Today (er, tonight) is my 6th day of working a GEO satellite launch, and it would have been my 11th straight day of work if I hadn’t taken last Friday off. It’s nice to be getting more comfortable with the procedures, and it’s been fun to get to chat with people in my group and get to know them better while we’re on console. But there are long (LOOOOOONG) stretches where it’s very boring. I have what Becca’s dubbed the rock star shift, 2:30 - 10:30 pm, and it’s usually busy in the afternoon with some sort of procedure, usually an Earth update. The afternoon then relaxes into evening, the emails slow down, we order greasy food for dinner, I try to resist the allure of peanut M&M’s in the back room, and the hours c r a w l . I mark time by the recording our spacecraft’s momentum error in a spreadsheet, once per hour, and examining how Excel has updated the best-fit line. Oh, the excitement!

Overall though, it’s been a neat experience. And I’m lucky to have gotten a relatively easy shift, time-wise. I’m naturally a night owl, but the 4th shift (9:30pm - 5:30am) would have been a serious stretch, and I would have felt like death warmed over if I had to come in for the first shift every day (2:30am - 10:30am). I still get nervous talking over the voice net, but that’s really pretty dumb because there are only a handful of us in the room at a time.


Josh and I finally bought tickets to go to Zion National Park over Labor Day weekend. Yay! True to form, I’m much more excited about the trip now that I’ve scrolled through pictures online. We still have a list of stuff to buy for the trip (namely, a tent and a sleeping bag for me), and I’m brainstorming ways to dehydrate myself during the days so that I don’t have to venture to the bathroom in the middle of the night with spiders, snakes, or anything that flies (hmm, maybe I’ll add a headlamp to my shopping list). But daytime activities? Definitely looking forward to those!

Yesterday I finally booked my ticket to go to Hawaii this August.

!!!!!

I booked my flights through work, because officially, I’m going to to Honolulu present a paper at the AIAA GN&C conference. Josh got on the same flights using miles, because unofficially, we’re going on vacation, baby!

I’m presenting in one of the morning sessions on Thursday, August 21st, so we’re arriving on Wednesday afternoon and then staying an extra week until Sunday the 31st. We get to stay at the swanky Honolulu Hilton Wednesday night, but after the conference, we’re getting booted out of the hotel and will probably be staying in grungier places the rest of the trip. But hey, grungy in paradise is better than anyplace here!

So we basically have no idea what we’ll be doing for rest of the time that we’re there. Josh wants to see the areas where they filmed Jurassic Park, I want to go surfing, and we both want to see volcanoes. We know another couple that is staying in Hawaii after the conference, so we might tag along on a few of their adventures. I’ve heard that island-hopping isn’t cheap, but I spent a week in Oahu a few years ago, so I’d like to at least go to the Big Island and Maui or Kauai. Ahh, so many choices...

A few things

1. I graduated!!!!!!!!! I turned in my thesis on time, my advisor finally emerged from his house in the ’burbs to sign it, and I walked across the stage to accept my degree. Proof:

My family (minus my older sister, who’s in China) and Josh came for the weekend and sat through the blistering heat to see... mostly the backs of other people’s heads. They were gracious enough not to complain too much. :)



Although the Ph.D./Sc.D. graduates wear the funky robes & hats, the masters students look mostly like undergrads, with the exception of weird sleeve extensions on the gown. We joked that it was my bat costume:

My officemate put the sleeve extensions to good use: they held her lip balm, cell phone, and sunglasses throughout the ceremony.

My family, Josh, and I spent the rest of the weekend being tourists. Here we are in Beacon Hill:


2. Josh and I are going to eastern Europe for two weeks! I originally decided to go because a good friend of mine from high school is living in Prague, but since Josh was able to take some more time off from work, we’re going to be able to also visit Budapest, Krakow, and possibly Warsaw. I’m super excited about the trip, but since we haven’t had much time to plan for it, there’s still a lot to do before we leave on Monday.

3. I went home for a few days after graduation, hung out with my family a lot, and saw all of the remodeling that’s been going on at my parents house, which they’re getting ready to sell. I also picked up my car and drove it to DC so that it’ll be there when I start work in August. Have I mentioned that I accepted the Virginia job? It was a really tough decision, but I felt like I’d be missing a once-in-a-career opportunity if I passed up the job now. I’m not convinced that this is a place that I’ll want to stay for years and years, but it’s the best decision for me at this point.

4. I started apartment-hunting in DC earlier this week. I found two complexes in the Reston/Herndon area that I liked, but I wasn’t sold on either of them enough to fill out an application on the spot. Plus, I might end up rooming with two other girls that I met through craigslist, in which case I might end up further south, like Fairfax. I haven’t met either of the girls yet, although we have a “date” lined up for this Sunday. I’ve only been on one other girl date—the time I met my Houston roommate before we moved in together—so I’m not really sure what to expect.

5. Earlier this week I spilled milk on my laptop keyboard and ruined it. At first I thought it might dry out and be okay, but I still can’t get several of the keys to work, so I ordered a new keyboard through Dell yesterday. It figures—I ate breakfast and dinner in front of my computer nearly every day for the past semester and it was fine, but four weeks after school’s over, I dump something on it. My idiot mistake is costing me $35 and currently, some awkward use of a old external keyboard.

Florida

I've been so lazy since getting back on Sunday. I kept thinking I would feel all "refreshed" and "motivated" when I got back, but the only productive thing I've managed to accomplish since Sunday morning is buying groceries. Tomorrow I'll get back on a regular schedule, I swear...

Florida was awesome. :) We spent Saturday & Sunday in Jacksonville with the parents, and then drove through St. Augustine on Sunday on the way to Orlando. We spent Monday at Cocoa Beach, where I got to meet the real people I had to impress: Josh's nieces and nephew. Adults are relatively polite even if they don't really like you, but little kids are pretty honest about their feelings. They, of course, were adorable, and I was glad that we got to go to Disneyworld with them on Tuesday, since the park is so much more magical when you're under 10. But Disneyworld was HOT and crowded because of all the Memorial Day kid traffic. We finally made it through the line at Splash Mountain by the end of the day, and then of course it was time for pictures... so here we are in front of Cinderella's castle, appropriately damp:


My eyes looked pretty red and freakish by the end of that day, so we didn't go back for the parade of lights at night, which would have been cool. My eyeballs didn't look much better on Wednesday, so we spent most of that day just lounging around. Thursday we went to Busch Gardens in Tampa, and it turned out to be the perfect day - there was a huge thunderstorm in the afternoon so the park mostly cleared out after that, which meant that all the rollercoasters had less than a 10 minute wait to ride. I think we rode Sheikra 5 times in a row. :) The ride is crazy - you go up the initial hill and turn a short corner, and then the car dangles you over the edge of the first drop for about 5 seconds before throwing you down a 90 degree dive. Just enough time for you to gape at the track and pee in your pants. If you're interested, you can watch the video here, but I don't think the movie does it justice - the ride at least feels a ton faster in real life.

The night before we played some mini golf on a course that included a scavenger hunt and some live alligators! I was all excited to find out that they had alligators, but then later we went to a Go Kart place that also had alligators... so apparently I'm a big sucker for tourist traps.


But it seems that the alligators aren't the real thing you should be watching out for...


Ahh, vacation... I miss you already.