Road Trip USA

For those of you who don't know, I am driving my car to Los Angeles this summer!  I figured I might as well make a trip of it and stop in a few places.  I plan on blogging every few days about my adventures.  Hopefully they're interesting enough to blog about :)

The Plan
Leave DC (time TBD) and stop in Pittsburgh maybe for lunch or to see the Andy Warhol Museum on my way to Cleveland where I will be staying with a good friend from RPI.  If all goes as planned, we will hit up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Cedar Point.  Then I'll be heading to Chicago but stopping in South Bend to see Notre Dame and have lunch there.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do in Chicago or where I will stay but that is why this is called an adventure!  Wooooo throwing my cares to the wind.  Then I will head up to Madison to see Weston in his new pad.  I haven't quite decided if I will go to Minnesota or just do the straight 12 hour drive to Mount Rushmore.  I'm not sure there is much in Sioux Falls or the rest of South Dakota haha.  Maybe I will go to Devil's Tower as well.  After that I will be heading to Yellowstone where I will do my best to pass through all the sights and then through the Grand Tetons finally ending in Jackson.  That will be a couple of days.  Then I am visiting my brother's old friend in Salt Lake City followed by a nice long drive to Reno/Lake Tahoe.  Finally I will be in California with my first stops being in Sacramento, San Francsisco, and all of the other surrounding areas to visit some good friends from school(s) (UCL and RPI!).  I'll drive down route 1 along the coast and head to Paso Robles to see some vineyards before passing through Santa Barbara on my way to Los Angeles.  And that's it!

If you're interested in driving across the country, let me know.  I have room for passengers. :)

My next post should be about my first leg of the trip so stay tuned!  Thanks for reading!

The road trip!

RPI Spring 2013

My 22nd Birthday

It would be difficult to sum up this past semester in a blog post so I've decided to just throw some photos up.  Overall it was a great semester.  I was only taking 17 credits (after dropping Computer Music) and the courses weren't too hard so I had a lot of time to try new things and enjoy my last semester.  Though it may seem like it I've left out plenty of things like intramural soccer and kickball with the Fhockers (that's our name for the field hockey team) but I feel like there are already a lot of photos so I'll just stop here.  :) They're a bit out of order too.

My 22nd Birthday at The Olde English Pub in Albany.  Great friends and great times! (4/15)

The massive tea cup is free on your birthday and was filled with Strongbow. (4/15)

The 100 days (to graduation) party was a ton of fun!  (Left: Alex, Right: Sam) (2/23)

I spent a lot of time at the pub this semester since my friends were working there and I was old enough to go to trivia!  Every Tuesday!  Got third place at the end of the year :)  (Aimee at the bar during Senior week).

The boat cruise during senior week was tons of fun.  The food was good too!

Eileen made this cake for our Harry Potter dinner.  Those are her Luna glasses.

Field Hockey Seniors graduating! (5/25)

 The seniors played the other classes in a game of football (powderpuff) and we won!  Loads of fun.  I got to play some QB :)  (4/7)

During Senior Week I went out to a lake house in the Adirondacks with some friends.  This is Brendan, Anthony, TZ, and Javier on Lake Rainbow.

This was going to be a Boeing photo with Cary and Corey until TZ and Nikki crashed it : P  They're cool I guess.  (During Senior week at FIJI)

I got to play at an open mic during GM Week on the big stage.  Good times.  (4/10)

Graduation! (5/25)

It was fifty degrees (F) and raining at graduation so we had it indoors.  So cold... (5/25)

Our intramural hockey team finally won a game!  It was the last one.  Great times with the FIJI guys!

Some new friends!  We ate a pie.

Our capstone project (engineering senior design / like a thesis) went really well!  We won best design for our device that detects the presence of urine/moisture in a diaper.  There were a lot of poop jokes along the way.

Rainbow Lake

Me and Tessa on the boat cruise during Senior Week!

Good times with my friends at FIJI

New Year's Eve with some Stone Ridge cats.

For New Year's Eve we went bar hopping in Adam's Morgan.

Petey being a weirdo at Saratoga night out after the senior banquet (during senior week).  She's a beast and set a bunch of records for the women's lacrosse team!  So proud of my Petey.

Played with the Phi Mu Delta band at Relay for life in the Armory!  Really enjoyed that.

