I’M YOUR WINGMAN
Until tonight, I did not know the Thunderbar (upstairs at the UBC Winter Sports Centre) sold wings at $0.25 a piece after 11pm. You know, at the time, it seemed like a good idea for Bryan and myself to consume over 25 wings each, but now, I’m not so sure.
LIL’ BASTARDS
At dinner I see Adrian. He tells me that he’s thinking about going for a quick coffee with Akiko at 10:30pm. He also tells me he can’t stay out too late.
At 10:30pm, Patrick, Akiko, and I are wondering where the hell Adrian is. We page him. He finally shows up around 11:10pm. By the time we hop in the car, it’s nearly 11:30pm. The plan is to go to Calhoun’s. As we approach Calhoun’s, Adrian pipes up.
“Hey, Akiko, have you ever been to The Naam?”
“No.”
“Ok, let’s go there.”
We continue driving and arrive at The Naam. I’m kinda excited because I’ve always wanted to try their Thai noodles. We sit down and not a minute after we get our menus, Adrian says, “Hey, let’s go to Denny’s instead!”
I’ve never seen him so indecisive. Patrick wants to go to Denny’s too. I ask if we’re just going to leave. Adrian says no, we’ll just order drinks. When the waiter comes around, I order a blueberry milkshake. Everyone else gets coffee, but Adrian also gets a plate of nachos. My Thai noodles will have to wait, though I’m thinking maybe I should order it anyways.
Our drinks come. My shake is one of the best I’ve had, approaching the quality of White Spot shakes. There is no metal cup though, which I like. The nachos take forever to come.
They finally get to us, and I have a little bit. Everyone else gobbles it up. Then we get the bill.
“Oooohhhh… I’m kinda full now.”
“Yeah, me too…”
The boys are expressing their fullness. I say, “Hey, I bailed on my Thai noodles because I thought we were going to Denny’s!”
Everyone agrees we’re going to Denny’s again, especially since Akiko lives near there now. On the way, Patrick speaks of these little hamburgers. I have no clue what’s he talking about.
We arrive at Denny’s and get a table. We take a look at the menu. Patrick points out the mini-burgers. It’s six tiny little burgers with a side of onion rings. I’m going through a chicken wing phase, so I decide to get buffalo wings. Patrick isn’t sure if he can finish six mini-burgers by himself. Adrian expresses his desire to help.
“Alright, we’ll get those lil’ bastards, and Akiko and I will help you eat them.”
Our food comes and I eat nearly 10 wings by myself. The others consume these tiny little burgers and onion rings. Afterwards, I feel a little gross.
We drive Akiko home, then it’s back on campus. Now, I’m tired… really tired, like I’ve been to two restaurants in less than an hour.
DAY ONE – VANCOUVER / NEW ORLEANS CONTINUED
So I’m sitting in this shuttle van and it’s quite apparent I’m not in Vancouver anymore. The weather is stiffling hot. Not only is the mercury at 34 degrees Celsius, the humidity is also kicking my ass. It’s just oppressive weather.
The van is nearly full and I’m looking around for the driver to come. He finally gets in and starts reading out destinations. I hear mine, which is a good thing. Two people are going to Tulane University.
The van starts up and so does the A/C. I’m in heaven. We pull away from the curb and begin to exit the airport. The driver informs us it should be a 20 minute drive to downtown New Orleans. I immediately take note of the condition of the roads, the traffic density, and type of cars. We pull onto a multi-lane interstate. It must be at least four or five lanes wide in either direction. Coming from Vancouver, this is always a treat for me to see. Even though I think most Americans drive way too fast and recklessly, I don’t get that feeling watching the traffic around me. I see several large billboards featuring seductive women enticing me to go to “gentlemen’s clubs” in the French Quarter. The names I see are “Rick’s” and “Hustler”. Nice.
Pretty soon we’re approaching the city proper and I spot the “world-famous” Superdome. It’s been the site of several Superbowls. It’s like a big concrete upside-down bowl. It’s ugly. Built during the days when concrete was all the rage, it is beginning to contrast greatly with the newer open-air stadiums. We get closer to it and actually take an off-ramp that goes right near the base of the concrete behemoth. The driver also points out the arena next to it, which is the home to the Hornets of the NBA.
