Stanford Visit

So today I visited Stanford.

I am lucky enough to have a HS friend who lives 15 minutes away and great friends willing to lend me their car to make it there. I drove down the night before Visitation Day and crashed at my friend's house.

The day started with me given a parking pass and very inadequate instructions on how to reach the right parking structure (and no map). After a couple minutes of figuring out where I should go, I finally parked and made it to the orientation.

I think the initial reaction was dominated by the building. It is like CITRIS at Berkeley in its concept, but it is much bigger and designed more for the CEE department. It has all these features the lower energy and water use, which was explained to us on tours that were to come.

The program started with the department chair (a UCB grad) giving an introduction and overview, what you probably would expect. They had huge amounts of fruit salad and drinks that were just out to eat for breakfast. After introducing the department, each professor that was available did an intro and a brief talk about what classes they teach / research focus.

After breaking up into programs and meeting the other students (I'm in EES - enviromental engineering and sciences), we had a lunch. Much like the breakfast, it's obvious they have money, because it was pretty high quality food (they had bacon to put on sandwiches).

After lunch, everyone had a specific schedule that was broken down into 15 minute intervals, that told you waht to do. These included tours of facilities, meeting with grad students, and meeting with faculty. I really enjoyed meeting with the faculty, and they all seem like great people. That was perhaps my best experience from the visitation day.

On the whole, I need to determine if the academic benefits of going to stanford are worth 30-40k. I also have to weigh in factors such as friends / family, living conditions, do i want a new experience, etc. into my decision.

I have 3 weeks and counting to decide. If you have any thoughts please let me know! Berkeley and Stanford both have very similar programs academically and prestige-wise, but I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Power Grid

Is an awesome game.

Although it took 3 hours for us to finish the game. I think next time we will go faster now that we know what we are doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Grid

I am not superman

I have finite capacity. Mental. Physical. Emotional.

• I can not upgrade a wastewater treatment plant
  -theoretically, for my design class
  -calculating hydraulics, biological loads, flowrate
• I can not lead a competition team that does not work together
  -that does not commit to accomplish our goals
• I can not design a water treatment system, and build it
  -write detailed analysis of the treatment principles used
  -while managing budgets, renting cars, registering people
• I can not lead a worship team that does not put in effort
  -not striving to learn
  -to take initiative
  -to look beyond themselves to serve the community
  -to explore worship beyond music, and be willing to share
• I can not solve racial tension
  -be a scape goat for thousands
  -solve the problems that apply to you
  -watch you sit idly as I tackle the problem of the centuries
  -that actually apply more to you than me
• I can not write poetry on what it means to be me
  -analyze poets that openly attack who I am
  
• I can not be a son, brother, friend, boyfriend
  -and have time to be myself too
• I can not motivate this senior IV class to action
  -to remind them to plan prayer meetings
  -to organize and plan game nights
  -taking out other classes
  -being good examples
  -to stop being apathetic
  -give up their comfort for the sake of others
  -take ownership of this fellowship and these people who look up to them
• I can not be a good example for the younger IV students
  -trying to lead by example
  -meeting up to talk, eat lunch
  -checking in with them, being a friend and a support
  

I am not superman

I can not carry the weight of the world
I can not do everything I want to do
I can not do everything you want me to do
I can not solve all your problems
I definitely can not solve all my problems.

But

I can do my best
I can strive to be the best friend, support, man that I can be

and I can trust. In something greater than me.
Because only He can give me strength to make it through.

and I pray.
and pray
and pray