I feel like I was just in the US even though I've been here in my new apartment for about a month now. Not that you could tell if you saw my kitchen-less, half painted, still partially boxed up living quarters. However, I'm about to head back to the US next week. It's kind of bitter sweet. On the one hand, I'm super excited to be going and beyond happy that my paper was accepted by a conference. On the other hand I really wish I could get this moving in stuff settled. Not to mention, I have a lot of work to do this week before leaving on Monday.
Back to positives, I did work some vacation into this trip. First, a good friend from college who I haven't seen since will be meeting me in NOLA for the 2 days before the conference including Mardi Grais. I'm excited to spend time with her exploring a new city and with a little bit of luck, we may even be able to celebrate the new Super Bowl champions after today!
Then after the conference, I'm flying out to SOCAL to spend a couple of days with an old friend who recently moved across country. Initially I was going to spend these post-conference days in RI but my mom pointed out the likely undesirable weather in RI in Feb and I was just there in Jan so I decided to take this chance to see the West coast and hope for a bit of sunshine. My ideal itinerary for my first trip to the west coast would include the San Diego Zoo (I've wanted to go since I saw it featured on Sesame Street as a child), dipping my feet in the Pacific and hanging out by a fire on the beach.
above photo is from such a
random website
I have a long week of work ahead of me then some fun, my first academic conference and a lot of flying but there's also a lot of ocean so I'll be happy.