I begin to notice the architecture around the city. Some of it looks very recent and modern. Other areas are very old and run down. I guess that could be said about most cities. I try to see if I can recognize some streets from the map I was looking at on the plane. It’s not until we’re very near the French Quarter that I do see some familiar names. We drop a few people off at the Sheraton. I’m informed that I’m next.
Some of the streets are very narrow and go only one way. We’re on one of those type of streets when we stop at a corner. The driver gets out and so do I. I’m handed my single piece of luggage. I give the dude a dollar ’cause I’m a high-roller. The van drives away and I’m left in front of the Royal St. Charles Hotel. I quickly step into the lobby to escape the heat. It looks exactly as it did on the web site. I make my way to the front desk where the concierge is waiting for me. She doesn’t smile at me the entire time I check in. She gives me a spiel about the fitness room and the continental breakfast. It sounds so rehearsed and tired. The rest of the hotel looks great, but this woman looks so out of place.
I’m on the third floor. I grab my keys and head into the first available elevator. Exiting the elevator, I examine the decor of the hallway. It’s simple but elegant. In a strange way, it looks like the decor from 30’s. I like it. I arrive in front of my hotel room door. This is the part of the trip I always enjoy. The moment right before you see your hotel room for the first time. I slide the card key through the lock. The warm green glow of the LED signals me to enter. I turn the door handle and swing open the door to reveal…. darkness. The lights are off and the curtains are closed. I enter and fumble around for a light switch. I flick on a light. The room is small, but nicely appointed. My room at SJC is probably larger than what they gave me. The bathroom is the highlight. It’s smartly decorated with a sorta fake marble theme. It’s also clean which I like in a bathroom. I have a queen-sized bed. In the dresser is the 28″ TV. I also have a mini-bar where if it strikes my fancy, I can have a $8 US bag of peanuts. And yes, if you’re wondering, the Bible is in one of my nightstand drawers. I throw open the curtains to see I have a view of the Marriott Hotel across the street. Oh well.
I’ve been in worse places. I unpack all my clothes and hang them up or put them in drawers. My next goal is to get something to eat. I’m starving and I’m ready to try out the local cuisine. I’m also eager to get back to my hotel room in a reasonable amount time because I was told not to walk around alone at night. I would later on find out and be told this warning was unnecessary.
Anyways, consulting my travel guide, I head off to the nearest recommended restaurant. It’s less than a block away from my hotel, located in another hotel. The place is dead and I’m the third person in there. I order up some oysters and some crab cakes. It’s good but expensive. My waitress tells me that I’ve come at the slowest time of year for the city. The locals have gone to escape the heat and most tourists won’t come because of the weather too. It’s a good news and bad news type of thing.
I pay my bill and leave. I get back to my hotel room at around 9:30pm. I’m really not that tired and it’s early. To hell with the warning I think. I’m a block away from the French Quarter and Bourbon St., I might as well see it now. I make my way down to the street and it’s still hot as hell. I walk across Canal St. which is one of the widest streets I’ve been on. I hit the beginning of Bourbon St. and begin to take in the sights and sounds.
I’ve seen Bourbon St. many times on TV, and like always, it’s a little different in your own eyes. For one, it seems a lot smaller and narrower. TV doesn’t prepare you for the stench that emanates from certain areas of the street. The heat makes any garbage can on the street stink like a landfill.
There are any number of bars on either side of the street. Some are jazz clubs, some are topless (and bottomless) clubs, and some are just places where they have a dozen margarita machines inside where you can take it go. Drinking in public with non-glass containers is legal in New Orleans, so you see lots of people with alcohol in hand outside. Even though it’s not even Mardi Gras, almost everyone has a string of beads around their neck. Strangely, no exchange of beads and brief nudity is going on anywhere.
I make my way along Bourbon quite a ways, almost to the end. After a while, it becomes almost uniform in appearance. It’s neon everywhere, it’s loud, there’s music, people enticing you to go inside, and there’s a thin layer of seediness over everything. I decide to go back to my hotel after about half an hour of exploring.
I’m tempted to grab a margarita to go in a plastic cup, much like a 7-11 Slurpee, but I decided I need to be fresh for the next day.
