Almost to Mexico

     This past Friday night (well, early Saturday morning), I drove down to Corpus Christi, Texas for grad school interviews at Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi. Essentially, I was a giant panic attack when I left, knowing I was taking a huge risk picking up and driving down there, spending money, wasting time, etc.

Corpus Christi from Ocean Drive

     Ends up, the drive was shitty, but the company was grand and some pretty funny things came out of it.

     We left Iowa at 12:30am (there was some.. stressful things that got us a late start) and made it just south of Kansas City before I had to pass out of a couple of hours. So, of course, we slept in the car at a rest area and I'm pretty sure I had dreams about people looking into my car (unless they weren't actually dreams, then that's messed up). I started driving again around 8am or so and did a straight shot down to San Antonio, Texas. We drove through Norman, OK as ISU was playing and that was.. not fun. So many Sooners fans and I stop at a gas station filled with people getting their post-gas shitty gas station coffee. Awkward..

TAMUCC is on an island. 

     Anyways, I found the fried pie place Blaine and I had stopped at on our previous trips to Texas and I was so incredibly excited and then so incredibly un-excited to see that it was closed down.
More miles of driving, more crummy drivers, more interesting conversations, more tumbleweeds and then San Antonio. I was so sleep deprived that I felt drunk. I couldn't function enough to even go to McDonalds to get food. Some of my text conversations could probably parallel that situation.

     So, the next morning, finally get to Corpus Christi and it's windy and cold. I had a minor lapse where I thought I had made the wrong decision by going down there and it didn't help that the wind blew my car door shut on my head. I dealt with it for the day and around 6pm, went to Dr. Overath's for supper and she and her husband were so hospitable. It was nice to meet before the actual interview and meetings on campus the next day.

Ocean Drive pier.

     Morning comes, we saw a big Heron. Cheyenne thought it was fake, it was funny.


     Interview time. Nailed it. All of them. All the meetings went in my favor. I essentially got positive feedback on every answer for every question and was told multiple times that I would be a great asset to the university. I was given future projects that I might be interested in working on and people have offered to be my potential advisor already! Everything just sort of fell into place. Although, I still want Dr. Overath as my primary advisor, everyone seems interested in serving on a committee for me and the other students in the lab don't see any problem with me getting in since all the faculty like me. They confessed to saying they would push me through the admissions process to make sure I get in. So glad I met everyone on the graduate admissions committee! Hopefully I will hear mid-March if I get into the Marine Biology program. I feel good about it.

TAMUCC Campus

     That's the thing about my life. I know I never stay in one place, but I never sit complacent either. I always take risks. Some, stupid, yes. But others have furthered my career more than I ever thought possible. When I got that internship training the lions, tigers and bears [oh my!] at the Houston Zoo, I knew that if I ever wanted anything big with my life I was going to have to take risks. Living in Iowa, a Masters in Marine Biology is a very competitive field to get into. I got my foot in the door down at TAMUCC and basically put a permanent wedge in it. From them, I'm a "memorable person who has a very diverse set of interests and a solid, well rounded background, with knowledge from experiences learned by putting myself out there. Something not many people have."

Windsurfer right off the coast on the Gulf.

I'm okay with that. Yep. Super okay with that.

     I was told that I was wanted in the lab and when I mentioned moving down there early, excitement came from me being able to start my degree early and work on multiple summer projects in the lab.

     Yeah, this is going to be fun. I also saw some really, really attractive guys. Plussss. AND I can windsurf. Double plus.

     So, late February I should know my official status. Hopefully I'll be down there by mid-March. MARCH. That's like, 3 months.

Downtown Corpus.

Oh, and I graduate in two in a half weeks. Crazy.