Everything flows, and nothing remains unchanging.
...
It's been a while. Since last I wrote:
1) I got my BS in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA. It was still somewhat "peak covid" in the summer of 2021, so we didn't have an actual graduation ceremony per se. Instead, they had us line up in the field, then walk across the stage, shake hands, get our diploma, get our pictures in, then walk off and pick up some swag on the way out. I didn't care about the ceremony at all, but my mom and stepdad wanted to see me "walk", so we did that.
2) I got into UCLA grad school as a PhD candidate in the Aerospace Engineering. The PI I worked under as an undergrad was more than enthusiastic about bringing me on as a grad student, especially as he had a new project starting which was perfect for me and would fund me for the full 5 years of my PhD. With my grades from undergrad (3.73 overall), I was essentially guaranteed admission, but I also did extremely well on my GREs just in case.
3) I started working on the project, which was a NASA-funded initiative focused on electric propulsion systems for satellites. I also started taking my classes and planned to do my "quals" at the end of the first year of grad school (spring of 2022).
4) In early March (end of winter quarter) 2022, my PI told us all that he had accepted a position at Oregon State University and would be moving in the fall. We were all offered a chance to go with him, but OSU didn't have an Aerospace program (part of his job would be to build one), so there would be some changes.
I was the first person in the lab to tell him that yes, I wanted to go with. Turned out that I was only one of two people to do so; the others would stay at UCLA and finish their degrees under accelerated timelines while he still had lab and professor privileges.
My thinking at the time was this: I had too much left to get a PhD (the others who stayed were all further along than I was), so my options were to either take the Masters and walk away, or follow him to OSU and finish the PhD. I loved the project I was on, even if I was just getting my feet wet, but I wanted to keep going with it. On top of that, I'd never lived outside of Los Angeles County. This would be a big change (the town OSU is in has a population that is about on par with UCLA itself - yes, the whole town was about the size of the university I was leaving), but it was also something new and different, and I had to try it out.
5) Moved up to Oregon, and I'm still here. I'm in year 4 now, officially, and getting ready to plan out my last two years and official thesis/dissertation plan. The other grad student who came along was my roommate for the first two years up here; he's moved back to L.A. this summer, as he's finishing up his degree and is mostly writing (and can do that anywhere), so I've just moved from our 2b2ba place into a smaller 1b1ba apartment nearer to campus.
Life up here is a fair bit different, but it's like being in a suburb without a city. There's probably a lot else to talk about, including lab drama, issues with my parents, trips both failed and successful, and other things, but this is probably good for now.
So why did I come back to the blog? I don't know. I've been thinking about it a bit, honestly, and I like having a place to write out thoughts even if there's no one out there to respond. Heck, maybe someone might stumble across something here and benefit by it. Maybe I'm also feeling a bit alone or isolated; the guys in the lab are great and friendly, but as always, I'm probably trapped in the land of "exceptions", especially in my own head.
Anyway, the wave function, as ever, continues to collapse; all we can do is surf along and see where it leads us.
