wasn’t a goal so much as a reminder to keep being awesome even when CS’s cooking got me down.  I made awesome tacos, shepherd’s pie, chicken soup, and all sorts of other wonderful recipes.  Going to keep this up as I start living on my own, probably with even more frequency.  I should start taking more photos of what I make, though.  That’s a good new goal: more food photos.

Be More Social/Go Out More

I’m still working on this.  SNL Saturdays are good, but as I move to a city where I’m unfamiliar with most people, I need to start doing more to meet people.  Here’s to another year of going outside my comfort zone.

And that’s it, for now.  More blogging when I’m less consumed by packing and moving.  And graduation.

It’s been clear Liberty Mutual has liked me as a candidate.  They reached out to me pre-career fair in January, they followed up a few days after our initial interview instead of a couple weeks as I had been told, and they flew me, all costs paid, to Seattle.  I’m really glad they did, too–it’s made me want to work for them even more.  I can’t discuss the details of my interviews, but I left feeling confident in how I had presented myself, and felt I really clicked with the interviewers.

It’s been over a week since I went, and I think I’m still processing all that went on in that short period.  I’m going to bullet-point a few observations, then talk about what was probably the best 20 minutes I spent in my time in Seattle.

• Holy crap.  I’m an adult now.  That didn’t register with me until I realized I was going to be driving to the airport, flying to a city I hadn’t been to before, and renting a car and hotel room by myself, all in a 2 day period.
• I love living in the age of the internet.  Made me feel totally confident about all of the above travel details.  Not only can I get driving directions and the trip details (Liberty had my entire itinerary in one spot–quite nice), but I can look for landmarks to ease my drives and check out the hotel’s policies beforehand.
• The Hotel Monaco in Seattle is awesome.  They made my (brief) stay really nice, the room was easily the nicest I’ve every been in, and the front desk people/valet made checking in/out a breeze when I’d never done either by myself before.
• That said, I’m still not used to being called Mr. Smith.  Not sure I ever will be.
• Walking in the rain was unpleasant, but meeting with Nick Ohrn for coffee was a highlight of the trip.  I got to see the Seattle Public Market (at least the entrance) on my walk to the coffee place.  Really got me pumped up for the interviews the next day.
• The first part of the flight back was awesome.  I got to watch Planet 51 (not the best movie, but perfect for a flight, and it had its moments), 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation instead of wearing out the battery of my iPod.  It was a nice change.  The second flight, a regional one, was less enjoyable, mostly because the plane was so much smaller.

Okay, enough summary.  Onto my favorite part of the trip (also coffee is a close second): going to the Central Library.

I got back to my hotel at 11:30 or thereabouts.  I quickly changed clothes and packed things up, then headed down to the front desk to see if I could check out a half hour later than the listed time.  This was alright, so I headed across the street to the library.  Nick recommended I check it out if I had the time (and I didn’t need to head to the airport until about 1 at the latest), so I took the chance.  Totally worth it.  The building is an amazing structure on the outside, but it’s just as beautiful on the inside.  It feels like you’re in a sanctuary for literature and information, and I wish I had a little more time to just sort of soak in the grandeur of the space.  With the time I had, I went almost to the top (there was a tour group in the way of the highest point of the library), navigated some of the book spiral (this is an awesome way to organized the books in a constant loop), and bought souvenirs of my time in the city at the bookstore. The volunteer that rang up my purchases asked what brought me to the library.  I explained the purpose of my trip, which impressed her and the other volunteer.  She gave me a 10% off coupon for the next time I’m at the library’s gift shop — clearly she thinks I’ll be back.

As fast as it went by, I loved the time I spent in Seattle.  Now I’m just looking forward to hearing back from Liberty.

To start, a few that don’t require much explanation besides a bullet-point mention:

• Having a single
• Volleyball (finally made it to playoffs)
• Grades (3 A’s and a B+)
• Getting a literature minor (a third one I wasn’t expecting to get until I found out I qualified this fall)

Now for those that require a little more explanation.

