Everybody keeps asking me what I am doing after I graduate.
Here’s the plan.
January - June 2007: I will be in Madrid, Spain working for the USDA FAS division. They still haven’t sent down the decisions yet. I should know by October 6th if I am selected. Keep your fingers crossed for me — I really really want to get this position. It sounds like a challenging job and I’ve always been interested in working for the government on global agricultural issues. If I don’t land the internship, I have no idea what I will do for the first 2/3 of next year.
June - August 2007: If everything goes as planned, I will be travelling through Europe for 2 months and working on various farms. Ideally it would be for 2 weeks on a farm in Italy, France, Spain, and Austria plus a 2-week buffer for travelling time. And I would hopefully have a chance also to visit my friend Elke!
August 2007 - ???: Working on a PhD in Crop Science at NCSU.
My friend Liz just had her 30th birthday party last night. It was awesome. I still can’t believe we’ve known each other for about 12 years now. Sometimes I wonder where the last 12 years went. I think we all do. I’ll be 30 in a year and a half, but most people still guess that I’m 23 or 24, so I think that’s a good thing.
I saw Lisa last night. Adorable. We’re going to Atlanta together next weekend.
My brother turns 27 tomorrow.
Mom drove up and took me out to lunch today.
And my Frank Black tickets came in the mail on Saturday. Hooray!
Can’t say I have anything to complain about these days.
School is difficult this semester but I enjoy it. I only have two more weeks in my Herbaceous ID class, which makes me both happy and sad. It’ll give me more time to concentrate on the second half of the semester though.
Grades are good. I have a 100 in both Herbaceous ID and Woody ID, even after three tests. In Plant Propagation I have somewhere around a 98. My other two classes are going well but we haven’t had any full-blown tests yet. I find out on Tuesday if I can ace Soils and Fertility or not.
Studying this semester has been productive, yet boring. My friend Owen graduated last year, so I have nobody to study with now. I keep asking around but everyone is too busy or just a slacker and waits until the last minute (which is what I want to avoid). So I’ve been studying solo, and it works. But sometimes I like having someone around to give me the motivation to study even more.
I get irritated when people complain about getting bad grades, but they don’t study. Seriously, shut up.
Well, I studied my ass off for my second Herbaceous ID test.
Tried to go to sleep last night at midnight, with a plan to wake up at 6:30 am and study more. Only I ended up not being able to sleep until about 3 am. Partly this was due to (I think) the four cups of coffee I had yesterday morning… I don’t think the caffeine had worn off 14 hours later, if you can believe that. The other thing was this goddamn bus that is parked at our house… it’s part of some farm/restaurant tour (don’t ask)… anyway, the guy driving it decided it would be a good idea to crank it up, rev the engine, make noise, and spew diesel fumes into my bedroom at 1:30 am. Needless to say, we weren’t happy.
So anyhow, I’m really really tired today. And not being able to sleep last night has totally screwed up the plans I had for tonight. Hopefully they can get rescheduled… I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Right now I’m running on empty, and this does not make a happy Ben.
And the test? I think I got another 100.