I arrive safely at my hotel. I notice they have a WebTV-like service in every room. It’s $9.95 US for Internet access until noon the next day. I go for it and spend the next hour reading my mail. I feel sorry for anyone using WebTV because it sucks crap. The resolution of the browser on the TV is like 120 x 80. I have this wireless keyboard which is nice, but it’s difficult without a mouse. I answer a few mails and then attempt to blog. It won’t work with the sucky browser.
I give up and think Letterman is on. I am wrong. I keep forgetting I’m in Central time and he’s on at 10pm. I watch a bit of Conan instead and then turn in for the night.
The next day, I wake up at…
TO BE CONTINUED…
LONG DAY
You know, I’m not really fond of those “I had a really long day” posts, but here I am about to write that.
Well, I had a really long day. It started at 10am and it didn’t end until 6pm. The thing about grad classes is that at the beginning of a term, you’re not really sure which ones you want to go to, so you go to them all. Of course, no one really registers in all of them, but at the start, you have to go a lot. Well, today I went to four classes and then I had to TA my tutorial.
The tutorial was a bit of a mess. They were doing this assignment and these guys are all out of sync with the lecture schedule. They do an assignments on material that they get lectured on only afterwards. It totally weird and I feel for them. A few of them expressed their concern to me, but I told them I’m being lenient on them with marking.
Anyways, if that wasn’t bad enough, there was an equation listed on the board that was incorrect. The kids came up to me and asked me why it didn’t look right. I had to agree with them it was certainly didn’t look right, but I couldn’t figure out why. Well, the prof with me finally told them it was wrong and to use some other equation. I hate when that happens.
The assignment they had today was quite long for some and I didn’t get out of the tutorial until well after 6pm. I got home and ate dinner right away. I stayed in the dining hall well past 8pm to just relax.
After flittering around in my room for a bit, it’s already 10pm. It’s a good thing I don’t have any pressing schoolwork to do tonight, because I don’t feel like doing anything right now.
TIRED AND MORE THINGS TO DO
My grad classes start this week. I also have a stag, rehearsal dinner, and wedding to go to this week. I’m going to be busy. Is this when life starts getting crazy again?
BACK TO THE GRIND
It suddenly feels like the middle of October. After a quick dash to the sushi place in the Village for dinner, I found myself back in my room, reading a textbook. Outside it was cold and rainy. Damn, this is no fun. I can’t wait for summer to roll around again.
YO TEACH!!!
Whoa, I’m eating a praline from New Orleans right now and it’s pure sugar. Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!
So, I did survive my first tutorial as a TA, but I thought it was going to be a disaster at first. The tutorial starts at 4pm and I get there at 3:55pm hoping to talk to the prof who I’m going to back up. A little chit-chat before we start the session.
I get to the tutorial room, which is huge, and they are over 40 students there already. They’re all arrayed in this haphazard arrangement around these tables. I walk in and I get the feeling they know I’m not one of their classmates. I pull out my material for the tutorial. I say to the closest guy next to me, “Are you here for APSC 150?”
He nods yes. I look around for any sign of a prof. There is none. I start to review the assignment that I’ll be giving them in the tutorial. I get the feeling everyone is looking at me. I have no clue who the prof is who’s doing this tutorial. After one minute, I get up to go look for the prof. The prof that is co-ordinating this class has his office just steps away. I go there. It’s 4pm on the dot now and his office is now closed. He’s a pretty important dude, so his office is inside a larger office where he has people who run interference for him. He’s still a nice guy but there’s an extra layer of red tape to get to him. This red tape has now prevented me from talking to him.
I’m not in a panic yet, but I’m getting a little worried. I go back to the room. Everyone looks at me again. I’m contemplating getting up and telling them the prof is late and that they should hang tight. I decide if by 10 past if no prof shows up, I’m taking control of this thing. We’ll do charades if we have to. I have no course material, so I can’t even teach them stuff.
An agonizing seven minutes pass when out of the corner of my eye, I see the prof enter from the other door. He quickly grabs the overhead projector and starts setting up. He seems like he’s in a rush. My saviour is here.
I run to him.
“Hi, I’m Erwin and I’ll be helping you out today.”
“Hi, I’m Peter. Nice to meet you.”
We shake hands. I ask him if the students have had a lecture yet. He says no. This is not good for the students. We’ll be giving them an assignment in the tutorial yet they haven’t even had any lecture material. Now keep this in mind. These are 18 year olds whose university experience consists of the one day of orientation they had yesterday. I’m pretty sure this is the first tutorial they’ve ever attended.