All of my other favorite awesome things have to do with my goals I set at the beginning of the year and modified at the midpoint.  Since this section’s going to need a little more reading than the previous section, here’s one of my favorite “blocks” of songs I played on Audiophonic this term.

I am still having a kickass senior project.  Development, while a little difficult at times because we’re unfamiliar with the platform, is enjoyable, and everyone has really had a hand in creating the final product.  I haven’t done much work on the game mechanics side of things, but the UI, learning to use interface builder, and making sure views transition correctly is all my handiwork (although the transitions got a major boost from another part of the team).  I can’t overstate how great our client has been through this whole process–he’s a Rose grad, so he knows that while we get stressed at times, we always produce great work.  There’s a great feeling knowing that even though your client travels a lot, even though you usually get his out of office email reply when you send him a status update, your questions/comments/requests WILL get a response within 48 hours.  Usually much sooner.  He’s responsive, he understands how we feel about feature creep (and hates to do it, but his ideas usually ARE good), and most importantly, he understands how busy we are.  That said, it felt really good to know that we blew him away with what we had done for the version of the iPhone app that was presented at the Senior Projects Expo.  Knowing that he felt really glad with what we had to show him going into the expo really made me feel confident it what my team’s doing.

The expo itself was great–our advisor, knowing our team’s potential to do something creative for the expo, encouraged us to go beyond the typical presentation.  We didn’t get everything we wanted to have at our table, but were still happy with what we came up with.  Our first goal was to have our poster stand out.  Using some of the original graphics from the game for our title/section headers made it fit in with the game, and the backgroun made sure things would stand out.  Our game is primarily targeted at a female audience, and as such, is pink.  We had one of two options with the presentation of the game:

1. Embrace the pink
2. Be Lame

We chose to take option 1.  I knew exactly which poster was ours when I went to pick it up from the printer–the inside of the tube was intensely pink.  I started having some doubts about whether it was too pink–I wanted something that would stick out, but not be retina-searing.  That seemed bad.  I made the executive decision to have another poster printed up with the game’s original gradient (which isn’t as intense, and still looked good), and brought the first version of the poster to our advisor meeting.  Our advisor thought it looked fine and actually liked it.  After talking with him and the group before our teleconference with our client, I sort of went back on my initial overreaction, but it still seemed like a good idea to have the second poster made.  That way we could decide as a group which background better represented the game.  The second poster got botched–no background was visible at all.  We wanted a pink background over a white one, so the carzy poster stayed.  And I’m sort of glad it did.  After four years of looking at the senior project posters, I didn’t expect my legacy in the department to be a giant pink poster, but I’m not sure I’d want it any other way now.  If nothing else, it’s certainly had the faculty talking (Sriram told me point blank at lunch that he didn’t realize how pink the poster was until after the expo).

We also wanted to have some sort of video loop going at the presentation showing the game in action, but couldn’t find good free screen capture software for the mac that didn’t leave a watermark or export solely to Flash.  Our replacement, a powerpoint file that did the same thing and showed the changes between our version and the original game, actually ended up working better and probably was more professional looking than our video would have been.  We also had a soundtrack (well, an iTunes playlist of appropriately-themed songs) for our booth–perhaps not the most innovative of things, but it was another touch I thought our display should have, and aside from adjusting the volume, it seemed to go over well.

The projects got featured on the news and on the RHIT website.  The local news stayed for what felt like 30 seconds and only talked to the booth next to us (doing an educational-themed project that hasn’t tested its interface with actual educators, as far as I know, which seems like an egregious mistake) before disappearing completely.  We got featured because we were setting up in the background and had an iPhone project.  iPhone is still a buzzword.  The news likes buzzwords.  The reporter from the Rose-Hulman PR office was a little better–he talked with our group for about 15 minutes and took a photo of our whole group, but none of the information we gave him or the picture showed up in the actual report.  He assumed both of the mobile groups are working on the iPhone (not true) and left it there because of the secret nature of our projects.  Oh well.  At least we got press.

