Purpose

I've realized that much has happened since I last updated this blag. I'm not particular sure on details at this point, so this is going to be kind of the de facto Reader's Digest version of my life.

I went to Provo for about a week and filmed a TV show while there with my roommates from Spring/Summer. A couple months ago, Scott Manning applied for our apartment to be on the Food Nanny on BYU tv. This is a quintessential Mormon show in which an older lady whose kids are grown comes over and helps families "Rescue Dinner." In this case, we're not exactly a family, so there are a few deviations from the typical plot line. Overall though, it was a blast and I look forward to seeing myself on TV sometime in late January or early February. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for what happens to your ear drums if you listen to Liz Edmunds with the volume on your computer or TV turned up too loud. She's super fun, but very eccentric. Be warned.

While I was in Provo, I was able to go to both the BYU grad school fair and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) career fair. The grad school fair held very little promise since half the booths there were occupied by departments from the spU or Utah State. However, I did talk the Purdue guy who was full of useful information and got my very own University of Abalama elephant squeeze toy, which makes me want to go there, just because it's the best schwagg... ever. The career fair, on the other hand, held plenty of promise, though I'm not sure how much, if any, of it will pan out. I talked with several companies who seemed interested in hiring me. The big ones were Rio Tinto, McCarthy Building, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Vanir Construction Management, Layton Construction, and of course, Kimley-Horn. Both McCarthy and the naval shipyard were holding interviews the next day and said that they might call that night to schedule one. I didn't get a call from either of them, which is disappointing. I submitted my applications to both Rio Tinto and Vanir, and would hope to hear back from them at some point. Kimley-Horn is actually the company with which I had an interview scheduled ahead of time. I went through this interview and everything seemed to go well, however I'm merely left to wait to hear back and see if anyone actually wants to hire me. Overall, the career fair was productive, but not nearly as productive as I had hoped. Most of the civil engineering firms weren't actually hiring, but rather just looking to hand out schwagg so that you'll remember them later. However, I still hold out hope.

Since my hope has been made perfect, I have also been making preparations to submit applications for grad school next fall. On Thursday, I sent out a few emails to my former professors asking for letters of recommendation and what kind of research would be available back at BYU. Dr. Saito responded to my email within two hours. The other two that I sent out have not yet elicited a response. I hope that Dr. Hotchkiss and Dr. Gerber are merely ignoring me over the weekend as opposed to ignoring me indefinitely. That would be unfortunate. In addition to the letters of rec that I have asked for, I have also been working on a statement of purpose. After lots of deliberation and thought, I've managed to pound out an initial draft of at least Purdue's statement of purpose. I look forward to people picking it apart into tiny little bits, then restructuring it. If you want to have the privilege of reading this statement, let me know and I'll get it to you in an email.

It might be slightly confusing for the habitual readers of my blag to see me writing a statement of purpose to Purdue when, as of my last post, I wasn't even considering them. Well, way back when, I was considering Purdue. It started when fiancée #2 and I were both considering grad schools to attend so that we could go together. Purdue has reputable programs for both speech language pathology and civil engineering and her Female Parental Unit (not her mother... you don't really want to know) was living in Indiana at the time, so that choice was easy. At some point along the road, Purdue's user unfriendly website pissed me off and I decided to stop considering it. However, this week, when I talked to the Purdue guy at the career fair, I decided to look more into it. It turns out that it's still a good program and I could fulfill my dream of going there for free if I got an assistantship. In addition to this change, I've alse decided that I really don't want to go to Wisconsin because their civil engineering department is set up in a really weird way and that I wouldn't mind going to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, since the aforementioned Dr. Hotchkiss got his Ph.D. there and I could go there for free.

So, you should be pretty much caught up on what I'm up to these days... not that it's that exciting or anything. :P