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.

Wow, it's been nearly a month since my last entry! Time's going by so fast, and I've just been too busy to sit down and write out an entry until now. What usually happens is that I'll do stuff in the evening, and by the time I get back I'm too tired to post anything. Then I'll forget to do it the next morning, and by the time I remember, I figure it's too late to post about it. I want to keep this journal up though, so I've just gotta force myself to write!

So what follows is a general update on what I'm doing this summer:

Mostly, I've been spending time with my friends from high school, since I won't be able to come back next year due to the summer co-op session I'll be doing for my university next summer. It's been pretty good for the most part: just chilling out and relaxing, with really only one bad night, which wasn't as bad as it was worrying. I don't want to go into it right now, but it was basically something stupid that a friend of mine did, and it requires some background info.

***

I still haven't been to any furmeets. There are parties in SF every other Friday: I missed the July 20th one because I didn't think my friend was free that night and I didn't want to go alone, and the August 3rd one was canceled because everyone was going to be at the FC campout/picnic, which I also didn't attend because I thought it would be awkward to go when I'm not attending FC 2008. There are supposed to be weekly meets in Fremont and Sunnyvale, but I don't know who organizes them or if they even still happen. Essentially, there are loads of furries in the area, but they're not that organized, so if I want to meet some I guess I have to curb my shyness, stick my head out and actively look for them, but I'm still nervous about it. That, and driving forty minutes to Fremont at night, only to find that whatever group that used to meet there no longer does isn't exactly my idea of fun...

***

My friend who was going with me to RainFurrest, then unable to, then able to again, is now, once again, unsure if he will be able to make it. The problem seems to come from the fact that his classes start on the 27th, and RainFurrest is the 24th-26th. He should be able to make them on time if he takes the plane back, but his mother still has reservations about it. She's also worried about how "safe" the trip will be (he tells me she wanted to make sure the hotel had locks on the doors and windows...). I'm going to have to sit down with her and discuss our plans. I mean, not only is he going with a friend, but my sister and even my mom will be with us!

***

Tomorrow, our family leaves for a short trip to Santa Cruz (there will be lots of pics!). It's got redwoods, streams, and all that good out-of-the-way foresty stuff like Yosemite, but is a lot closer and not actually out of the way (if we get bored, the boardwalk* is less than 30 minutes away). Gotta love the coastal ranges. :)

We should be back on the 16th, and then on the 20th we leave for Seattle, won't be back 'till the 28th, and on the 1st of September I leave for Saudi Arabia. These last few weeks of summer are going to be awesome, but the sooner they happen, the sooner it's over. :(


*No pun intended. Seriously. My intended puns are much more painful.

Whoa, crazy week.

First off, my original flight to San Francisco via British Airways was canceled, and I was transferred to a Gulf Air flight to Frankfurt, and then a Lufthansa flight to SFO. The flights left Bahrain and arrived in SFO around the same time, my luggage came through just fine, and the in-flight entertainment was pretty good, too (I watched an overview of the 1972 Grand Prix season and The BMW Story on the Gulf Air flight), so aside from a little confusion and extra waiting during check-in, everything actually went very smoothly.

I got into San Francisco around noon, and had a little Q&A with a TSA official after baggage claim. This was my first time entering the US on my own, so I was a little nervous, and it's kind of annoying to be interrogated every time you enter the US, but at least this time they didn't rummage through all my bags, and the guy was friendly enough and pretty much just asked for contact details and the reason for my trip. Oh, and he asked the question everyone asks me, including my fellow students at KFUPM: "Why are you going to college in Saudi Arabia?" It's getting a bit old, having to answer that every time I tell someone where I go for college, but I guess that's what I get for not going to a US  university like most of the people I went to high school with did.