The other awesome thing in my life right now pertains to that whole “get a job” goal I’ve had all year.  The endgame.  The goal at the end of all this schooling.  I’ve actually got a company pursuing me, and it feels amazing.  A week before the career fair (which I wasn’t planning on attending–none of the companies interested me), I got an email from a Liberty Mutual representative letting me know they’d be at the career fair, the career services office had emailed them my resume, and they were interested in seeing me as a result.  I was thrilled, especially when I learned they had an office in Seattle and a rotational program that appealed to me.  I talked with them at the fair, they seemed interested, and by the end of the week I had been asked to interview in the career services office a couple weeks later.

The more I looked at their website, the more Liberty Mutual fit as a company.  I’m a math dork–others in my major have avoided any additional math courses beyond what was required of them, but I’ve embraced the additional courses.  There’s something really cool about how you can use math to model most things, so I’ve pursued minors in math and computational science, both of which will come in handy–Liberty Mutual is a company that has a lot of data coming in, and knowing how to use that data and creat models from it seems like a particularly handy skill.  I’m hoping I can bring that to them should they hire me.

Anyways, the interview rolls around, and despite maybe needing a haircut, I looked good (or at least something approaching professional).  I don’t recall everything the interviewer and I talked about (and probably shouldn’t, in case there’s a non-disclosure in place), but I do remember a fun part of the interview.  My interviewer saw that I was a DJ at WMHD and asked me to announce one of my favorite songs (I chose 24 Hours) in 10 seconds.  Despite some initial fumbling when I tried to give some background on why I chose the group, I apparently impressed him with my delivery–I sounded “like I’d had plenty of practice” doing that (a year of doing that for 2 shows certainly helped).

I was told I’d hear back in about 2 weeks.  I had a positive response by Friday of the same week.  I must have done something right.  they were prepared to have me do another interview, but needed to know which position I wanted to pursue, a software developer role in Seattle or a Systems Analyst position elsewhere (my work this summer was of a somewhat SA-related nature).  I was confused-I thought the first rotation was a business rotation.  After some emailing back and forth, it turns out I wasn’t able to get into that program (they were filling the last position for that already), and this was a similar, non-rotational program.  I was a little disappointed, but I seem to remember the interviewer saying something about the possibility of getting in on the other program the next time it rolls around as an employee, so all is not lost.  that sort of sealed things for me–I was going to pursue the position in Seattle, as it fit closer with my skillset/goals.  That interview’s coming up sometime this month.  I’m pumped, partially because I get flown out, partially because this seems like a good fit.

So there we have it. Awesome things.  Hopefully I won’t be quite as swamped next term–it’s taken me 3 days to get this post together.  Looking to spring (my last quarter at Rose–amazing it’s already come so fast.  It feels like only a year ago I was moving onto campus and starting a livejournal for back home).  After a term of having a single, I will have another roommate this term–an exchange student.  We’ve talked briefly on Facebook, and things seem to be getting along well.  Hopefully when we meet face to face on Sunday that feeling continues.  On to the final lap–it’s not a victory lap, yet; I’ve still got 10 more weeks to push myself hard to reach the finish.

Have a kickass senior project

I am doing amazing at this goal.  Our client is awesome–while he’s not always immediately available because of his heavy travel schedule, he’s always quick to respond by email and has even agreed to help us develop our public presentation materials (eliminating some of the worry of what we can/can’t say at these things).  I couldn’t have asked for a better team–we’re committed to working together successfully and we seem to be able to cover for each other’s weak points.  I feel like I could be actually “managing” a bit more — we’re not meeting as often as some of the other project groups.  On the other hand, we don’t need to meet as much–I can generally trust that what my teammates claim will be done will be done by the time it’s due.  Dr. Bohner is proving to be an excellent advisor–while he has the tendency to get off on tangents when we discuss our project with him at our meetings, he’ll be the first to poke us if something needs to get done and offers generally good advice.  I’m glad he’s a bit looser with grading than Sriram was with his teams last term–as much as I like Sriram as a prof, Dr. Bohner’s slightly more laidback attitude as our advisor is a better fit for us.

