I saw this pub on a trip the other day to Sevilla. At first sight I knew I needed a picture of it.

I just finished packing for my trip to Spain. My whole life, or whatever will become of it, is packed into a small suitcase and a backpack. I'm leaving on Wednesday and I'm starting to get anxious. I'm hoping that I didn't forget to pack anything crucial, and I'm hoping that when I get to Spain I don't completely slaughter the Spanish language.

While I'm away I'll be keeping a blog that I'll write to much more frequently than this one. There is a catch though, it'll be in Spanish. If you are into that kind of thing, you can get to it here. If not, you can always try an online translator. I do plan to post here, and I'll try to put up a lot of pictures. I have a request for a picture of me in Spain doing the lean, as was demonstrated to me by the very gangsta Jesse, so I'll try to make that one of the first ones.

The other day I was walking through the mall, doing some shopping for my upcoming trip to Spain, and I noticed a very interesting display in the front of an FYE store. There were three life-size cutouts of people. One was of Miley Ray Cyrus (no big surprise there), but on either side of her was a presidential candidate: on the left, Obama, on the right, McCain. At first I was somewhat shocked, seeing two politicians on the front display of an entertainment store, but that shock soon turned into excitement at the fact that in this country, in which so much of our media is filled with brainless entertainment, people are actually paying attention to politics and are taking an active role in shaping their future. Heck, so many people are excited about the presidential race that news networks are now publicizing their coverage of it as though it were a sporting event! (and everyone knows how much we love our sporting events)

Today as I thought about this newfound interest in the presidential race, I started to become a slight bit more cynical. I watched Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention and was excited by many of the things she said; however, some of the things she said really frustrated me. It's not that she said anything wrong -- I think her speech was top notch, but it reminded me of just how misguided some people are with respect to politics. It reminded me that some people don't really focus on the platforms of their favorite opponent but rather make their selection with very little thought. I speak, in particular, about the fact that Clinton needed to rally her past supporters to join the Obama camp. Based on their political platforms, it should be an easy choice for past Clinton supporters to choose to support Obama but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Clinton and Obama both ran with very similar platforms. It's my belief that this is a major reason for why the democratic primaries dragged on for so long. However, now that the primaries are over, many of the Clinton supporters are unsure of where to turn. It seems to me that many of her followers supported her based solely on the fact that she was a woman, and now that there is no woman in the race, they don't know where to turn. I personally think that this is a tragedy because there were plenty of reasons to vote for here besides the fact that she is a woman, but many of her supporters didn't see them. These supporters didn't focus on her platform but rather idolized her based on this one fact. I fear that the same is true of other candidates in the race. I'm sure that Obama will get many votes just because he is black, and likewise McCain will get many votes just because he is a veteran, or just because he was a POW. I can only hope that before its too late voters will take the time to truly understand the issues at hand, to look at each candidate and his plans, and finally vote for the one which they believe will have the best impact on the country and the issues that are most important to them.

This entry is a test:

Blackwave

If you don't understand, don't worry about it. If you do, you know what to do...

It's the end of the semester once again and, as usual, all I can think about are my grades. Professors in the past have told me that grades are just an "inconvenience" that we need to put up with, and what we should really focus on is what we are learning in our classes. I try to look back and think about what I've learned and how much each class has increased my expertise in its respective field, but that's not what I see. I instead see individual assignments and think if I had just spent fifteen more minutes here or their the assignment grade would be higher and possibly my final semester grade would be higher. I go back every few hours to SIO and check to see if a new class grade has been posted. Will I get an A? Will it be a B? Did I bomb the final and potentially get a C? The suspense kills me. It's time to forget this semester and look forward.

This summer I will be working in Massachusetts at a startup company. I enjoy working much more than school because I get to relax on the weekend knowing that I don't have any work to do on Sunday. During the school year Sunday becomes my most hated day of the week. I consider it a weekday that is cleverly disguised in the weekend. Sure, you get to relax some, but most of the day is spent working on projects and homework due Monday. Saturday even becomes less fun because of it's proximity to Sunday. I can't wait for Sunday to once again be a day of complete relaxation.

On another note, this will be my last "summer vacation." A year from now I will be graduating, and going on to try my hand at living in the real world. It's amazing how the prospect of "real life" seems to always be right around the next corner. I remember being in middle school and thinking, "high school is just around the corner, that's when life really starts." Then "college is coming fast, that's the real world". Now as I look forward and see a permanent full time job a year in the future, I wonder if I will still be looking for that next step after joining the work force, if I will still believe that I'm not in the real world and that life won't really start until my next promotion, or my next job, or I'm married, or I have kids, or I retire. Does we ever really make it to the real world? Regardless, I think I'll try to make the most of this last stint before I go on to find my next definition of what the real world really is.