I’ve missed having a blog because I don’t feel like I’m imposing my great sense of humor and self-serving life updates on anyone. I am mostly kidding about the great sense of humor thing, though someone DID tell me I was rather humorous the other day and I nearly proposed to him. Anyway, I know at least three people read this so I’m updating for you!

I’ve been curiously “busy” lately and while I do like to feign perpetual unavailability, I think it’s a legitimate excuse this time. This last quarter before I graduate, I am supposed to be writing… er, finishing my senior thesis on cyberwar while concurrently facilitating a seminar on the same subject. Yes, I did think this was a great idea at the onset. I’ve yet to decide whether it was a terrible idea or not. While the thesis is pretty standard as far as expectations (read whine, write whine… and yes, I’d like some cheese with that whine), facilitating the seminar has been one of the most difficult things I have never done. Some days, I’d rather run another marathon in the rain than teach. Speaking of, I did finish the LA Marathon in the rain in a whopping six hours because I had injured my feet, ankles and knees. I think I’ll be content with two marathons in a lifetime for now. Anyway, other days, I feel humbled and grateful that an institution like UCLA is allowing me to teach my peers (and a grad student!) about some seemingly esoteric topic by assigning Vanity Fair articles on the internet and TED talks on Stuxnet. This experience so far has been, in short, a learning experience on all fronts. It’s made me reassess my own intellectual capacity and abilities to convey difficult topics, as well as reexamine my own skills and shortfalls in communicating. Because of this seminar, I do go through the usual cycle of terribly low self-esteem Monday afternoons to I-can-do-ANYTHING Tuesday nights. Wednesdays afford me time to do things like this — nothing productive.

Aside from my cyberwar endeavors, I do forget I’m also a full-time student. Currently, I’m finishing up my last geography requirement, Geography 1: The Earth’s Physical Environment as well as taking my last hoorah to LA before I move by taking Urban Planning C184: Looking at Los Angeles. But most importantly, I’m taking another undergraduate student-led seminar, led by my friend Alex, on Women, Cars, and Culture. We decided to take each other’s courses and let me tell you that THAT experience has been indescribable. Also, somehow I was half-cajoled into doing an extra honors contract/project in conjunction with my urban planning course on alleyways in LA, so if you’ve got any leads… let me know. This last quarter makes so much sense to me: teaching, writing, cyberspace, physical geography, Los Angeles, alleys, and mobility.

I vaguely wrote “before I move” up there, so I’ll expand here: I’m moving to Washington, DC in mid-June/July. Apartment hunting has been outrageously fun (I’ve been looking around Dupont), minus the person who tried to scam me. A word of advice: There can be no good that comes out of a request to wire money through Western Union. None. Anyway, I’m not really prone to excitement but I am really excited. I will eventually write something more coherent. Haha. I think I’m more excited about being able to meet some incredible people my last quarter here… I’m looking at you, LM & AA.

As an aside, I believe some people assume there is some sort of equation to “success” and the especially deluded ones ask me about being “successful.” Please note that I can’t use “success” seriously. Anyway, my answer is usually something along the lines of, if you continue to do things you love and are genuinely interested in, that hodgepodge of things you’ve done will make a lot of sense to someone else. And by make sense, I mean that there’s a clear pattern in your activities. Okay, can I be a Life Planner now? Life Coach sounds silly.