The tough part, development, starts when we get back.  I’m looking forward to it, though–we’ve broken everything down week by week and should be able to have all of the major necessary features done by the expo, with a few to add spring term before going for some of the more out there “if we have time” features and completing things

Run a puzzle hunt

This one’s completely fallen apart.  It was a good idea, but I find I don’t have the time, and I like being a participant of puzzle hunts much more than a writer.  I’ll add another goal to make up for this one being a bit of a bust.

Get a second-round interview with Microsoft/a job in general

Last year, I got a first-round interview with a Microsoft rep.  I got one this year too, although by phone rather than in person.  It was pretty cool–I got to talk with the head PM of Microsoft Project for an hour, and although I was mixed on how the interview went, I was positive for the most part.  Whether I botched the interview or whether they’re only hiring past interns because of the economy (a rumor I had heard), I didn’t get to the second-round, we-fly-you-out-for-a-few-days interview I was hoping for.  It hurt to get that e-mail; I didn’t even need to open it to know what it said (it came too quickly to be good news).  It couldn’t have come at a better time, though: I was at D’s house for fall break and had to push past the initial shock/sadness (there were tears over that e-mail, in all honesty.  Not many, and not for long, but they were there.) to resolve to enjoy that weekend, and it worked.  Que Sera Sera–whatever will be, will be.

My job search outside of Microsoft hasn’t been doing much better.  I got an interview with Epic on the spot at the career fair–that was really exciting, as that hasn’t happened before.  I enjoyed going through the interview process with them (unusual as it was), even if things didn’t work out — I’m not going to be a perfect fit with every company.  Google hasn’t responded to the application(s) I sent, although I have a contact with one of their people through a cousin, so I’m trying to see if I hear anything back that way.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.

My primary job search sources right now are the Career Services website and Craigslist.  I was wary about Craigslist, but the Software/QA/DBA section is surprisingly good for finding positions.  I have to sift a bit more to find things I qualify for, but I’m at least hearing back from more companies (usually with a “we’ll keep you on file” since they’re looking for someone on shorter notice) than I was with other search engines.  At this point, tenacity is the best thing I can have–if I keep applying, I’m bound to find something.  And if I don’t?  Just like last year, I’ve got a plan B started–it seems like it could be a rally good idea if I can find the customer base and get my feet off the ground

Cook at least once a month

This goal hasn’t been a problem either.  I’ve gone from thinking I was probably a good, not great, cook to realizing that I’m way above average compared to my (current) suitemates.  The years of practice have made me completely at home in the apartment’s kitchen, and while I wish I had some more counter space than I do, I’m really enjoying having the facilities.  One thing that hasn’t changed though, is people who use the kitchen and don’t clean their shit up.  I’m looking at you, CS.

Be More Social/Go Out More

I suck at being social.  I am all too happy to spend hours in my room reading/noodling around on the net instead of hanging out with people doing awesome things.  Unfortunately, I used D as a crutch–he was someone familiar and I could count on being able to hang out with him most of the time, whether in the room or going out to eat on the weekends or doing the radio shows.  With him having left Rose, I need to push myself to not completely alienate myself from others.  I’ve started some of the steps to change this already–even though he’s not here, I’ve still been getting together with the SNL group we started meeting with Fall term–but I need to do more.  I’m going to start by spending more non-project time with my project group–lunch/dinner on the weekends or something.  My academic life is great, but my personal life is in bad need of attention.  This is more of a long-term thing, but it’s a bit more reachable to the puzzle hunt thing.

and that’s where things stand.  More (on the start of winter term/christmas break) later.

It started when D’s parents brought a giant orange pumpkin with them when they came to visit.  CS traditionally brings a shite-ton of pumpkins every year after fall break to give away to people because his family grows far too many of them (at least that’s what he claims), and D had scooped him.  It was hilarious.  After fall break (which I spent with D and his family), no pumpkins emerged when CS returned.  It was eerie.  D and I had brought back a white pumpkin for D’s gf.  Again, scooped, or so we thought.

CS had brought back pumpkins, but he was storing them at his girlfriend’s room in another dorm (she has a single).  20 or so went to her sorority, and the rest appeared in the hallway yesterday.  CS chose the largest one because it was all gnarled and “no one else would want it”.  BS.  He just wanted to compete with D’s pumpkin.  I jokingly told D that CS had “pumpkin envy”.  We laughed, partially because it was possibly true, but also because the pumpkin D brought was one of the SMALL ones from his family, and CS’s largest was barely larger.