I ask Peter how we can make them do stuff when they’ve not even had a lecture. He explains he’ll be doing a quick 30 minute lecture here and then we’ll let them go at it. We figure out we need to make copies of the assignment for the students. He asks me to go get some copies.
I look at my watch, it’s way past 4pm and I know the mech office is closed. I go there anyways. Yep, it’s locked up. Out of nowhere, I hear the voice of the course coordinator. Thank the stars.
I explain to him my situation. He’s in his bike gear and ready to go home. Graciously, he opens up one of the offices and makes the copies for me.
I’m off back to the room. When I get back, the prof has the students in rapt attention with some slides. It’s about materials selection. Even though it’s been years since I’ve gone over this stuff, I surprisingly know what he’s talking about. As I sit there listening to him, I realize I’m calm for the first time in 20 minutes.
When he ends the lecture, he says, “Ok, now we’ll get you to do the assignment, why don’t you introduce yourself to the class?”
He points to me. This is it. I get up and say, “Hi, my name is Erwin, I’ll be your TA and you better be nice to me since I’ll be doing all your marking.”
I explain to them this is a group assignment and that they should form a group and then come up and get the assignment. As they flitter away to form groups, I’m thinking this isn’t so hard after all.
Group by group, they come up and get the assignment. The assignment that I have no solution for.
They start working on it and I have some time now to talk to the prof. He’s new to UBC. He’s Canadian but he’s been working abroad for many years. He mentions his wife. I ask him about her. He mentions his kids. I ask him about them. He’s a super nice guy and I can tell he’ll make a great addition to the Department.
I mention to him that this is actually my very first tutorial… ever. He says, “Oh, I would have never thought that.” What a nice guy.
While we talk, our conversation is interrupted once in a while by a question from one of the students; some are easy to answer and some aren’t. One guys asks me, “For this question, how many examples do you want?”
“Um, three? How about that?”
I have no clue if that’s reasonable or not. Another thing I get is that students start coming up with the same questions. After the second student, I have to make an announcement to the entire class. This happens several times.
After an hour, the students are getting to the end of the assignment. They start to hand it in. The first group gives me their papers. I look at it. At the top, there are four names: Jimmy, Bobby, Sarah, and Andrew. Yeah…. right.
“Ok, um, I’m going to need you to put your last names and student numbers on this”
I remember now that these kids were in grade twelve not four months ago where Jimmy, Bobby, Sarah, and Andrew sufficed because, seriously, how many Jimmys could there be in first year engineering? I make an announcement to the entire class to put your last name and student numbers on the papers.
Despite my plea, I get papers back missing student numbers. Several names have “I forgot my student number” next to it. It’s a minor annoyance, but they’ll memorize that number soon enough.
The prof leaves when the students start handing in papers. I have it under control. As students leave, they come up to me and ask questions.
“Are you the teacher for this class?”
I tell that guy no.
“Are you going to mark hard?”
I tell this guy probably not since they missed the first lecture.
“When will we get this assignment back?”
This guy I tell I don’t know.
Two students come up and introduce themselves to me. Nice. One of them says, “Hi, I’m so and so, that can’t be hard to remember, they’re only two girls in this class.”
I forget what I told her, but she’s right. There are only two girls in this tutorial and it won’t be hard to forget her name. Two girls out of 50 students or so is a bad ratio, even when I was back in undergrad. It’s supposed to be way better now. Perhaps it’s just bad scheduling.
I collect the last set of papers and I take off. For some reason, I wonder what would happen if I lose all their papers. Crazy thoughts.
I’m going to try to mark the assignment over the weekend, but we’ll have to see. What I do know is that I think I’ll enjoy being a TA for this class.
DAY ONE – VANCOUVER / NEW ORLEANS
Well, before the school year starts to kick my ass, I thought I’d just document my trip to Nawlins.
So where was I? Oh yeah, I go to bed around 3am and I get up at 6am. I’m feeling pretty awful at this point and I’m wondering if it would have been better to just stay up all night.
I get dressed and clean myself up. I go downstairs and my Mom for some reason has woken up and made me breakfast. So sweet of her.
I eat and then I go do a last second check of my luggage. Assured that I have everything with me, my father drives me to the airport. He leaves me at the curb of the international terminal. As I go through the doors, I am feel a surge of excitement. I have not flown since 1999. Four years since I’ve been on a plane.
