The backset is a strict daily weekday routine. Work (usually 10 hours a day), bus both ways - Seattle has an amazing bus system, 2 buses will take you anywhere around Seattle and they run so often-, gym at the really local YMCA, cook for the night and lunch the next day, and then study for the GRE/slack off and talk online and read my book.
In terms of books, I finished Gang Leader for a Day really quickly. Good book, and worthwhile read if you like/are around the Chicago area. And now, I am almost done with Colin Harrison's The Finder. Interesting, kinda slow at first, but now its getting real enticing to finish it up as quickly as I can. I had to force it down so that I could write this.
Where to start? hmmm... well the house I'm staying at is a 9 bedroom house that seems to be specifically made for college students. Not very clean, surprisingly spacious (enough for a ping pong table in the little lounge outside my room, and generally empty. I guess its the archtypal college housing, I'm just not used to it because my apartment back in LA is definately more home-ly, organized and cleaner, the way I like it. But back in Seattle...its less than a mile to UWashinton campus, about 1/2 mile to University Ave, which I may dare say is better than Westwood, and a 20 bus ride to work. Also, funny thing, I live literally a rock tosses distance to the 5, yup, the same 5 freeway that streches through Cerritos. The kitchen is not oft used, I definetly use it 3-4 times more often than everyone combined. Again the prototypical college students that eat out and eat canned/frozen food all the time. At least I got to experiment with my cooking skills and I must say that they have improved/expanded a bit - Deepak would be proud.
Next, work. I really love work and I don't mind staying there 10 hours a day. So far I've literally just been playing with dirt for the whole day. Meaning, I'm in the lab running tests on them. It's hard to beleive almost 5 weeks of the same 6-7 kinds of test can still be entertaing. I attribute it to my co-workers. While the set-up is constantly changing, there is currently 1 other intern plus 3 full time guys. The other intern is awesome, he's a crazy mormon (doesn't remind me of Reed at all). He doesn't drink or party much, but he has the most interesting life. He fixes cars (really nicely) and sells them for a decent profit, has worked as a yacht/sailboat driver person, drives everywhere (seattle to LA for the heck of it like 3 times, only 14 hours), and generally lives and entertaining life. You can see I'm kind of jealous, also his girlfriend is Russian and he's going to Russia to hang out and see Russia, lucky punk. The 3 co-workers are really entertaining. They're all quirky and love different types of music. The best part of the lab might be that we get to blast music all the time, its awesome. They are all really young and are definately going places. It seems like the lab is where all the big shots start out. The current president for ALL Shannon and Wilson's came out of the lab, as well as a couple of the VP's, and the 3 people who have been with the company for the longest period of time. Also couple of really cool things. First, Neil Kirkland, works in the lab, is the drummer for Leon Hendrix (little bro of Jimi). And, Neil showed me the original copy of the research report written by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Casagrande (one of the founding fathers of the current geotech profession) on creating the triaxial test. Pretty damn amazing.
In addition, I went with one of my co-workers, another intern, to meet the Udub geotech professors. Dana, co-worker/masters student, was nice enough to introduce me to them and have all of us sit down and talk about geotech and admissions. I met Professor Arduino and Professor Kramer (who I also saw at his talk at the Queen Mary and the annual CalGeo conference). They told me to say wassup to the professors back at LA. I am always so surprised at how well connected they are with each other. They also told me other good places to apply which I thought was very polite of them. People in this profession always seem to be helping others and they never seem greedy or horde talent/skill for themselves. They are never full of themselves and are very humble, even the famous ones, I usually just gawk in awe.
Now, the entertaining part. I can't go into full detail about my weekends for a couple of reasons, but mainly because it will take too long and I still need to get up for work tomarrow morning.
Weekend 1- flew in, got picked up by roomates (that was really nice of 'em). They had a small party that night, at which I learned a lot about them and seemingly seattle people in general. Let's just say Nelly Furtado had a song...started with a P...that describes them well. I wanted to go around sunday but i just went grocery shopping and got prepped for work.
Weekend 2- went to Ramkrishna mamma's house. Met Neil (brave/couragous/outgoing 3? year old) and Chirag (who is an amazingly gifted artist without a doubt, esp at the age of 8). Ramkrishna mamma and Chitra atha are doing well, in a really nice house in a quiant suburb in Issaquah. there I met their aupair (wikipedia the program). She is german and 20 years old. I was really lucky to find someone my age to hang out with. I stayed there friday night (july 3rd/day off where I worked half day and took 2 buses from work). Saturday I went home and went to downtown because the aupair, Susi, invited me to a 4th of july party there. It was a very gracious offer, especially for me who knows NO ONE here, so I accepted and showed up. There I met more aupairs, another german, one finnish and one swedish (all girls) and met probobly 4 people that work for Microsoft. As stereotypical Seattle and Microsoft is, it is so true, everyone works for them. Everyone there was very nice/really cool. And i got a ride home that night, didn't have to wait for the morning and a bus ride. And, if I remember right that Sunday Drew (genious ucla grad, CIVIL's BABY!) called me up to go sailing. We ate at Thai Tom's, sooooo good, and then went sailing at a place he knew. That was by far the most outdoors fun I've had in a good long while. Good foundation of a weekend to start up on.
that's all I can write in one night. I still have plenty to write about and I should have it up soon. But until then I'm looking forward to my first field oversight project tomarrow and more cooking!
Have a good one,
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