In my own way, I think I’ve felt a bit of pumpkin envy.  There’s one member of the senior class who isn’t in my major but takes enough of the classes that he’s probably got a minor.  I’ll call him 1-up, since that’s what he always seems to do when I talk with him.  I hate 1-up, but whenever I see him he’s always talking about the offers he’s received or the interviews he’s being flown out for.  And I get jealous–I’ve heard back from Microsoft and Epic, with both saying they’re going to pursue other candidates, and I’m trying to find other places to apply now that my first  choices aren’t really an option.  I know I shouldn’t let his talk hurt me, but it makes me feel just as inadequate as a SE as the pumpkins D brought made CS feel.

I guess if there’s anything to pull from this, it’s that I shouldn’t do what CS did last night.  He carved about 4 or 5 pumpkins which are outside our room.  He’s showing off, and it’s not making him look any better.

Well, for starters, I realized that I wasn’t that great of a programmer.  I’m competent now, but winter of freshman year, I really slipped up with some concepts in CSSE220 and ended up not doing so well in the class.  That class nearly broke me–I considered switching majors (to math), but I decided to give it one more chance in the fall of sophmore year before I completely gave up my dreams of working with computer software.  At the advice of my advisor that spring, since I was looking at doing some form of international experience at the beginning of Junior Year (starting in July and going through November in someplace like Australia), it was suggested I take 371, as I’d likely not find a similar class abroad.  I got special permissions to take the course–I hadn’t taken CSSE230, but the course was mostly writing and didn’t require programming knowledge.  So I took it–felt way out of my depth with the first assignment, but once I got my weird panic in check, I did well on the assignment and continued with the class.  Without that class, I wouldn’t have met my future boss (Nick Ohrn), and I probably wouldn’t have learned that I’m basically awesome when it comes to requirements documentation.  That class re-ignited my passion for Software Engineering–I realized that there are more stages that just coding to professional software development and that I could find a place even if my coding skills weren’t as strong as some of my peers.

I took CSSE372 that year, too–it didn’t seem fair to abandon my project teammate in the next class if the project was to continue.  Then it was announced that projects would be switching between quarters, as would the teams.  My new teammate was the project manager for our project, and didn’t do the best job with it–I remember getting emails 5 minutes apart, one praising my work and the other telling me to step it up.  It was mixed messages, to say the least.  There were a lot of times where I felt I could have done a better job, but we did the best job we could and finished the course.  If nothing else, I learned where to improve my own skills when leading a project.  That’s about the time I realized I wanted to be what Microsoft calls a Program Manager–I need to be knowledgeable about code and what developers are capable, but my strengths lie more in defining the project’s scope and requirements and keeping people on task so that things get done on time and under budget.

The career fair was this past Wednesday, and I had a pretty good outcome from it.  One of the companies I’m looking at seemed really confused by my applying for what they call a PM, though–they don’t consider it a technical position.  The rep was almost nasty with me, trying to force me to apply for the software developer position instead and claiming that they only hire business majors for the position.  I knew for a fact their website listed the position under software jobs (also noting it was open to “all majors”) and that what the job entailed was a perfect fit with what I had been doing this summer, but was so flustered by her attitude that I didn’t bring it up.  I was offered an interview on the spot, and I accepted her offer–it was the first time that had happened at a career fair for me, so I was excited to get that.  The next day, I was fortunate enough to interview with the other person from the company at the fair–one of their developers.  I made sure he knew I was interested in the PM position, and although he was more receptive when I gave him my reasons, he still seemed skeptical that someone “with as much technical knowledge as [me]” would want this non-technical job.  I tried my best to explain to him the benefits of having a technical person who can “speak customer” in this role would be–someone like this can be an advocate for the customer’s needs with developers and an advocate for the developer’s limitations with the customer.  I’m not sure I’m the person the company’s looking for, but I’ve been invited to the next step of the process.  I guess we’ll see.

