listening to: Eve 6, “How Much Longer”
So I’m on a bit of an Eve 6 kick right now. Anyway. I’ve decided that I want to go take a ride in a hot air balloon sometime. This weekend is the Ballunar Festival in conjunction with the JSC Open House, and this morning as I drove to work, there were dozens of hot air balloons floating around Clear Lake. It was beautiful.
I finally replied to Shun’s email yesterday, and he responded in minutes saying, among other things, that all the rocket and space stuff on this webpage sounds a bit nerdy. Hmph! I know he’s just kidding — after all, he’s spent time working down here too — but his comment makes the following paragraphs necessary for those of you who may not actually know me:
At the moment, I live in Houston and I work for NASA. When I mention someplace called “JSC,” I’m talking about the Johnson Space Center — home to Mission Control and all the astronauts. I am a co-op, which means I’m not quite a full-time employee, but I’m more than an intern. Basically, I alternate periods of school with periods of work. This is my 6th work tour, and I work in the Descent Analysis Group doing trajectory analysis for the X-38. I love my project this summer, but hate sitting in front of a computer all day (which, unfortunately, is a necessity, because trajectory calculations can’t really be done by hand…it’d take ages). Fortunately, the people I work with are really cool, and make my computer-filled days much more than bearable.
Last May, I finished my bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech. In a month, I will be starting graduate school at Stanford and by next June I should have a master’s degree in aerospace engineering. I’ve been told many times that space is my passion, and though I’m slow to agree with that diagnosis (mainly because “passion” seems like such a strong word), it’s probably accurate. I can’t really explain why I love space, except to say that the fact that we can leave the planet and survive in a completely alien environment is utterly and completely fascinating. In any case, my interest in space is definitely a big part of who I am, and what I’ll be doing with my life in the near future.
Of course I like to think there’s more to me than school and work…I love movies, and reading (when I have time), and writing, and spending time with cool people. As far as “real” interests go, there are probably three notable things to mention. First is the fact that I was an editor on the newspaper at Georgia Tech (entertainment section), and really enjoyed the part of my job where I got to basically design what my section looked like each week, and choose what kind of content was printed. Second is that I also like making webpages and seeing what kind of interesting (but not overly flashy or complicated) layouts I can invent. And finally, I also like photography, though I’m not too great at it because I haven’t been doing it for long.
I get a lot of personal satisfaction from doing those types of graphic design/layout/visual/creative stuff. I’ve been told that I’m good at it…which is probably just to boost my ego, in which case it worked. But I like to think it’s true, and that I really do have at least some artistic talent despite my engineering-oriented brain. Someday, I’d love to have the opportunity to turn web design or print layout/editing into a serious interest. We’ll see.
Anyway. So that’s a bit of background.