I have my final final ever tomorrow at 1 PM. That is all that stands between myself and alumni-hood. It is a weird feeling. I have just wrapped up a very long and exciting semester. I participated in Senior Design and was able to learn a lot about embedded development, not to mention make a (almost) flying quad rotor, learned Django for a project, got a job (yay!), got to enjoy a few last weeks with some close friends, and in just over a week, I get to walk across stage, tip my hat (this is ridiculous), and get my degree.
It has been a good semester. We got a chance to get to know Kevin, our fourth member of team 8. It allowed for us to thoroughly enjoy the project and he was an amazing fit for the team. He got along fine with everyone and made the project very enjoyable. Ryan and I worked together on the OS labs and we work well together, beyond the fact that I was not very helpful the last two labs and he rocked them out pretty one-sided. Software Engineering gave me the chance to learn Django, which I have been aiming to learn for some time, and get to work on some ground up software development. I rediscovered Python (after about a year with little contact with it) and am now working on a few things. I passed the 1 year mark with Kim, that is something special and hopefully it will continue to be special. And now, here I sit, procrastinating OS studying for a bit before lunch and in 26 (or so) hours time, I will be wrapping up a horrific OS final and calling it a day, or more like four years.
Now that life is on the verge of making the leap into the next realm (career driven adulthood) I find myself thinking about what I want with life. I am now armed with a qualification and degree in a field that I enjoy. I now need to figure out where to head, there is no major goal left, its make money and be happy. I find that I continue to think about Japan, and I miss it. I am going to try and learn Japanese over the next few years, my goal is 5 years to be good enough to get a JLPT Level 2 (thats the second highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test) and possibly move to Japan and find a job in software there. Kim graduates in 2 (or so) years and I would like for our relationship to continue. She has told me that we cannot marry right after she finishes, so if I propose to her, itll be probably three years from now. Then she wants to get her U.S. citizenship, so that will require a few years living here before that comes to fruitation. Until then, I just get to dream about Japan, maybe I will save up and take a vacation there in a few years. First I need to start my job and get my head out of the clouds.
Well, until I cross the stage, I will be a student…