Playing pond hockey has been on my bucket list for quite sometime but instead I played quarry hockey.  Count it!

My goofball friends on the boat cruise (Andy, Bret, Sam, and Tessa)

The wine bar ("Confectionery") is by far one of the best places to go in Troy!  Always in cool places with cool people.  (Cary, Lucas, Paula)

This was RPI the day I left for Spring Break.

I visited Max and Erin in NYC and had a blast.  Max and I had a wonderful brunch and then Erin showed me around town.  Hadn't been there or seen them in a while so it was awesome!

Went to see David Sedaris at the Egg!  Absolutely fantastic.

Jakooooo.  She was my roomie until February when she moved to Boston :(

Went to the beer garden for Holly's birthday (and 2 free liters of beer) with my senior teammates and Holly's boyfriend Charles.  Adorable!

Believe it or not I spent a fair amount of time working and studying this semester too.  Cary and Sam were half of my Electronic Instrumentation team.  So much time spent in that room....

SO MUCH TIME SPENT ON THIS CIRCUIT.  But really.

Capstone work at Phi Mu Delta : )

Thanks for reading!

Graduated

Playing the piano in the Union at RPI

Hey all!  I'm currently back in DC and hanging out at home until I move out to Los Angeles to start work.  I've been spending a lot of time cleaning the house up and meeting up with friends--especially at graduation parties.  Naturally people always ask the question, "So how does it feel to be done with school??"  I think I've thought of a way to explain how it feels.

Anytime I sit down to write some music I find myself feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities.  I start with the notes.  There are 12 of those.  Then let's say there are five octaves that people frequently use so about 60 notes.  But then we start thinking about the combinations of those notes and things really get out of hand.  Factorials get involved.  What chord should I start with?  Major?  Minor?  How long should the song be?  What should it be about?  The lyrical possibilities are endless.  Should I play this song on the piano or would it sound better on guitar?  I wonder if I should bring in an electric guitar... or drums... or my tambourine.  I usually get flustered at the thought and figure no place is really any better than any other place so I just put my hands down and play.

In a way I think this is what our 20s will be like.  Up until graduation life has been pretty planned out for us.  When I was in 5th grade I could tell you what I'd be doing in three years because I knew that I'd probably be in 8th grade and probably still at Stone Ridge.  Even throughout my years at RPI I may not have known for sure if I'd be studying in London or playing field hockey, especially upon my arrival, but I knew I'd be studying engineering and probably graduating on time.  Now, all of the sudden, I couldn't tell you for sure where I might be two years from now.  I can't tell you who I will be celebrating my next birthday with--almost certainly with people I have yet to meet.  Geico asked me what my new address will be in July and I couldn't even tell them that.

In a way this is exciting.  I like the thought of endless possibilities.  I hate making choices though.  It's nice being accepted to multiple colleges and having multiple job offers but then you suddenly realize that your decision will have a fairly large impact on the rest of your life.  I felt that there was never really enough information to make a good decision either because the questions you really want answered can't be answered.  I can't imagine how different I would be if I'd chosen another college.  Now I try to picture the things I will do in the next ten years and all I can come up with is a list of hopes and dreams.

We all have dreams of course.  But should we follow those dreams or are they too risky?  Is now the time to take risks?  Should we stick with a more traditional career path?  If I want to do this or that before I die should I do it now or can it wait?  I find myself torn somehow.  And scared.  With college debt payments and California taxes on the horizon I find myself wondering if I'll be endlessly working forever or if I'll be able to take a trip to London soon.  Maybe even move there?  Will I like this new job?  The people?  My roommates?  California?  Who knows?

I do know one thing.  I know where I want to be when I'm, say, 30.  I'm sure 22 year old Katie and 30 year old Katie will have differing views on what 30 year old Katie should be.  But this is all I really have to go on for now.  I will be a song, composed by my experiences and surroundings.  And whatever the song, I hope it is filled with interesting chord progressions, beautiful harmonies, and sick solos.  Whatever I do along the way and whoever I become, I hope I'm pleased with how I turn out and am proud of this older Katie.  I hope I'm enjoying life to the best of my abilities and am rocking out wherever I am.  I know that whatever challenges we face between now and then, we'll find the right notes to play and carry on somehow.  So for those of you about to rock... your 20's... we salute you.

I want my 20's to be like a Coldplay concert.