Almost Summer?!

First, to prove that I am not crazy and it did actually snow the day before the official last day of classes/start of summer vacation, here you go:

My street. April 18th snowfall.

SNRE in an early morning dusting of snow (SNREds still bike no matter the weather).

But all this time while it was snowing, I was working on finishing my master's project.  And here it is!  Probably only my grandparents will bother to look at the document (and it's okay if even you don't), but if you do, admire how pretty it is.  We didn't want to create just another academic journal article devoid of life and photographs, so my team member Olivia spent hours on layout and design. 

Go team!  With that submission, I've officially met all my requirements for graduation, so even if I fail the one exam I have left to take (doubtful), I am now a

MASTER OF SCIENCE. 

Update on the Weather

Lest you get confused and think that mid-April is spring, let me assure you that it snow flurried in Ann Arbor today!  And it's supposed to keep snowing tomorrow. 

:-(

I might ought to start looking for a pretty sweater to wear to graduation (less than 2 weeks away!) instead of a sundress as I had planned! 

Counting Down and Celebrating

For those of you that don't know already, I have some great news--I have a job!  Starting August 1st (yep, that's right, I get a summer vacation, too!), I will be a full-time Associate at Industrial Economics, better known as IEc. IEc is a consulting firm that contracts with the federal government for about 70% of their projects.  They are particularly well-known (in government spheres) for their work on evaluating economic cost of compliance with the Clean Air and Water Acts, evaluating critical habitat designations for the Endangered Species Act, and conducting natural resource damage assessments for events such as the BP oil spill that they were working on for the last year.  As an Associate, I'll be doing quantitative analysis and writing for a variety of projects, yet to be determined.  I'm also not the lowest down on the food chain; they have Research Assistants below me!

I actually was lucky enough to have two job offers to choose from, and IEc was the winner.  Two job offers for two serious job applications--not bad in this economy! 

IEc is in Cambridge, MA, so I'll be moving again sometime this summer.  I'm excited to live in and explore Boston, where I already have tons of friends from Brown and SNRE.  This will be the first time I move somewhere where I actually know people!  It will be nice not to have to start totally from scratch.  It will also be nice to, again, be somewhere where I don't need a car, although I'm a little bit nervous about the lack of green space and quiet in a huge city.  I'm also a little bit sad that I'm not moving somewhere warmer.  At least Boston is sunnier than Michigan, but given that it's barely finished being winter here, I'm not exactly excited about commuting through feet of snow next year.

And in other news, my master's project presentation is 5 days from now and the finished product is due 4 days after that.  I have another final class project presentation 3 days from now, with the paper due 4 days after that.  I have 8 25-page papers to grade before grading 170 exams, and then I have 1 exam to take.

And then I'm done!  Graduated!  A master of science.  :)