I'm a bit late posting this, but I thought I'd mention that I finished the first part of the medical exam last Sunday and Monday (basic vision, hearing and blood tests, chest x-ray, height/weight, that sort of thing) and have scheduled the follow-up appointment with the doctor a little over a week from now. An earlier appointment probably would have been better, but I'm pretty full next week with labs and an important exam I need to study for, so I didn't reschedule it.

Speaking of exams (er, sorta) my uni posted the academic calendar for the spring and summer semesters, so I know when I'll be off next year, and, contrary to what I thought earlier, it looks like I might have some time for conventions! I have the entire month of September off, which I'll be using to take a trip back to California, the tail end of which will likely include a side trip to RainFurrest (although it's going to be during Ramadan next year, which could complicate things, so I'll have to think about it). There's also this little gap between the spring semester and my summer training period:



Gee, I wonder if there's anything going on between the 18^th of June and the 5^th of July? :p

In all seriousness though, airfare to the US is about $2k, and that's fine for a month-long trip, but not so easy to justify for an extended weekend. I did a rough estimate for how much it would cost to go to AC (travel, hotel, food, dealer's den + a little over estimation) and came up with $2800. :(   Couple that with the fact that I still feel a little guilty over what happened last year, and I think it's probably best to wait for some other AC.

I apologize in advance if this entry seems to ramble a bit, but I'm seriously jet-lagged. (I started getting tired around 4 in the afternoon, and now it's close to 5:30)

I'm back in Saudi Arabia now (both of my flights went well, however BA seems to have misplaced a piece of my luggage...AGAIN), and have finished my first day of classes for the year, so I suppose this means the summer is officially over. I've had loads of fun over the past two months, but now it's time to get back into gear and make with the learnin'.

My course load is really light this semester, since there weren't many open sections when I registered last spring, so I should have plenty of free time, with the downside being that I'm going to have to take an extra semester to get the required credits for graduation. It's not that bad though, considering that the standard curriculum for my university takes five years to complete, and with the extra semester I'll be done in four and a half. In related news, the job application I sent in before I left on vacation seems to have been taken very well, and by October I should know if I've been accepted.

Well that's it for now. I wanted to write more, but the little faeries in my head that make the gears spin are telling me to go to bed.