First the life update
2019 Started out with a flight back to UBC, reminiscing on
how grateful I was to fly just under 100,000 miles in 2018. I also had a strong
gut feeling that 2019 was going to be my most exciting year yet and little did
I know how amazing it would be...
Third year second semester started off in a ball of
confusion. I was completely lost in 4 of my 6 engineering courses and I was a
disorganized mess. It was the strangest feeling I've ever had and I had no idea
what I was doing. This was not how I envisioned 2019 starting.
Finally a month and a bit into the term, I started to get
back on track. I made a weekly organizer and requested appointments with my
professors to ensure I was understanding the course and progressing ok (even
though I still had feelings of being lost and understanding nothing). My
appointment with my transportation engineering professor, Dr. Lovegrove, proved
to be most interesting.
I asked some questions about the course material and then
asked for advice with my term group project as one member was providing poor
quality work and I had previously discussed with all the teammates that I do
not submit less than my very best and the expectations were A+ grades to which
everyone okayed. Lovegrove's response was asking me if I wanted to work for
NASA, which I wondered how it related to this, but he continued by saying very
few people can be successful by themselves. He immediately saw that I was very
academically focused and passionate about learning and told me to apply for
summer work with him through a NSERC USRA. He saw a little bit of his type-A
personality in me. I promptly turned the offer down as I knew I could and
needed to make more money at a real job. I also wanted to spend the summer near
Hunter. I explained this to him but he still told me to think about it.
A few days later on a Saturday evening, I received an email
from Dr. Lovegrove and everything changed. The email read:
"Hey Stormy,
If I let you work from wherever you were in the world with
your boyfriend, and I DOUBLED what NSERC offers, might you consider an NSERC
USRA with my STS Research Lab?"
I was shocked. I had no words. Was this real? Why did he
want me to do summer research with him so badly? Am I really going to get to
work from anywhere in the world meaning I can spend summer with Hunter? A
thousand more questions raced through my mind but one thing was certain, I'd be
a fool to decline the offer.
The next couple of weeks I completed the paperwork and
submitted for the award. NSERC USRA stands for Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Awards. It is awarded
based solely on academic history (grades) and about 20% of applicants at my
university receive an offer. I currently stand at a cumulative GPA of 85% and
the lowest GPA I know of who received an award was 89%, however this last semester
my average was 90% so I hoped and hoped I would be lucky enough to receive an
award. I also knew I had to be realistic and that while I had this offer, it
was conditional on receiving the award. I applied to two jobs as a fire
dispatcher with the National Park Service in Moose, Wyoming, and Bureau of Land
Management in Southern Utah and Nevada. I want to eventually have a government
job in the US, so maybe this was a way to begin that. Unfortunately, I was
below the cut off score for both positions.
My midterms came and went, and I was amazed that I managed
to get an 88%, 91% two 95s and a 100%. I was in a perfect position going into
finals! My feelings of being a disorganized mess left and I was back on my
normal track.
After a month of waiting, I received the most exciting
email: I was offered an NSERC USRA! I immediately accepted it and finalized the
details of my new summer position.
I am so immensely grateful for this opportunity. It's the
opportunity of a lifetime and I finally feel like my hard work these last three
years is being recognized. I've had a few hints here and there that I was being
recognized by professors, but this really solidified it to me (I had two of my
professors argue about who's masters student I would be back in January). This
year so far has been pretty darn exciting and I feel like the luckiest person
out there, but I know along with luck, it's also my hard work and dedication to
my academics paying off.
I never knew what specific big plans in the making I had
January 1st, but this seems like quite the adventure. I currently have a trip
to Spain and Italy set for the first week of May followed by some time back at
home and then plans to visit South America! My goal is to hit all the
continents by the end of the year (Antarctica might be a challenge but we will
try!) and hit 21 countries by next April (21 for 21 years).
I can't wait to see how the next four months play out....
- -
Now Back to Traveling
Hunter and I decided we wanted to go to Europe at the start
of May a while back before I even knew I had my awesome summer job. After some
discussion, we decided we wanted to go to Barcelona in Spain and Rome in Italy.
While it was too soon to know if the flights would pan out, we began planning
which included a tour of the Vatican and Coliseum in Rome and the Sagrada
Familia in Barcelona. I was just heading into exams, so I wasn't doing too much
planning, but those were my top places to visit.
