The Final 5

Come Monday I will only have 5 weeks left in the wonderful city of Munich. It's odd to think that most of my other fellow study abroad students will be leaving even sooner than that. The beginning of "exam season" is upon us and so for most, free time is rare. Personally, I'm not used to this much free time (in relative to my workload at home), so I've began working in a nanoscience lab, where I will be imaging surface self-assembly of biomolecules via scanning tunneling microscopy. I've also been pursuing many new interests such as particle physics (mostly motivated by my interest in proton beam therapy after visiting ProCure during Thanksgiving break in 2011) and have recently came up with some unique ideas for potential senior design projects (including a method for sequencing DNA, which I recently have found research articles describing an almost identical idea). I'm anticipating much excitement and success in my design project these coming semesters, especially with all the brilliant students around me in UIUC BIOE.

I don't remember being this excited to return to school since my early education years (not to say that I won't miss life in Germany immensely as well). I will be taking courses that I've been wanting to take since Freshman year, and I will even be moving into an apartment with Kelley; almost every conversation we have had recently includes some sort of hopeful vision for our new apartment-life. Seeing my family and close friends after all this time will be a blessing in itself, especially having the chance to explain my experiences and share with them how I've grown. And soon after I return, my brother will be taking his next big step through life as he pursues his dreams in Art at South Dakota State University. Unfortunately we'll be quite a long way apart again, but I'm just glad I'll be around to wish him the best, and hey, it's closer than we are now.

For now, I should study for two exams scheduled for the end of this week and complete a take-home exam for another course, but more updates will be soon to follow. Directly after my exams, I will have two good friends visiting me, one of which will be running a marathon on Sunday near Neuschwanstein (I'll include a picture that I took in 2008 below of that castle), so I'm hoping to head to Füssen with him and support him on the big race day.