Practicing & packing

Gutes Neues Jahr, Meine Freunde!
I'm practicing carrying around my backpack, fully loaded, and will probably take it on a test drive to Oregon with me in a couple of weeks. It's perfect! (If any of my fellow Londoners are still looking for a pack, I'd highly recommend Osprey's Waypoint series.) I'm trying to get started on packing up my apartment, too. I hate moving!

PS - I've added a link on the sidebar to My Photo Album where I'll be able to upload all of my photographs and organize them into albums. For the time being, there are some pictures up from last week's Omaha Symphony Debutante Ball.

In the mean time...

A successful semester is in the books - if I ever had any doubt about whether or not I had enough to make it through grad school, it has been quickly erased by good grades and positive design reinforcement. Now there are just 34 days left until we leave.

In this chunk of free time I have now, I'm visiting a few friends I haven't seen for a while. Last weekend I was in Denver visiting Chris Maunu and attended his fabulous St. Martin's Chamber Choir concert. It was quite festive being in the foothills of the Rockies with snow at Christmastime; Denver is always a tough place to come home from. In January, I'm off to Oregon to spend some time with an old friend, Chris Hancock, and his family who I haven't seen since they all moved from Omaha to Klamath Falls in 1996. (Yes, I know a lot of Chrises... and Chads... I seem to be partial to the 'C' names.) I'm looking forward to going snowshoeing while I'm there.

God Jul!

Wrapping up the semester

I presented my design project yesterday and by Wednesday I will have everything from this semester wrapped up. Each one seems to go by faster than the one before it! In the long break between now and 1/26, I'll be working close to full time at the University of Nebraska Press and part-time at Hallmark. Being an architecture student has taught me that I like being busy!!

As far as pre-trip preparations go, I have a plane ticket, passport, rail passes, ISIC card, and a Power of Attorney... for Christmas I'm buying my backpack (Osprey Packs out of Colorado makes wonderful panel-load travel backpacks!), a huge memory card for my digital camera, a voltage adapter & converter, and an AC adapter for my iPod.

Less than 7 weeks to go...
Merry Christmas!