Fall semester

OK, so a little update on my life. Last semester was very fun, if perhaps not quite on the level of Budapest.

I had my best cross country season ever, and I'm guessing that my 8k personal record (28:29, set at the Stanford Invite) will now stay constant for the rest of my life. I also enjoyed a kind of leadership position on my team, which had way more seniors (7) than we have had in the past 3 years combined (3). The 6 other guys in my class are definitely my best friends here, and it was awesome to be together for one last season, building a strong team that has so much promise for the future.

Academically, it was also my best semester yet in terms of GPA. As of now, I am still within reach of the goal I set for myself freshman year, which is to attain a 3.7 and thus graduate with high honors. (To succeed in this goal, I need at most 2 A-'s or 1 B+ this final semester, and all the rest A's…it's going to be challenging!) Among the classes I took, Clinic was no doubt the most exciting. Clinic, a program invented at Harvey Mudd a number of decades ago and since copied by many schools in the nation, is a senior project, on a level with Thesis. However, unlike Thesis, Clinic involves working in small groups on a problem posed by an actual company. My group, of 5 math or math/CS majors, is working for Hewlett-Packard Laboratories on a problem in the field of Color Management (basically, the methods of transferring color data between devices). We have a faculty advisor at HMC and two liaisons at HP, who we keep in close touch with via teleconfereces. We even have site visits to HP Labs in Palo Alto, my first taste of day-long business trips. I am actually the Project Manager of my group, which adds a whole new dimension to my work--I am responsible for communicating with liaisons, leading and directing our group work, assigning tasks to team members, and making sure we get things done, in addition to all the tasks we do individually. It can be very stressful at times, but I can handle it, and it's a very good experience, I think. Clinic continues this semester and we have group presentations and final reports right before graduation.

I still found some time to have fun. The cross-country-related trips were as fun as always: Lake Tahoe before the semester started, Santa Barbara and Stanford for meets. I went to more parties last semester and enjoyed them much more than in the past (perhaps partly because I allowed myself to imbibe a bit). I even had some special visitors. Mom and Dad came down for Fall Break, saw one of my cross country meets and met some of my friends, and we then drove out to the Santa Monica Mountains (west of L.A., on the coast) for some beachside camping and pleasant hiking. Then, at the end of the semester, Tim came to visit for a week's worth of outdoor activities: mountain biking in the Claremont foothills, hiking Mount Baldy above Claremont, camping on cliffs over the beach in Orange County, hiking Santiago Peak in OC. It felt good to take advantage of living in Southern California for once, and it was very fun to share those activities with family.

The all-important relationships update: Julia an I broke up amicably after about a month of school; I guess there were a few problems in our relationship. I'm glad we were together, as she is a pretty amazing person and we had a lot of fun together, but I also think (looking back) it was a good idea to end the relationship. I don't think we were quite right for each other.
Anyway…I was single for the rest of the semester, which I quite enjoyed, actually. Towards the end of the semester, though, I started talking more to someone I had never really known that well, but eventually found out I had a lot in common with. Her name is Heather Schalliol, she's a senior Engineering major at HMC, and we've now been dating for about 2 weeks. You will probably hear more about us in further posts…but suffice to say that I am very happy right now!

Our first track meet is tomorrow…the Alumni Meet. I'm running the 1000m, the 2 mile, and a leg of the 4x400 (this last event, just for fun). I think there's also a party for trackies tomorrow night. Other than that, this weekend is going to be homework, homework, Clinic, homework. Whew!

To come: info about my plans for next year…