Wow, I'm pretty good at timing my blogs out. It's been a month and a day since my last post, and honestly I've been too lazy to even open this blog to write. All I've done was travel and travel and some more travel since then. Right after the last post, I hopped back on a plane and went to Dartmouth for the first time, which, to me, was very exciting, until my traveling experience was the most horrendous situation - everything that could have gone wrong did.
This is how my day was supposed to be:
6am wake up (bad enough)
8am flight to Denver
Transfer in Denver to Boston
Transfer in Boston to Hanover, NH
Arrive at hotel at 8pm EST.
This is how my day ended up..
6am wake up
8am flight to Denver CANCELLED
Shuttle from San Jose to San Francisco
Flight from San Francisco to Boston
MISSED flight from Boston to Hanover
News of Steve Jobs passing away and a shooting near my brother's school - way to put an even greater damper on my day...sigh.
Take 3 hour shuttle from Boston to Hanover
Arrive at hotel at midnight EST.
So I traveled for 16 hours that day... at least I got paid double overtime! One of the perks of my job? Paid to sit in airports, plus overtime and all expenses included. So while I'm complaining, I really shouldn't. It just made me tired, that's all.
After the horrible day of traveling, everything went uphill from there. I was happy to see that Dartmouth has very similar characteristics to Smith, and since Smith is always so far out of the way for me to visit, Dartmouth was great for reminiscing. Hanover is a quaint town, even smaller than Northampton, with a downtown located right off of Dartmouth's "lawn".
I stayed at the Hanover Inn, which was smack between the "lawn" and downtown. Albeit it's perfect location, the hotel should be on the tv show "Most Haunted". For $369/night, I felt as though you should have PAID me to stay there. Since Dartmouth is "my" school, I have to visit once a year and you can be sure that I will never stay there again.
The career fair went off without a hitch, and I was proud of myself for being able to manage our 3 reps, and set up our booth all by myself.
Just a peek into what I do.
Give out freebies, talk about how great my company is.
And my company IS great!
Collected my Dartmouth Penant for my office!
On my way back to Boston, I took a small Cessna and had the most amazing views over New Hampshire and Boston. However, for safety, I'll probably take the bus next time, or rent a car.
Full view of the cockpit. Scary AND cool!
View of Boston harbor!
During my hectic travels to Dartmouth, Steve Jobs passed away. :( Upon my return home, my dad, brother and I passed by his home to pay homage to our old neighbor. Even though I was too afraid to say hello to him when I lived there, I regret it even more so now.
After a week of rest, I was back on a plane again. This time I traveled for 7 days, visited 3 schools, and sat at 4 airports. My timecard was in an overtime frenzy! My first stop was Harvard (Cambridge/Boston). I always LOVE visiting because my old expo friends are there to keep me company. Unfortunately, not enough Harvard computer science majors came out to the fair...c'mon Mark Zuckerberg clones, where are you?
I spent the weekend with my friends, carving pumpkins, rekindling, and reminiscing. Of course I carved a "Hello Kitty Dracula" pumpkin.
Boston is always a hoot. But I can't stay there forever... :(
My next destination was Providence, Rhode Island/Brown University. This would be my first time traversing to the smallest state in the US of A. I took the train down and found myself really bored in the city... However, we had a great turnout at Brown - lots of CS/EE students who very excited about opportunities at Oracle! Yay! That's what we want, and this is one major reason I love my job.
Trained back out and took a flight from Boston -> Chicago -> Los Angeles.
Took a Super Shuttle out of Tinseltown into ... Pasadena, yet another hush hush town. I've learned my lesson, I'm renting a car the next time I go to Caltech. I ended up walking EVERYWHERE, which was great for my body and the lack of exercise I get when I travel, but I was walking 2 miles to get from my hotel to Caltech and back. It was all worth it though for the number of amazing students I got to interact with!
Now I'm back and don't have to travel for a few months (February). So, I'm going to take this time to relax, focus on student outreach, play some hockey, go out with my friends, finally go back to church, and the like. Oh! Also stalk some actors when I can.
I was in search of Gerard Butler since he was supposed to be filming in San Mateo for his surfer film "Of Men and Mavericks", instead I got an up and coming actor - Jonny Weston, who was so sweet and wanted me to stay and watch them film, but I couldn't. Maybe when he's all famous, he'll remember the chick that wanted a photo with him when nobody knew him. One wishes.
Happy early Halloween - no clue what I'm doing or what I'm going to be.