Anyways, after that was over with, I found my mom and sister waiting for me in the arrivals hall, and after a bunch of hugs we headed over to my grandma's house, as we had invited her to stay at our house for the next couple of days (she's 91 and lives alone, so we like to spend as much time with her as possible). My mom had also taken delivery of a brand new Honda Fit just a couple days before I had arrived, so on Wednesday I took it for a little spin through some twisty roads in the Oakland Hills. >:3


It was very good fun. The car was very nimble, it had plenty of grip, and since we got the Sport model, even though it was an automatic it had a semi-manual mode with flappy paddle shifting, which was fun to try out. At its heart it's still an automatic, however, so it doesn't have the same engine-directly-connected-to-the-wheels feeling that a proper manual has, and, contrary to what Honda claims, the transmission will change gears on you, even in semi-manual mode. Still, it was a great way to spend a summer morning.

Since then, I've been helping my mom move some furniture around and prepare a room for a friend of mine who'll be staying with us for a bit while he looks for an apartment for him and his parents to use during the summer, and trying to meet up with some old friends, so it's been anything but boring so far. I just hope things slow down soon, because I feel like I just got here yesterday, but it's already been five days!

It's the biggest furry convention out there. THE fur con. Everyone right now is talking about it (ok, three people on my friends list >.>), and while it looks like a hell of a lot of fun, until now I had only thought of it as a source of con videos to watch and con reports to read. Look, but don't touch. I never thought I would actually go to it, at least not in the near future.

Well, a couple of things have come up that change that.

First off are travel costs. As mentioned earlier, I'm already planning a trip to California this summer. Interestingly though, circumstances surrounding the trip have made it so that it won't cost me any more to stop off in Pittsburgh than it will to fly straight into San Francisco. Secondly, I have a close friend who goes to CMU, which is less than 5 miles away from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (where Anthrocon is held). He had told me that he was going to be out of town in early July, so I was afraid that I was going to miss him, but it turns out that the day he gets back is the exact same day that Anthrocon starts! So if I head down there, I'll be able to see both. ;)

OK, so here's the plan I'm thinking of at the moment, based on an itinerary generated by British Airways's website: I'd get into Pittsburgh around 7 PM and head over to my friend's house to hang out for a bit before heading off to the con. The next three days would be spent mostly at the con, meeting up with some of the people I've met through LiveJournal along with other random furs, checking out some of the panels, attending a furdance or two, and whatever else comes up. Instead of leaving on monday like most people, though, I'd like to stay at least an extra day, to have more time to spend with my friend and maybe to check out Pittsburgh a bit.

There are a few unknowns in this master plan of mine, however. The biggest is the job application I'm making this summer. Theoretically, the company doesn't accept applications until the first of July, so there's a chance that I'll simply be unable to leave in time. On the other hand, there are other parts of the application process I can do before July, and I might not actually have to be physically present for the follow-up (I've heard that if they want to do an interview, they can do it via e-mail). The other issue is where to stay during the con, but I've seen plenty of postings on Anthrocon's forum by people looking for someone to share a room with, so I *hopefully* shouldn't have to worry too much about finding a place to sleep. *crosses fingers*

Right now, my head is swimming. Less than a month isn't a whole lot of time to plan a trip, especially a trip to a convention with over 2,500 strangers celebrating a fandom I only started looking into six months ago, but it'll be an opportunity to see some of my LJ friends in person, and to make even more of them! I can't make any promises that I'll be there, but right now it looks like there's a good chance that I will be!

So yesterday in my Heat Transfer course, we were giving short oral reports on various subjects related to heat transfer. My topic was heat pipes, and I think it went rather well! :)  I noticed something while I was doing it, too: when I get nervous, I get a little hyper and start to talk faster. I think it actually helped though, because the whole room seemed energized after I was done (I didn't bore everyone to sleep, like some of the other presenters did). One of my classmates even came up to me after I was done and complimented me on my presentation!

Also, there's only one more week of classes left, and then finals from the 4th to the 11th. I can't wait for this summer, it's going to be awesome!  My current plan is to spend the bulk of it in California, hanging out with some of my friends from high school (we're a really close bunch). The 24 hours of LeMons is on my todo list (some guys from a car forum I frequent are going to be participating), as is PAX and Rainfurrest (which I've already mentioned) and a trip to Yosemite with my family. The only downside to a summer this awesome, is that this will probably be the last time I get a break this long. Next summer I'll likely be doing my co-op/summer training thing, and after that I'll start working, so no more 10-week vacations for me. :(

Best make the most of it, then.