rodzik@www

Well, if I decide not to go to grad school, I am now officially set. Decisions, decisions....

At the beginning of this summer my plans for the rest of my life were all set. I'm not going to get into what those plans were (I don't feel like doing that much typing), but what they most certainly did not include was me going back to school full-time. And they definitely didn't involve me going back to school 3 months after commencement. Yet that's exactly what I've been thinking about over the last month, and the more I look into it, the more it's what I think I'll end up doing.

Really the only place I'm considering right now is Georgia Tech. I feel as if a part of me was always destined to go there, and their graduate program is a completely different story from their undergraduate programs. I briefly considered MIT, but I really don't think I'd like the learning environment (or the weather). GT's pretty much on top when it comes to graduate studies in my field, and it's also in Atlanta, a definite plus. With that said, I'm looking at applying to the College of Computing's Masters Program in Information Security, and will likely pursue a concentration in Technology over Policy.

Much of the reason for me seriously looking into grad school is because of several fellowships that I've been looking into. The most promising of which cover full tuition and fees, includes a book allowance, and on top of that would pay me about $35,000/year to go to school. And then I make more when I graduate. Not to mention that there's still a lot that I don't know, especially in specific areas of interest.

But yea, the whole standardized tests thing...ugh I thought I was done with those forever, but nooooo, there's the stupid GRE in my way now. I've been flipping through a GRE review book and it looks extremely lame. Math at a level I haven't used since middle school, and words nobody in the real word uses as part of analogy questions. Totally weak sauce.

My family's yearly July 4th week at Hilton Head Island was last week, and since we've been doing it since I was born it was obvious I couldn't miss it. So after working ~50 hours/week for all of June I was able to take the entire week off last week and only use 3 hours of vacation time (go go gadget flex time!)....oh yea. Saturday afternoon I headed down to Reagan airport and flew to Savannah, where I met up with my parents and sister and we headed for the island. Sunday my aunt flew down for her first visit there in years, so it was good to see her.

I may have mentioned this last year, but in case not, my parents own a timeshare on HHI, and have since right after I was born. As it's a timeshare we're always there the same week, and everyone else that's in other villas that week is there that week year after year. As such over the years there's a number of us who have become friends and spent our week together, and this year was, for the most part, no different. Unfortunately I missed everyone Saturday night, but after that the week was filled with fun: Wild Wings, tons of time at the Pool, tons of time on the Beach, Dizzy Bat on the beach, Whiffleball (Team Adam for the win! 22-10), The Triangle, The Box, The Gazebo, hot tubs, and partying in Adam's room -- see the facebook for more info. As always it was an awesome week.

While I tried to split my time fairly between my family and my friends, as I get to see neither group frequently these days, looking back on it I feel that I didn't spend enough time with my family. I went out to dinner with them half of the week but was always outside all day before dinner and all night after dinner and I guess I could've spent more time with them while I was there.

With my decision to spend the entire week at Hilton Head also came a sacrifice that I blew off as non-consequential until now: not attending E3. The E3 Media and Business Summit (as it's now known) and I have a unique relationship. I won't get into it here, but you should be able to figure it out from how much I enjoyed myself last year. It was an obvious decision to choose between going to the beach with family and friends for a week and going to Santa Monica (yes, it's the beach as well, but I'd be working my ass off the whole time, albeit it's awesome "work"), and I don't regret the choice I made at all, I just wish there wasn't the requirement of a choice. If only they still held the Expo in May when I could work ahead on classwork and then skip out on a few days of class for my yearly business trip. If only.