Matters

Often I find myself alone, reflecting on life's matters, what-matters, and anti-matter. Maybe I don't really think about quantum mechanics everyday, but it is pretty cool to think about what would happen if a tennis ball size of anti-matter was released inside a vacuum... (I'm not referring to a vacuum cleaner if you were curious-however, the effects would still be rather dramatic). Besides anti-matter, I have been mostly thinking about my future, asking myself where I will be in 3 months, 2 years, or a decade. I think I know where I will be in three months, but is that where I should be? In two years, will I be done with school, or will I continue, or will I be off in some land where technology and English does not exist? In a decade--no, I have not really thought about that, just hope that I will be happy.

Engineering fascinates, challenges, and belittles me. I want to continue my education with engineering because I keep learning things that I see as valuable and helpful towards society. However, I am like a puppy trying to dig a hole to bury a T-Rex femur bone, probably taking on a job a bit too big for my little paws. Also, like the puppy, I will easily be distracted by a butterfly fluttering in front of my nose, and I will have to follow and inspect it until exhaustion or the next distraction comes along. Why can't I just be content and work a blue-collar job, and not have to bring my dirty paws and work home with me every night? I think its because I need the challenge. I suppose my biggest question here is: will engineering be the right challenge for me? Andreas, my boss, is a very talented engineer and it is inspiring to see him work on such amazing projects, but also daunting to see him stay up until 1:30am with work and start again at 6:30 am every day. I hope in the next three months I can make a good pros and cons list of whether I, myself can be a good engineer someday and still maintain my sanity.

I hope you, my peers, can push me through some of these questions by your experience thus far in life, not necessarily with engineering, but how you have gone through or are going through this adolescent contemplation. Ha, but maybe not, I suppose everyone has to figure it out for themselves ;)

OH yeah, Austria update.

Disc Fiction played a showcase game in Klagenfurt, on a nice field with spectators and an announcer! Unfortunately we lost 12-9 (?), but I think it was a valuable experience for us and we will improve vastly in the near future. After the game, we all went out for mexican food, including my kiddos! Austrian mexican food is not really the same as american mexican food, nor anything close to Mexican food. So far, I have made my host family three mexican dishes, quesadillas, nachos and chicken enchiladas. They can't get enough of it!

The kids are great! Evi got her cast off, and tomorrow we will all go on a hike up some alpine mountain nearby.

I have not been to many field sites lately with the engineering internship, since I am mostly on kid duty, but what engineering I have done has been some AutoCAD work on a sound retaining wall for a highway. WOooo!

OK, until then, CIAO!