My Year-End Self-Analysis

Per the advice of LifeHacker.

Done while listening to Neil Young’s “Harvest” Album

Accomplishments

  1. Started a relationship with a wonderful woman
  2. Graduated Georgia Tech with a BS in Electrical Engineering, a Spanish Minor, an International Plan and Co-op Certificate, and a 3.06 average
  3. Took my sister on a cool trip to Spain
  4. Had a fantastic cross-country roadtrip
  5. Summited Half Dome
  6. Drew up plans with Kelsey for Entropy
  7. Got a fine job in Beijing
  8. Started the AIESEC Beijing Trainee Committee
  9. Started BrainCanvas with King
  10. Learned a good bit about my ancestry and shared it with the family
  11. Had a wonderful Blue Plate Special shift on WREK


Failures

  1. Didn’t get distinction for graduating
  2. Lost out on my bid for the MindValley traineeship
  3. Didn’t make it into the NOI BootCamp in DC in July
  4. Didn’t get the Eben Tisdale Fellowship
  5. Didn’t make it past the first round in the Unreasonable Institute selection
  6. Got no job offers from the career fair
  7. Fell off of good updating for BrainCanvas
  8. Haven’t started learning Chinese
  9. Started, then stopped working out again
  10. Poorly handled turning down the AIESEC Official Expansion Mongolia invitation

Five Pictures to Sum Up 2009

  1. Revolutionary Beers at City Tavern
  2. Spain Trip 2009 304
  3. California Roadtrip 2009 433
  4. img_9344
  5. img_9075

Looking Forward to NYE 2011

  1. Making Waves in Washington, DC
  2. Working Out my Body, Mind, and Soul
  3. Learned Conversational Chinese
  4. My Writing is Referenced in Influential Publications
  5. Making Music Regularly

Waitin’ For A Superman

For the first time, in a really long time, pretty much everything in my life is lining up – or at least appears to be. Fortuna’s wheel is on the upward swing for ol’ P. Rhea.

My classes this year – of which I have only four but which total to 15 hours – for the most part seem both interesting and achievable (a combination which I have not met yet at college). Old friends, important to my development cycle and my own Legend, have returned from their wandering, and we even played music together, and sang. That was nice. The blocks of AIESEC are all falling into place, and I’ve got nothing but bright hope for my LC, for the country, and now that I can work on Project01 again, for the global network. I’m finding more of the mystical and mythological in the every day and in the once-in-a-lifetime, in the moments shared between friends and in the walk to the grocery store. According to The Pyramid (and my own heart) the only thing I’m missing is Companionship and Completion.

When the random puts on Beirut’s “Elephant Guns,” it just about can’t get better in the first half of the 16:00 hour in August – and it’s sunny, and I’ve got Dale Carnegie graduation tonight with people, threads woven together one last time before they go their separate, albeit newly carved, ways.

Damn, these trumpets are sublime.

Them Tuesday Vibes

I finally got my Russian invitation letter to go to EUROXPROS, so tomorrow I will go and get my visa. I will also try and schmooze them into some kind of useful partnership for the LC, like facilitated visa processing for someone wishing to catch a Ride.

I forwarded the applications for the CC of IC 2008 in Brazil to the national leadership list and to the LC, and I have already gotten five emails asking for details, expressing interest, looking for reference, etc. I’m glad I could be the vector for that.

Today was a rollercoaster day. It started out pretty good when I got my letter of invitation, but then it tanked after I found out my grade on the prob/stat test I took Thursday, and when I couldn’t do most of the homework I had due today in Instrumentation & Circuits, and even then, I couldn’t finish the lab. It was exemplary of my reasons for loathing much about this place. But then I had a nice dinner with Laleh and Ben James, where serendipitously Willy’s was selling $3.50 burritos with a college ID – only on the first Tuesday of each month. Our conversation focused mostly on facilitating exchange, shall we say.

Finally, just as I was dropping Laleh off, I got a text message from our SGA president – the bill for Laleh to go to APXLDS passed! So in the end, today was a day of balance. Too bad it was in such extremes.

I’ve stayed up too late to do it now, but Thursday morning if it isn’t raining I’ll start running again.