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!