Fast forward to April 30th, 2019:
We planned to leave St. George after Hunter finished work.
Everything was going to plan until huge storms covered the east and central US.
Many people started misconnecting and our route was filling up. Also, about an
hour till we were leaving, a private plane crashed at the airport. Thankfully
since Hunter was working, he was able to just slightly delay our flight and not
cancel anything out of St. George! We don't have details about the plane crash,
but it must not have been very bad as flights resumed pretty quickly
afterwards.
Anyways, we made it to Salt Lake and determined that heading
to the east coast was a bad decision. If we didn't make the flight out that
night, which it wasn't looking like we would, we would be stuck with a ton of
people and might not be able to get out of Chicago. So we sat and ate chips
from Cafe Rio while trying to find alternate routes. We came across some Asia
flights with a crazy amount of space and so came the decision to go to Japan! I
had wanted to go back to Japan this summer so I was excited but still sad about
Rome because I have been dying to go there too, but thankfully we can always go
later. Heck, we could go there in two weeks!
So we now had to find a way to get to San Francisco. There
was a really late flight, but Hunter said hotels in SFO are really expensive so
I suggested we take a morning flight if there was space. We looked and found a
perfect Alaska flight and Delta flight option that got us there in time for the
Narita Departure. We were going to try the Alaska flight and if that was full
we would definitely make the Delta flight an hour later. With everything
planned (as best we can flying standby), we got a hotel for the night in SLC
which is much more affordable.
We stayed at the Microtel which is a small cheap hotel but
very clean and good wifi. Hunter had stayed there before and it was only $60
for the night. It was nice to get a good rest and hot shower.
May 1st, 2019:
We got up bright and early at 5am, packed up and headed to
the airport at 6. The Alaska flight operated by SkyWest only had first class
seats available and so we managed to score first class! It was only a short 1.5
hour flight but it was nice as we rarely get first on Alaska.
We arrived in SFO and quickly took the train to the terminal
our flight to Narita was going, but we stopped for real breakfast/brunch at a
seafood place on our priority pass called Yankee Pier. It was amazingly
delicious. I had crab eggs benedict and Hunter had a crab egg scramble. It was
some of the best food I've had in a while and to make it even better, it was
free!! If we didn't have this pass, I would never ever think to eat at some of
these airport places that are shockingly good.
After eating we went to our gate and looked at booking a
hotel. We finally got called up for seats and scored amazing Polaris Business
on a brand new Boeing 777-300ER United's flagship aircraft and the replacement
for the iconic 747. The plane has two GE90 engines, the most powerful ever
built. Combined they have almost a quarter million pounds of thrust. It is
equipped with the new "true" Polaris widely considered to be United's
best seat. The cabin was beautiful with mood lighting and massive seats. I
actually felt far from Hunter our seats were so far apart! There was a
motorized divider too that we knocked a few times accidentally but mainly kept
down. You can read more about the plane here. (Point guy link)
Hunter sneak attack photoing me in Polaris Business
We have a long way to go
While boarding the plane, we were asked what we wanted to
eat. Hunter and I both chose the seared cape hake fish fillet entree. Hunter
and I then started watching the movie Free Solo (which is super awesome).
Shortly after takeoff service began. We got a hot towel first then they brought
out the tray covers (like a table cloth) and asked what we wanted to drink.
Along with our drink, we got a hot nut mix. After that, our starters came. I
was not a fan of the starters this time, but the main dish made up for it. The
fish was great and I've found that I really like risotto. For dessert Hunter
and I both had ice cream and I also had a toffee square.
Hot nuts
The starter
Dessert
Once dinner was over and our movie too, we decided it was
best to take a nap before arriving in Narita. The seats lie flat and we had an
awesome gel pillow that I really wanna take home but haven't (laughs).
May 2nd, 2019:
About 2 hours from arrival we were given breakfast and
Hunter and I both chose the omelet; great minds think alike! It was really
delicious.
We landed at 2:30 pm. We found the tourist information center and got ourselves oriented, bought train tickets, and headed to our hotel around 4pm. The fast train we took was about 45 minutes
and then we had to take the metro to a station near our hotel and walk 5 min.
We finally got to our room at 5:30 ish and decided to take a bit of a nap. I
set an alarm for 2 hours. We woke up at about 10pm and quickly found out that
our alarm never went off. Oh well! We got something to snack on from our hotel,
showered, and went back to bed waiting for our first day of exploring.
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