Planning for the future

This has been a pretty good week.  I started of the week trying to fix the TV Tuner at our house.  It just suddenly stopped working.  I must have tried about 30 different things to get it working.  I eventually was able to restore part of the channels by day 2, but that wasn’t good enough for my uncle, so we continued to work on the problem.  We think we came up with a solution on day 3, but then just as we were about to start trying that out, it magically started working.  Oh the wonders of electronics :)

On Tuesday I bombed my test.  I think I have only done so poorly one other time in my college career.  Usually I think of getting a 90% as bombing a test, but this time I just hope I got about an 80% :/  Pray that my teacher will be nice to me.

That day was made even more stressful by the fact that we had a group project due in one of my classes the next day, and my team was performing less then admirably.  One of the team members had done their section so poorly, that I had to do a ton of work to get the project even working.  It was just so stressful.  I can’t wait until I start graduate school, and I don’t have to take classes that are not going to help me any more.  Oh how nice life will be then.

 

Thursday is when I finally made decisions about what I am going to be doing for the next two years.  I have decided to remain at BYU and get my master’s degree here.  My professor is really excited to help me get published, and do a lot of amazing research.  It is both of our goals to help me get accepted to a top 10 program for my Ph.D.  Hopefully with a couple published papers, attending at least one high level conference, and doing a summer research internship, I should be a strong candidate for those graduate schools.

I am excited for all of this.  Like I said I have also chosen to spend two years getting my master’s degree.  I could finish it in a year, but I don’t think that is what is best in my life.  School is good, but I think that I have focused too much on it up to know.  Taking two years to finish my degree will allow me to only take 6 credit hours a semester, plus audit three of math, and maybe a religion class and a dance class.  This will be really nice in that it will  really help me finish all my work in the lab, and then just have time outside of work to do the more important things in life.

With that in mind I have really spent a lot of time settings goals for next month.  I love setting goals!  Now if only I was at good at keeping them as I am at setting them…

 

On Friday I moved where I sit in the lab.  I also took another one of the students graphics cars (with his permission), and now my whole setup is a lot sweeter.  The only thing it is missing is a third monitor, but I got the equipment I will need to set up three monitors at home, so at least I will have it in one location.

 

So that is where I am at now.  I am just in the middle of a transition phase.  Soon I will be starting off life as a graduate student.  I am excited for it, but also a little nervous as I don’t fully know what it will be like.  But, I guess that is what makes life such an adventure!