Finally

I've successfully started week five without a single load of laundry done. I mean, yeah, I'm wearing an atrocious Hawaiian shirt and shorts with no underwear. And yes, I'll admit that my bath towel is starting to show hints of cognition and intelligent thought. It's really a shame that my laundry didn't get finished before exams started-- God knows it's not going to happen now. At least I can end the year on the right note. You know, completely naked dancing around a pile of moldy shirts and a living towel with a higher grade in optics than me.

And as I sit here putting off studying for my 7 o'clock optics final, I can't help but jolly over the fact that my summer is ridiculously close. I took a little excursion on Friday to run some summer-crucial errands, namely finalizing some formalities with my job, summer school, and my apartment.

Oh, but Kyle! You haven't even talked about your summer plans yet! Do tell!

Glad you asked. Over the course of the past year I'd been hoping to get a military-esque internship just about anywhere, shooting my name to employers all over the country in hopes that my moderately extensive experience would land me somewhere interesting. Because honestly, that's all I want to do with my EE degree-- something cool. But when several employers decided to interview me, say they'd get back to me, then completely ignore me, I started looking towards my other options.

What I settled on is a good deal, I reckon. Rice offers summer school classes at affordable (to someone) prices. When I asked Louie what he was doing for the summer and if he was taking any classes, it turned out that we both needed the same linear algebra class. So now we're locked into that-- one month and three grueling hours a day of nonstop matrix manipulation and other wordy bullshit that carries no weight whatsoever.

The next logical point on the agenda was finding a place to live over the summer and next year. Having lived on Long Hall and the 90's over the course of the past two years, it's hard to convey to anyone how strongly I want to live in my own place starting ASAP. With no offense to my friends, of course. I mean, both those places were/are great, but they were/are also loud and lend little if any free time and space. What I needed was a place to myself that was in close proximity to the people I've come to love. Somewhere-- nice. Somewhere I could have nice things sitting around and not worry about it becoming a magnet for cigarette burns and bloodstains.

Enter the Esplanade. It's a traditional off-campus haven for our group o' friends. With this place in mind and remembering that my mom has been offering to help me pay for my own digs since I was like seven years old, I started to look at apartment prices with respect to my own finances. I won't say that I've done a very good job managing my spending money this year but considering I placed over three quarters of it in mutual funds, I'm doing okay on money. After I went to visit on Friday, I'm fairly sold on their efficiency suite and ready to move in as early as May 28.

But back to finances. I really can't afford to live my rock & roll lifestyle and pay for food without a job. Considering that I'd be on campus for most of the morning anyways, I started looking for on-campus work that would be interesting and pay me fairly well. Research would have been the bee's knees but, honestly, I'm about as selective as the Rice professors offering undergrad research opportunities. I wouldn't want to work for some pompous douchebag that would have me tuning a machine all day long. So that wasn't even an option. What I needed was a community-- a friendly place where everyone is moderately relaxed and loves to sit on their ass and read FARK.com and Digg all day long while juggling their daily tasks with ease.

Ah, Information Technology.

I found a sweet little number of a job listed on the Rice Jobs site and threw my name. Rather than an interview, my new boss instead showed me the ups and downs of the IT department and drove me around in a golf cart. I was at home. While it's no $5500 stipend and it's no Space Warfare Center in San Diego, I think I'm going to be more than happy with this job.

I have a lot to look forward to with the summer crawling up my back like a crawdad with pincers made of pure joy. I just have to get there first.