I’m flying business / first-class all the way, so I get to bypass all the line-ups. I waltz straight up to the next agent for American. She processes my ticket and hands me my boarding passes (for the connecting flight as well). I then go to get cleared by the American authorities. I’m very curious to see what it’s like now. I wait for my turn to be interrogated by an American immigration official. Surprisingly, it’s the standard questions I got in the late 90s. Purpose of visit, what do I do, and where do I live. I’m waived through. Now I have to get myself and my bags checked. Again it’s the standard remove all metal items and place them in the tray routine. My carry-on goes through the machine and I step through the thingy. It doesn’t go off. The x-ray machines they use now are really cool. They can see everything and the gradient of colours in the image really helps to distinguish between items. As I go through, I’m asked to take out my digital camera and my PDA which were all concealed in my bag. Neat. I take the items out and they wipe down each of them with small cloth swatch. This happened to me in Boston in 1999, but I’m pretty sure they were looking for drugs that time. Now, it’s explosives.
I’m cleared to go and I’m off to my gate. I check my watch and I realize I have more than an hour to kill. I wander around the gates looking in the various shops. I see that there’s a Tim Horton’s as well. I also realize that I have no Canadian money on me anymore. I also don’t want to start spending my American dollars even before I leave Vancouver. So, I sit and wait, and walk, and read my New Orleans travel book.
Another thing I do is to look at the people at my gate. I start guessing if they’re from Dallas, from Canada, or from another place. I see several women with big hair. Definitely Dallas.
Pretty soon it’s time to board and they make an announcement that business class passengers should board first. For the first time in my life, that announcement applies to me. They also announce that coach class passengers should pick up their “bistro” meal from the cart on the jetway. As I make my way towards the plane, I look at these “bistro” meals in the cart. It’s like a paper bag lunch. Poor saps.
I enter the plane and I’m seated in the third row or something, in the aisle. The seats are wide and made of leather. The seat in front of me seems like it’s a mile away. I am impressed. As I get settled, I notice one of the cabin attendants coming around to each business class passenger. She gets to me.
“Would like something to drink before we take-off?”
I tell her some orange juice would be splendid. Wow. A drink before the plane even moves an inch. This is nice. I’m served my drink and by this time, the cattle passengers in coach are boarding. Since I’m in the aisle, they eye me and my orange juice. All of them are carrying their paper bag lunches.
Everyone gets settled and the attendants come and get the glasses (real ones, not the plastic shit in coach) from business class. The plane takes off and we start to climb. As soon as it’s safe, the attendants start moving around again. I notice now that two of them are exclusively catering to business class, less than 20 people in total. The other two attendants are servicing coach which numbers about 100. Me likes.
An attendant comes around with a clipboard, she’s talking to each one of us individually. She gets to me.
“Mr. Tang, good morning, my name is Donna and I’ll be taking care of you all today. Before we serve our meal, would you like another drink?”
I order myself up another orange juice. Moments later, I receive my drink and an asortment of nuts in a ceramic bowl. The bowl and nuts are warm to the touch. I try a pistacchio. It tastes so much better because it’s been heated. This isn’t some cheap bag of nuts in a cold aluminum wrapper, it’s the high life.
For lunch I get my choice of a roast chicken sandwich or smoke turkey in a croissant. Despite my affinity for roast chicken, I pick the croissant thingy. I like croissants.
After lunch I bring out my course scheduling for the school year. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Donna coming by.
“Mr. Tang is there anything else that I may get you?”
“No Donna, I’m fine for now, thank you.”
At this point, I’m starting to get worried about flying coach again. Seinfeld was right. I can’t, I won’t! After trying to fit a dozen classes into a dozen spots in my schedule, I get tired of picking classes. I lean back and let Mr. Sandman take me for a while. I wake up about a half hour later.
I rub my eyes and check my watch. The woman in the window seat next to me turns and asks me a question.
“I saw your schedule there on the tray. Are you teaching or taking classes this year?”
“Both.”
What follows is a delightful conversation for about the next twenty minutes. I find out the woman is going home with her husband (in the row ahead of us) from a trip to Alaska. They live in Florida. They’re about retirement age and hubby works in the cable TV industry. He supplies cable TV to the islands in the Carribean.
