Connections

Today was simply wonderful.

Started off my morning with a "real" omelette (my weekend dining hall assignment differs from my weekday one, which no longer offers custom omelettes but only ham and cheese. This has been a point of aggravation among my peer group. But on the weekends we get to eat in the dining hall that allows omelette fillings of your choice), then had an actual voice conversation with Lala (one of my friends in France) and got to practice a little French with him. Then it was off to my French conversation class at l'Alliance Francaise. Apres, I decided on a whim to get off the bus a few stops early, resulting in my discovery of a shop where everything costs $3.99. They had a bunch of cute T-shirts with phrases obviously chosen by people with no proper grasp of the english language, some 80s vintage clothing, a bunch of cool costume jewelery, belts, etc, AND some imitation converse, in a wide array of colors. Now, I've been desiring such a pair of shoes for quite some time but have been reluctant to shell out the money for a legit pair, so when I saw look-a-likes for only $3.99 I simply had to act. So I got a pair of green low-top converse style shoes and then picked up some light purple laces. I finally now have a pair of fun, colorful shoes that I've been daydreaming of for over 6 months.

But my good day was only beginning at this point!

I got picked up by Bob and Vee, old friends of my parents. Bob and Vee were my mum's good friends from high school and Bob and my Dad were room mates in the seminary. So they took me to their wonderful home in Culver city, where I re-met their two sons Nick and Andrew (I hadn't seen them in over ten years), and gave me lunch and really good coffee. We sat out in the backyard for a while and then we moved into the kitchen and continued to visit as dinner was prepared and I had some Chardonnay and some of Bob's home made peanut butter cookies. Then it was dinner time, which was delicious and complete with fresh cut roses from the backyard and candle light. After dinner there was more coffee to be had and cookies and ice cream to be eaten. Even more, Bob asked "Claire, do you like classical music?" to which I replied "yes" and then he asked "Do you like Chopin?" Ah, how Chopin is my favorite!! So we spent the after dinner evening listening to an album of Chopin waltzes and then an album of nocturnes, having wonderful conversation, until finally it was approaching midnight and they had to get me home before we all started falling asleep.

It was a wonderful day! The Scotts are wonderful people and I'm really glad I got to visit them while I was out here. I must come back and visit them again.

Montreal, I might become of thee

I spent a good couple hours this early afternoon researching Montreal (described on the website as a mix between Paris and New York City, with a relatively low cost of living - parfait), McGill and their application process and their Power Engineering Research Laboratory and even Dr. Geza Joos (I read a paper he wrote for the IEEE Power and Energy Magazine entitled "Training Future Power Engineers) who right now is looking like the professor I'd like to have as as my research advisor should I attend his fair university.

This is very exciting! I've made a list of questions to ask the department's graduate admissions representatives, whom I will promptly call when I return to Buffalo with free long distance calling access, and then I've also discovered the following on the ECE department's graduate positions listing website: "M. Eng and PhD positions are currently available in the area of Electric Energy Systems. Students interested in this field of study should contact:

Professor Geza Joos at this Email" so I'll be contacting Dr. Joos just as soon as I find out whether or not I would be able to apply directly to the PhD program or if I need to get my Master's first. One page said that PhD students usually enter holding a Master's degree...

And of course PhD students get reduced tuition, but Master's students do not without outside funding. Ugh. So we'll see.

I've decided to chop the West Coast off of my potential grad schools list. I just can't live without the four seasons, je suis desolee California. So that narrows it down to:

McGill

Supelec

Georgia Tech

Boulder

U Mich is a little iffy because they're energy program is still in the natal stages...so this might get the axe soon...

U of T is also a little iffy at this point

So really four schools that I'm serious about right now. With UB as the back-up, bien sur.

A much more managable size.

Now I need to get started on GRE hw so I can get into these schools...