On The Road (Sea) Again

As I unbelievably come upon the one year anniversary since my incredible journey around the world with Semester at Sea, my 22nd birthday, and the end of another semester of college I figured what better way to celebrate than to partake in another adventure!

On May 6th I will be leaving for Rome where I will start a 12 day Mediterranean Cruise beginning on May 8th, and I couldn't be more excited! The history buff in me is salivating at the rich past in the area of the world we will be traveling through so stay tuned to this space for the tales from my journey!

On this trip I will be visiting:

Rome, Italy - Home of the Colosseum, the Pantheon, St. Peter's Basilica, and many more stunning buildings I will get to explore a city with a 2,500 year history and the largest in Italy! I have always been fascinated by stories of the Roman Empire and I can't wait to explore what was once the seat of the Empire!






Naples, Italy - The location of Mount Vesuvius which erupted in 79 AD and resulted in the infamous destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii. Naples is over 2,800 years old and is widely considered to be the birthplace of Italian Pizza! I can't wait to experience the culinary delights of this city!












Alexandria, Egypt - Another ancient city founded by its namesake Alexander the Great in 334 BC. Alexandria was home to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Library of Alexandra, and is now the home of the Bibliotheca Alexandra (the new library of Alexandria) This city will mark our starting point for our journey into Egypt!




Cairo/Giza, Egypt - The capital of Egypt and the largest city in Africa and nicknamed "The City of A Thousand Minarets" for it's extensive Islamic Mosques. We will of course be visiting the Giza Plateus to see the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphynx, and the Egyptian Museum allowing us to take in the only wonder of the acient world still in existence!








Jerusalem, Israel - The capital of Israel, and one of the oldest cities in the world having been built in the 4th millennium BCE, Jerusalem is home to the Temple Mount, The Tower of David, The Western Wall, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Dome of the Rock, and The al-Aqsa Mosque.









Nazareth, Israel - Described in the New Testament as the childhood home of Jesus and a center of Christian pilgrimage, there is historical evidence of human presence in Nazareth over 9,000 years ago!













Ephesus (Kusadas), Turkey - Former site of the Temple of Artemis, another of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Ephesus is home to many Roman ruins including the Temple of Hadrian, the Library of Celsus, and the Ephesus theater where gladiatorial combats were held.
















Patmos, Greece - A small island n the Aegean sea, the Greek Parliament declared the island a "Sacred Island" in 1981. This is due to the presence of the Grotto of the Revelation where the exiled St. John spent 18 months in a cave and received the visions that resulted in the last Book of the New Testament. It is also home to the Castle of Patmos.











Santorini, Greece - One of the possible sites of the legendary Lost City of Atlantis, Santorini is located in a caldera from an eruption in 1600 B.C. and is home to whitewashed buildings clinging to the edges of spectacular cliffs which decend into the ocean below. If this city seems familiar it's because it was the location of the 2008 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.






Athens, Greece - The capital of Greece, Athens was host to the first modern-day Olympic games in 1896. It is also the home of the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Temple of Hephasestus, the Arch of Hadrian, and the Temple of Zeus. It's cultural contributions are credited with establishing the basis of Western Civilization and it has been inhabited for at least 4,500 years!







Overall, I think this will be a fantastic trip and I am looking forward to seeing a new part of the world! Stay tuned....!

On a Moonlit Night

This was the view out my bedroom window on Friday night. Unfortunately the pictures don't quite do it justice but I thought it was a spectacular site!

For those of you who are curious, you're seeing the waxing crescent moon very near Venus in the early dusk sky. This falls within a few days of the brightest Venus can get as viewed from Earth.

Unfortunately it's difficult to get a good night picture with the camera I have but you get the idea!

So this weekend just after sunset, take a moment to go outside and enjoy the show!

25 Random Shane Factoids

1.) I have worked a lot of random jobs throughout my life: Security guard, Chef's aid for a dining hall, at a dog food factory, at a hydroponics nursery, as a property inspector for Keller Williams, Best Buy, cable and internet technician, a genetics lab, and the IT help desk for CU.

2.) I am a HUGE sci-fi fan. I've seen every episode of every Star Trek. I'm currently obsessed with Battlestar Galactica. And I'm pretty sure I have in storage pretty much every Star Wars and Star Trek collectible released in the mid 90s.

3.) I have a goal of visiting one country for each year I'm alive. I have some catching up to do, I'm only 19/21 right now.

4.) I know where the Obama family stays in Hawaii and have walked on the beach past the place where they stay. It's about 5 minutes from my grandparents.

5.) I put my dad's Ford Bronco into neutral at the top of a hill when I was 7. I bailed out when it started rolling. Casualties: A couple fences and a handcrafted Pink Flamingo mailbox.

6.) I had never seen the movie Fight Club until last May. Somehow my movie background is full of holes.

