- 17, 18 January: Attended the ECE Career Fair in which I pitched myself to companies with the very important goal of obtaining a job after graduation.
- 4-9 March: Traveled to Madison, Wisconsin for interviews with the company Epic, followed shortly by traveling to Washington D.C. for interviews with ViaSat. These were my first experiences traveling alone, using a rental car, exploring many national monuments, and sincerely contemplating my future career options. I pushed myself to converse with people around me I knew I would never meet again.
- 24 March: Saw a live Nerdist podcast and met the hosts. The first "event" in an effort to get out more.
- 27 April: Attended a debate with Campus Freethinkers followed by an unenjoyable graduation campus event that began to deteriorate an important relationship.
- 4 May: Graduated with a Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech.
- 29 May: Started work at GTRI.
- Weekly Geek Trivia begins during the summer.
- 31 August-2 September: Attended Dragon*Con, was surrounded by people who appreciated and enjoyed the things I liked, saw many people I adored and respected.
- 18 October: Said goodbye to a co-op that I had a lot in common with, said hello to a new friend for the first time personally.
- 27 October-4 November: Met and did lots of things with lots of different friends. Began my concerted effort to reach out to others more, which continues today.
- Soon after this, was invited to a new group of friends that had me reconsidering some issues and their importance, as well as compassion in general.
- 9-15 December: First work-related travel to Edwards Air Force Base.
Two important resources were crucial to recording all these events. One is my Google Calendar, which is not only useful for keeping up with things coming in the future but is also great for looking back later. The other is something called "Highlights". This is an idea I got from Reddit that I decided to take quite seriously, and it's been enjoyable, cathartic, reflective, and productive to keep up with.
Highlights is a running document I have in which at the end of every day (or the beginning of the next) I write down the two "highlights" of that day. Some days they are simple, like "Made lots of progress on project at work" because I felt legitimately good about what I accomplished that day or "Had awesome conversation with someone". Some days they are "Celebrated Christmas with family" or "Went to Dragon*Con". So they're not always big, it's not always two, and some things often repeat. But that's okay.
What it does is encourage me to do things, for one. But importantly it helps to remind me of positive things in my life. At low points, it's easy to catch yourself spiraling, and the existence of this list can help prevent that by giving me a quick glance at good things happening around me, big or small. It can also be used as a journal of sorts, recording notable events in quick, single lines. I highly recommend it.
Now to start this year off, I've already made some steps in the right direction. I'm volunteering twice this week and must look up more regular opportunities for something like free tutoring. I feel I'd be good at that. I also went to two great parties already! One was a going-away party for a friend. Lots of drinking, since the host wanted to show off his bar-tending skills, and rightfully so. But it was lots of quality conversation. The other party was with some coworkers and other friends of theirs. It was a very "adult" party, in the least sexual sense of the word. I was the youngest person there, I think, playing CatchPhrase and trivia games with elementary school teachers and friends from GTRI. It was very... mature. People talking about the nice neighborhood instead of about how to pick up chicks. Taking a tour of the house and not watching flaming shots. Most people were married and not single.
And I'm still in the middle. Not quite comfortable leaping into that adult lifestyle, but not fully engrossed in college life any longer. It's going to be to where I move from this position that guides how 2013 plays out.
This song choice is inspired by an online friend that runs the only remaining Couch Athletics event as of right now. We're working to build it and other events back up with other members of the community. Anyway, Z-95 is a huge fan of Pendulum, and I recently bought a pair of their albums, which recently went down in price on Amazon. I love them, but this one's got that spacey, introspective sound to it that rounds out this post well.
