About Saroy

updated Jan 2007
My name is Sarah, I’m 28 years old, and I currently live and work deep in the heart of Texas (aka Houston). This is my meant-to-be-temporary-but-actually-somewhat-permanent “about me” page…
A reverse chronology of my life
(idea borrowed from kottke.org)
2007: Currently happening. Read the blog to see how it’s going…
2006: This year was arguably the best of my life thus far. In January I started dating someone that will hopefully be around for a long, long time; in August I got a full-time job in Mission Control, one that at this point in my career could be called my dream job. The year’s fabulous trip abroad was a week and a half in the Patagonia region in southern Argentina and Chile, and I later learned to ski while spending my 28th birthday at Tahoe.
2005: I blinked and it was gone. It was the first year since college that I didn’t leave the country. The year that my sister got married in the most beautiful wedding ever (yes, ever, of course). The year I got “serious” about photography. The year I got to be on the field for the World Series.
2004: The year of the Best. Trip. Ever. I tend to say that about whatever my most recent trip was, but this time I mean it. I went to Peru with 7 friends, hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and loved every minute of it.
2003: I started the year with a week in France. A few days after I came back, we lost Columbia as it was coming back to Earth. For me, the event was more terrible and hit with more force than 9/11. Also the year that my five-years-younger-than-me sister got engaged. And I went to Greece.
2002: Decided that grad school was scary and making money sounded nice. I decided to leave Stanford with a Master’s instead of a Ph.D. and moved to Houston. I went to Europe for the second time, a week of driving around Scotland.
2001: I graduated from Georgia Tech and finally escaped the country! For a month. We did a whirlwind 28-day European tour, hitting London, Paris, Munich, Fussen (Germany), Montreaux (Switzerland), Venice, Florence, Rome, the Riviera, Barcelona, back through Paris, and Amsterdam. I drank beer in Germany. I did not smoke pot in Amsterdam. In September, I began what I thought would be 4-5 years of grad school. My dad flew from Atlanta to Houston 3 days after 9/11 to drive to California with me. Because of 9/11, we didn’t get to go inside the Hoover Dam or tour Dryden Flight Research Center. Freaking terrorists.
2000: I rang in the new millenium overlooking the LA basin from the Palos Verdes peninsula. I love California. I also went to New York for the second time. I love New York.
1999: The year of best living arrangement ever. I moved into Harris with Courtney, and shared a suite with Leila. People could just knock on the back door to be let in. On Sundays we’d go across the hall to Josh’s room and watch The Simpsons while sitting on the futon cushion on the floor. During commercials, we’d wrestle.
1998: Fell in love for the first time. It didn’t work out.
1997: Spent my last summer at home before starting my coop job with NASA. In September, a group of almost 30 of us drove from Houston to Florida and that’s when I saw my first space shuttle launch. It was a night launch. The light was so bright, and the noise was so loud. It cracked and popped and rumbled and was extremely cool.
1996: Graduated high school and moved to Atlanta to study aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech. My brother moved into my bedroom as soon as I moved out, which I’m still bitter about even though I know it only made sense because he’d been sharing a room with my other brother blah blah blah. He stole my room. I didn’t know anyone in Georgia and was extremely homesick for the first few months.
1995: The Braves won the World Series while my family and I were at my last-ever marching band competition at UNC in Chapel Hill. Katie heard Marquis Grissom make the last out on a walkman in the parking lot after the competition as we were loading everything back onto the bus. We screamed with joy, and went to my grandmother’s condo to watch all the post-game celebrations. My marching band had won that night as well. One of the best nights of my life; I just remember feeling totally and completely content.
1994: Baseball went on strike right as I was transitioning from casual fan to serious fan. It didn’t really affect much. I’m still a serious fan.
1993: I spent a week in the summer riding my bike from the North Carolina mountains to the coast. I don’t remember much about the trip except for three things: seeing Jurassic Park in Raleigh, climbing the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, and going sailing on Pamlico Sound.
1992: My 9th grade physics teacher offered extra credit to anyone who wrote a paper for a science contest about Mars missions. I was a sucker for extra credit and wrote the paper. As it turned out, it was good enough to win a trip to Kennedy Space Center. I saw Endeavor on the launch pad and for the first time realized that one day I could do space stuff, as, like, my job. Whoa.
1991: In 8th grade I was on my school’s varsity soccer team. I played defense. In one game I got a really good foot on a fast moving ball and sent it flying way down the field and way up in the air. I heard a classmate, watching from the sideline, say “WHOA” and it made me feel really good.
1990:
1989: Hurricane Hugo blows through Charlotte in the fall of my 6th grade year, with 80 mph winds even after having traveled a few hundred miles inland. We were out of school for a week. Our house was on a small string of power lines that wasn’t high on the repair priority list. The houses across the street had power within 48 hours, but we waited two weeks.
1988: The Hornets start their first season in Charlotte. One night I was cheering loudly and got so excited that I was pumping my arms up and down. I was holding a blanket, and it got caught on my braces, ripping one of the brackets off my tooth. I was leaving town on a church trip the next day, so my mom and I had to go to the orthodontist’s office at like 11:00 at night. He actually came out and fixed my braces. He was nice, except for the whole braces thing. Braces suck.
1987:
1986: I watched the Challenger explosion live on TV in Ms. Hackney’s 2nd grade class.
1985:
1984: I think this was the year I brought home chicken pox from school. And gave it to all three of my siblings. This is probably also the year that my dad caught me on video tape throwing alphabet blocks at my sister, who was helpless in her high chair. She still hasn’t forgiven me for that one.
1983: My brother and sister are born. Twins. With two parents and four kids, the family is now complete.
1982:
1981:
1980: After two lovely years (not that I remember them, but I assume they were lovely) as an only child, my brother is born.
1979: My first hazy memory is of Christmas 1979. In a pre-school classroom, we were making handprint art to go with a little poem: “Sometimes you get discouraged / Because I am so small / And always leave my fingerprints / On furniture and walls. // But everyday I’m growing / I’ll be grown up someday / And all those tiny handprints / Will surely fade away. // So here’s a final handprint / Just so you can recall / Exactly how my fingers looked / When I was very small.” I distinctly remember some adult taking my wrist, picking up my hand, dipping it in paint, and flattening my palm on a piece of paper. The paint was cold.
1978: I was born at 7:56 in the evening on Easter Sunday. The cherry trees were blooming outside the hospital window, or so I’ve been told.