On another note, when I got back from the career fair, I had an invitation to interview by phone with Microsoft waiting for me–I had worried with them not being at the career fair my application would be lost in the pile of all the other online applicants.  Here’s hoping that one goes well–I’d love to get to second round with them this year.

That changed after lunch today.

A few of my good friends are part of the Jewish Culture club on campus, which had a table in the lobby because today was Rosh Hashanah (hereafter abbreviated as RH), the Jewish New Year.  He caught D and I on our way out of lunch, asking us to take  RH with him, and that it would only take a minute.  I had wanted to ask him why, for a second week in a row, there wasn’t a music column in the paper (I’ve written one, as has another DJ, and we figured at least one would be in the paper this week), but decided to wait until after what he had to say.

One of the symbolic foods of RH is an apple slice dipped in honey, representing the sweet things in the year to come.  As we had our apple, he talked about how it was sweet, perhaps too sweet, but just right.  He then told us to think about the good things, the things that drive us to do better, for at least the rest of the day, if not the rest of the year.  And that resonated with me, enough so that I no longer cared that my music review wasn’t in the paper for two weeks in a row.  And the message also made me feel at peace.  And I think it did that for D too, who’s been dealing with even more shit than I have recently.

Will the bad stuff continue to happen?  I’m sure it will, especially with my current suitemates and their various hangers-on.  But I think I’m going to try and keep the RH message in mind–focus on the good that happens and the things that drive me–to get through it.

The core part of the senior curriculum for SEs at Rose is the senior project.  It’s a chance to flex all the skills one’s used and create an actual product for an actual company.  Although I initially had reservations about one of the members, time and time again I’ve been reassured that our team is going to work well together.  Our client seems energetic about what we’re doing and willing to lend a hand where we need it, and the project itself (an iPhone application for one of Turner Media’s properties) is cool and also involves a very hot skillset.  I get to be PM, which excites me and makes me nervous at the same time, but I have faith in my team that we’ll deliver a quality product to the client at the end of all this.  At this point, that would make the project a success for me–although getting one of those end of the year awards wouldn’t hurt either.

Run a puzzle hunt

This one’s already in progress.  I’ve loved the last two puzzle hunts I’ve been a part of, and although they tend to bring out the ugly , overcompetitive side of me, I really want to write/run a hunt of my own.  I’ve got a couple writing partners, so hopefully this will work out and spring 2010 will see an awesome hunt.

Get a second-round interview with Microsoft/a job in general

Last year, I got a first-round interview with a Microsoft rep.  That was one of the most exciting moments when I got that email–I ran out of the building to call home as soon as I had confirmed by email that yes, I was interested in an on-campus interview.  While I feel I did really well on the interview, I didn’t end up moving on to the next stage of the interview process.  Looking back, there’s a few things I’d change–indicating products I’d be interested in working on, for one–but overall it was a good experience to actually go through an interview.  This year, I want to get to the next level.  Getting an offer from them awesome, but at the least I’d at least like to get flown out to Redmond.  Microsoft has been my dream job since I came to Rose (although I’ve shifted from wanting to be an SDE to figuring out that coding isn’t my strongest suit to going through 371/372 to wanting to be a Microsoft PM).  I’m not entirely set on them (there’s at least a few other companies I”d want to work for, and there’s always the option of freelancing).  I’m thinking that wherever I end up, I’d like to be away from the Midwest for awhile–a change of scenery always seems to do me well.

Cook at least once a month

I love to cook.  I’ve been cooking since before I hit double digits in age, and I’ve been cooking a lot more since my mom went back to work.  I’m good at it, but my skills tend to atrophy a bit while I’m at school.  It’s not that I don’t have the facilities–all of my dorms so far have had a communal kitchen–it’s just that when the people who use the kitchen frequently don’t fucking clean it up after they’re done, it really diminishes the desire to use them.  All that should change this year–I’m in the apartments.  Hopefully this means I can start experimenting more and cracking open the copy of “The Joy of Cooking” I bought off of eBay.  If nothing else, I’m looking forward to sharing that food with friends.