The fANNtastic ANNventures of ANN

This past weekend I attended the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Sonora Regional Conference & Career Fair in Albuquerque, NM with 7 other girls from USC.  First off, just to prove that we were a bunch of engineers, none of us could actually spell Albuquerque.  Then, one of the girls sat next to a man on the plane who told her that people called Albuquerque "Bookee," which we got really excited about knowing because we thought we were being "with it."  However, we quickly got shot down when we asked our hotel shuttle driver about it.  That only encouraged us to say "Bookee" even more and we managed to find excuses to say "Bookee" an excessive number of times.

The great city aside, the conference was one of the best I've attended.  Everything ran very smoothly and the food was delicious (dessert with every meal!)!  There was a lot of variety in the workshops presented, ranging from Emergency Preparedness, to Leadership Burnout, to Becoming a Dialogue Diva,to Hot Topics in SWE.  The President of SWE National spoke at breakfast, then they had an etiquette workshop during lunch, and the keynote speaker during dinner was this amazing engineer who has dedicated the past decade of her life writing about and honoring great women in professional fields, including science, engineering, and accounting.  To be honest, I thought I wanted to take a break from SWE next year when I was working and just be a "normal" member in my professional section, seeing as how I've been in a leadership position since freshmen year with SWE-USC.  But talking to these women who have been involved with SWE for 20 or 30 years really got me excited about getting involved with SWE next year as a professional, both on a local and national level.  Not to mention I got a free upgrade to professional membership since I'm a graduating senior :).  I'm going to miss attending these conferences as a student - I've been to every one since I was a freshman!   You always come back rejuvinated and pumped up despite the long weekend, which is always great to feel.

Ever look forward to something for so long but be taken completely by surprise when it actually arrives?  I feel like that basically sums up my entire last semester.  I had been looking to the semester ending almost since it began, yet I can't believe except for a couple of finals, it's almost over already!  I can't believe I just went to my last regular-season football game as a student (which was AWESOME because we destroyed UCLA!), I can't believe my senior design project is over with, and I can't believe I'm about to take my last set of fall semester finals.  The majority of my grades were submitted during the last two weeks so my grades will be a (hopefully pleasant) surprise when they come out in two weeks or so...

And in the midst of all the final project and exam goodness, some more good news!  I officially have a job lined up for when I graduate as of last Friday!  I will be returning to the company I interned at over the summer, Edwards Lifesciences, as a Technical Development Program Engineer starting July 2009.  I will be doing 4 20-week-long rotations in different business units in different engineering roles before I settle into a permanent position (yet to be determined) when I exit the program in December of 2010.  Needless to say, I am beyond excited to get started and more than slightly relieved to have something lined up for after graduation.

OK I guess I should get back to studying so I can actually graduate...

One of my friends from my intership over the summer is from Germany and is in his last days here in the good ol' US of A.  So last week I went down to visit him down in Laguna Beach, yes like the MTV show Laguna Beach, and his place is GORGEOUS!!  His apartment overlooks the beach and the view from the balcony is amaaazing.  Here's a picture of it below (couldn't help but take a picture)

So once I got there we went to lunch at BJ's down the street and topped it off w/ a delicious pizookie (if you haven't had one yet, it's a must) and then walked up and down the beach.  The weather was perfect (sunny w/ a slight breeze), the water was gorgeous, the ppl were friendly, so all in all it was a pretty fantastic day.  Except I felt like the theme song "Laguna Beach" would blast on at any minute and my friend and I would start having one of those "So what happens when you leave?" conversations...but instead, we took pictures like this one!

After spending the day Laguna Beachin', I'm thinking living in Orange County wouldn't be too bad (although I still maintain that LA is better)