The Trek Home

      After some bad weather and a delayed flight, my 24 hour journey home became a bit longer. After I arrived in Denver about 1.5 hours late, I sprinted through the airport to catch my connecting flight to Traverse City, but when I arrived at the gate, the plane was pulling away. I spoke with customer service and they rescheduled me to catch a plane to Chicago, then to TC the next day, and also promised to drive me to a hotel, pay for the room, and feed me, but.....they lied. There happen to be a softball tournament in Denver that day and there were "no available hotels in the city".........riiigghhhtt. I couldn't help but start laughing. Anyway, United Airlines gave me a $15 meal voucher for the airport and told me to enjoy my stay. I eat a lot so $15 in an airport for a day will not buy very much food. I made a little sign asking for food/money in exchange for hugs/music and started playing guitar and singing. Before security threatened to kick me out/call the police about 45 minutes later, I made roughly $30 and some very loving people brought me sandwiches among other snacks. Soon after I finished playing I saw Alan Greenspan (too bad he didn't walk by when I was playing, he could have printed some cash off), then I went to sleep. I woke up at about 4am, chatted with some new friends over smoothies, then caught my flight.
      These types of mini-adventures were the best part about travelling/studying abroad and certainly the most beneficial part of the trip. The experiences showed me that no matter how inconvenient a situation may be, you can still have a great time. Most people would be frustrated and enraged after being forced to miss a flight home after 5 months overseas, but I took advantage of the opportunity by relaxing and playing some guitar after all of the rushing around, meeting some very interesting people, and also appreciating the love that complete strangers are capable of providing. Happiness is a matter of perspective; if the glass is half-full, you will live a much more enjoyable and longer life. 

Internship

During my last three weeks in Australia I obtained an internship with a wave-energy conversion company and continued to study for finals. Ocean energy conversion/renewable energy technology is essentially my dream career path, so being able to work with these brilliant engineers as a sophomore in Sydney was a magnificent experience.

During much of the internship I worked in a fluids lab, testing a small-scale model in a wave simulation tank.

When we weren't at the lab I was organizing and logging infinite amounts of test data at the shop. Being able to work for this company for the short time that I did was certainly a remarkable experience.