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.

RPI Fall 2012

Taking seven classes while playing field hockey and doing the job hunt thing was a little brutal this semester.  Despite the courses, though, the rest of the semester was pretty fantastic.  I arrived back to the east coast into Hartford, CT (from Vancouver/Seattle) and stayed with my friend Christian before heading up to Manchester, VT to visit my aunt and uncle's family's cabin.  It is beautiful up there!  I had a lot of fun in the quiet countryside.  My aunt and I went on a really nice hike, went to a fun mountain and played some mini golf after doing the alpine slides, and then we ended the week with dinner and a show!  We had dinner at a place that my grandmother frequented as a 20 year old.  There was also a really nice bookstore and some good outlet shopping too.  :)

After Manchester I headed back to Troy for preseason and the start of school.  I have a lot of field hockey photos because, quite frankly, that was all I did until November haha (and study of course).  I also got to travel out to Austin, TX and Seattle, WA (again) which was a lot of fun.  I've included a bunch of photos to highlight my favorite experiences of the semester.  I'm sure I will miss a ton of fun things but these are all I have photos of anyhow!

The farm in Manchester, VT

I don't have any photos of Jako on hand but I'm rooming with Jako in Bryckwyck this year.  My car was having a lot of problems and Jako was always there to help and when I wasn't feeling well, Jako came home to look after me. :)  Love my roomie!

I was really excited about this project this semester.  I printed out some of Brendan's panoramas from England and cut them into posters and then framed them with a ton of smaller photos from my travels.  I've also got a few other photos from high school on another wall along with some posters.  The framed photo is a lovely gift from my hockey team in England!  The decorations make studying a little less painful :)

This was also the semester that Kevin got a moped haha (left).  What a cool kid.  I mentioned we did a lot of studying... well now that we're seniors we can study in the student union pub!  Although that only happened once haha.  The bartender asked me if I knew what snakebite was.  I spent a year with a uni hockey team in England, of course I do... : P

Seniors at Playday at Skidmore.

Senior Day against Rochester.  One of my favorite defenders, Julia, is sporting the mask :)

Senior Day family photo!

Panorama of the team in the lockerroom.  Julia photobombed it twice haha.

After we won against Rochester 2-1!

These guys are among my favorites at RPI!  Max, Travis, and Alex hosted a steak and red wine party which was tons of fun.  Not your average college party haha.

Arrived to some beautiful fall foliage back home for Thanksgiving (that's my trusty old Volvo that has made it so many miles!  About 158,000 so far).

Thanksgiving dinner, yum.

I took Petey on a little bike trip to the Lincoln Memorial.  I think she was pretty pumped haha.

I took a trip out to Austin, TX and absolutely loved it.  If you ever have a chance to go you definitely should!  6th St was incredibly fun and Hop Doddy serves the most delicious burger on the face of the planet.  I was visiting National Instruments and met a lot of really great people.  Seems like a great company.

Actually I have a somewhat crazy story about my flight to Austin that I'm going to interrupt the pictures with. So I had a flight from Albany to Newark and then Newark to Austin on a Thursday but my first flight got delayed a bit.  I was sitting on the tarmac waiting for some plane to back out of our gate for twenty minutes, staring at my watch wondering if I'd make my plane.  I got off the plane, sprinted to the gate for my next flight, and then watched my plane take off.  At this point I had pretty bad asthma and went over to the less-than-friendly customer service people who informed me that it was the last flight to Austin for the day so instead they put me on a flight to Houston (Texas is tiny, I could basically walk to Austin from Houston).  So I caught that flight and arrived in Houston at midnight.  I figured since my flight to Austin was at 7:30am, it'd be useless for me to bother getting a hotel so I slept as best I could on a very itchy carpet by the airport's tram tracks.  I got about three hours of sleep which were intermittently interrupted by dreams of me missing my flight.  I ended up arriving in Austin around 8:11am where I changed into my business clothes in the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got in a car with my awesome NI host (Dana) and went straight to my 5 interviews & technical presentation (which I had planned on working on in the hotel the night before haha jokes on me).  For some reason I wasn't bothered by any of it the whole time.  Perhaps my year abroad gave me great patience or I was just so excited to be in Austin that I didn't really care but either way my interviews went surprisingly well and I think everyone at the company was like, "How are you awake...?"  I really did have a wonderful time there though and hope to make it back there sometime soon.  I can assure you that my flight back to RPI was pleasantly mundane.

I got to catch up with some sailing camp buds in TX!  Alex (left) was just visiting Kelly (right) who gave me a tour of the UT Austin campus :)

This photo is from the inside of a Boeing 747 mock-up (the "VIP" section).  I had a lot of fun visiting Seattle and got to see a lot of cool things around the Boeing facilities.  I hope to go to the Music Experience thing by the Space Needle the next time I go!  To round out the semester, I accepted a job offer working with Boeing in LA.

Enjoy the following video of my teammate's pump up speech.  Probably my favorite part of the pre-game ceremonies:

That's all for now!  Thanks for reading :)