7.) I've been to 6 of the 7 continents and have considered volunteering at McMurdo Station just so I can get the 7th.

8.) I started an ant club in elementary school and typed up a contract of rules for the safe observation of ants. I made about a dozen of my classmates sign it.

9.) I'm red/green colorblind, and as a result Christmas is a very visually confusing time for me.

10.) I can talk like Donald Duck, Yoda, and Gollum.

11.) Sometimes I wish I could just drop everything and live out my days in a cabin in the mountains.

12.) I have 5 or 6 scars on my hands and fingers from a demonic cat I had as a child named smokey. CURSE YOU SMOKEY!!!

13.) I ate the beating heart of a cobra whilst in Vietnam.

14.) I used to write with my left hand until an elementary school teacher forced me to switch because "You'll never amount to anything writing with your left hand" As a result I write equally poorly with either hand.

15.) I had the nickname of Freight Train from my high school hockey days. I'm not really a finesse player, I just plow striaght through people.

16.) I have always been mesmorized by the ocean. The waves, the sand, the sounds, the smell, I love it all!

17.) I've been building my own computers since about 5th grade.

18.) When I was born my umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck so I came out about to suffocate. When the doctors gave me oxygen they punctured a hole in my lung. Sometimes I wonder if my brain was affected and this is why I have so much trouble with Chemistry. I still have a scar from the tube they used to reinflate my lung.

19.) I once started a fire with a plastic magnifying glass in my backyard. You can still see the scorchmarks on the fence.

20.) For some reason I have this weird thing where I like to touch my nose to a dog's nose. I can't explain why but I've always done it. It's just an overwhelming desire.

21.) I think bread belongs in the freezer. As a result I have NEVER had a piece of bread go moldy.

22.) I bitterly despise Broccoli and Cauliflower. Once I graduate as a molecular biologist I will create a pathogen that will eradicate these two vegetables. Yeah, it's that strong of a dislike.

23.) I have a tough time expressing excitement beyond a certain level. I think if I won millions of dollars I would still just be like "Wooo! I won money! yay!"

24.) I always feel self conscious when I'm trying to yell to get someone's attention. It's like I'm afraid I'll yell their name wrong or everyone will think I'm crazy. Which doesn't make sense.

25.) When I was younger, I used to catch lizards and frogs in Florida and smuggle them back to Colorado where I kept them as pets. They even got a formal burial in the backyard.

New Year, New Post (Finally!)

"Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens; not by what life brings us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes, creating extraordinary results."

I read this quote on one of those motivational pictures you find on countless office, classroom, and bedroom walls, written beneath people climbing Mount Everest or bears catching salmon... You know the ones.

Though this one in particular actually speaks to me on a personal level. I really do agree with this line of thinking. Particularly in this chaotic last year of college and even just with the general state of craziness the world seems to be in these days I feel like it's more important than ever to just roll with the punches and stay positive.

This might be trickier for me than it would seem though. It's a little stressful thinking that I'm this close to the end of college, but actually there is still a lot left to do. I won't be walking with my fellow class of '09 in May as I won't be graduating until December. Over these next 10 months I'll need to get through all of my remaining upper division credits and I'll have the joy of my 2nd round with Organic Chemistry this June.

Even after I sputter across the finish line, I'm still not completely sure what I'm even going to do with my degree. I wish I could just look at a catalog of possible lives after college and then there would be a registration date in the Fall and you would start your chosen life after college the following January. Alas, it is not that simple. Paradoxically, the possibilities seem both limited and endless. Grad school? Forensics? Research? What kind of research? Overseas? East Coast? West Coast?

I also worry that my lack of internship experience will make things difficult. I'm having trouble finding one this summer because of fact that I won't be done with summer school until July 2nd and most internships want you to start the first week of June. I try to stay positive and to convince myself that it'll all work out somehow, just in a way that's not very clear to me right now.

I still miss and think about my experiences on Semester at Sea every day, particularly now that we are exactly one year removed from our adventure. I've relived the 2008 version of each day since January 21st in my head and long to be back in those moments when, despite the enormity of what we were doing, things seemed so much simpler.

But I've also started looking forward to new plans, and new experiences. I'm hoping to go to Europe this May for a couple of weeks and satiate my thirst for travel, at least for another few months. I never realized just how much I love traveling until this past year. I hope that I'll still have the opportunity to do so often regardless of my professional ambitions and very excited at the prospect of going more places I've never been.

Above all I know that there are big changes on the horizon and that they'll be here very quickly. Lately though I feel as if I've been living in a strange daze. It almost feels as if I'm waking up to start a new day every couple of hours and the weeks soar by. I'm keeping up with everything for the most part, but it all seems to be happening so fast and people tell me it only gets faster.

So I suppose that will be my New Year's resolution this year... To stay positive and see what extraordinary results I can acheive!