EngiNERD

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Studying engineering is not glamorous. At least not for girls. Yeah, ok, and for most guys as well. Do you know how little people want to hear about my studies? I never get the question, "What are you learning about?" There is no interesting answer to that question. The best it will get this semester is reading a book for my ethics class called, "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster." On closer inspection, though, you'll realize it's merely 600 pages of this:

"Our conclusion that the primary O-ring in the nozzle of STS-51B had never sealed in the first place seemed to be well supported by the nature of the O-ring erosion we had observed and by the analytical model developed for predicting O-ring erosion. The erosion pattern on the O-ring was distinctly different from anything we had observed before, and there was evidence of hot gas flow around the entire cross section..."

Oh, we're done. Come back. Looks like your eyes glazed over there a little.

Except, here's the thing, I am actually interested in this stuff. Oh, I'm not passionate about it. I don't plan on taking apart an industrial printer and using the parts to rig a card scanner to my front door like one of my classmates wants to. I don't write computer code in my free time. I'm about as bored with the book as I presume you were. But I find myself mildly fascinated. Plus, I laugh at things like this: So in lieu of actually changing my career path (AGAIN) I've decided I need to come up with an alluring cover story. As if I were a CIA operative. Maybe I should be a tropical island caretaker who's completing the climbing program at the U. Maybe I should be a rehabilitated Nazi who loves volunteering at the local library for children's book hour. Perhaps - and I would actually love to do this - I could be a stunt double...that also teaches community breakdancing classes in the evenings. Or maybe I AM a CIA operative and "engineering student" IS my cover story.

Think about it.

Ich bin zurück.

Now that I have returned from Europe I am finding it difficult to know what to say. I wasn't sure the blogging world would want another overindulgence in photographs. So instead I will overindulge you in adjectives. Italy was...how does one describe a place like that? It has history, it has art, it has Swiss guards dressed up like clowns (awesome clowns with swords) and old men riding the bus in nothing but dirty button up shirts. I'm serious, nothing but. Italy was amazing, exhausting, beautiful, delicious, stunning, sweaty, adventurous, hilarious, stressful, thrilling, fascinating, going, going, going. It was Venice, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Cinque Terre, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento. It was long but it wasn't long enough. It is everything you dream about and more. And now I am back.

Oh Italy.

Within 48 hours of returning to my now musty home I started school, my job, and received a new calling in the ward - Assistant TO THE Executive Secretary. I am the Dwight Schrute of the bishopric. So that's my excuse for my extended absence. If excuses were needed. "I did not become a Lackawana County volunteer sheriff's deputy to make friends. And by the way, I haven't."