We discuss her son, who’s graduating from university soon and how he wants to go right back when he does. I tell her about my five-year break from school. She’s curious about my time at EA and the video game industry. I get her to tell me about life in Florida and living in the islands of the Carribean.
From our conversation, it seems she is a pleasant, well-spoken, and articulate person. I’ve had worse conversations on a plane before.
Pretty soon it’s time to land at Dallas-Fort Worth. As we de-plane, I see the lovely couple outside our arrival gate. I wish them a safe trip to Florida and they wish me well in New Orleans. I will never see those people again in my entire life. This is the nature of travel.
I make my way to my connecting flight’s gate and wait less then 40 minutes to board. The one hour flight to New Orleans goes without incident. The neat thing about the airport in New Orleans is that it’s surrounding by swampland. As we land, I see miles and miles of swamp. From the air it looks surreal. Different shades of green, marked by trees here and there.
We land and I get my luggage. I make arrangements to get to my hotel via a shuttle bus. I hop in and I’m off to downtown New Orleans.
I’ve made it. The next thing I do is…
Well, that’ll have to wait since I want to go to bed now…
TO BE CONTINUED….
YIKES!
In less than an hour, I will be attending my first tutorial as a teaching assistant. It’s for a course I never took while I was an undergrad here at UBC. I just received the tutorial worksheets yesterday but not the answers. There are 58 students in my section. A prof is supposed to lead the tutorial and I’m going to back him up. Despite that, I’m feeling kinda nervous right now.
Well, I have to get ready.
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE – YEAR TWO
The first official day of school is over at UBC and two thoughts weigh on my mind. One is that I’ve been back to school for exactly one year now. It is an appropriate time for reflection. My second thought is that it is very clear that I am no longer a new resident here at SJC. Old residents, my good friends, have moved away and new residents have come and taken their place.
I’ll deal with the latter of those thoughts now. So yeah, over the course of the week while I was in New Orleans, many SJC residents moved out. Some of these people were good friends of mine. They are good people and they made the SJC community that much better to live in. Some have moved just to different places within Vancouver, while others have moved to different cities. Regardless, their absence from the College will be noticed. I will miss seeing them on a regular basis.
The other side of the coin, of course, is that when people move out, others move in. Over the weekend, over 70 residents moved in to join the close to 70 people that were left here. A year ago, I was one of those new residents. Now, I’m the old veteran of the College. It is a weird feeling to say the least.
On Monday, I went to the dining hall to have dinner. I had to line-up for my food which I haven’t had to do for months. I sat down at one of the tables and looked around. There were entire tables full of people I didn’t recognize. I turned to Dana who was next to me and I said, “Wow, this feels really weird.”
“Now, do you know why we resented you when you moved in a year ago?”
He was half-joking of course, but I knew what he was talking about. Who were these new people? Two weeks ago, we were all a small intimate community where everybody knew everyone. Now some of our friends were gone and these new people had come to take their place.
In WWII, it was commonplace to replace dead or wounded soldiers in a unit with fresh troops. The soldiers who were already in the unit often did not warm up to the new guys right away. I think I’m going through the same thing right now. While it maybe wrong, I am wondering how the new people will be as good as the people that left. It’s just natural at this point that I’ll want to hang around the old residents because they’re known quantities and it does take some work to get to know new residents.
Over time, I am sure I’ll get to know the new residents and I’ll discover that for the most part they too are good people. At least I hope so. 🙂
It will take several weeks for everyone to readjust to the new dynamic at the College and settle into their patterns. A year ago, I felt some awkwardness as I tried to find my way here, what I didn’t know was that the old residents also felt some weirdness as well. It’s all about perspective.
So while I’ve been dealing with the new influx of residents, I almost missed the fact that it was one year ago almost to this day that I began this new adventure in my life. One whole year. What a difference a year makes.
I have no regrets about going back to school. While things didn’t work out exactly the way I had planned, everything in the end wound up exceeding my expectations. When I decided to go back to school I think I was seriously in danger of getting caught in a rut of life, just going through the motions and letting time (and life) pass me by.
A year later, I’ve learned a lot, both academically and otherwise. My life is much richer for being back and everyday I continue to learn some more.
So, as I begin the second year of grad studies, I am happy where the last year has taken me, and I look forward to the next.