We officially decided on a date in late May of 2017, and actually, we just booked our venue on Thursday! It's a beautiful little place in downtown Mesa called the Landmark. It used to be a restaurant; in fact, it's where the rehearsal dinner was held for Hannah's sister and brother-in-law's wedding five years ago. They recently converted it to a dedicated wedding venue, and because they're so new, their price was really competitive compared to other venues we saw. That, combined with the fact that we loved the look and feel of the place, made it impossible to pass up! We certainly visited enough venues to know what we liked - try 11 venues, 10 of which we saw in the last two weeks. It was a lot of work, but pretty enjoyable. We only get to do this once, after all!
That's possibly the biggest step in our wedding planning, so we're feeling good. All that took place over the last two weeks, so what all happened in the two months in between? One word: CHAOS.
The final six weeks of my undergraduate education can best be described as "pedal to the metal." My thesis and capstone (the two biggest projects of my undergrad) both culminated within a month of one another. Just a few days after proposing to Hannah, I sat down and spent about 20 hours writing the 70-page first draft of my thesis paper. Another 20 hours over the next couple weeks brought me to a 96-page thesis - far longer than I ever expected, though my director was actually pleased by this! And I think it worked out better for me, anyway. He's the Dean of Engineering, so he works 60-hour weeks, and since my thesis was that long, he didn't have time to read it with the extreme thoroughness required to propose a bunch of edits! My actual defense went quite well, too. Overall a successful project! When I turned it in to the Honors College I got a sticker.
A sticker.
Whatever, I'm not bitter or anything...
Capstone also turned out successfully. We designed and fabricated a prototype of an automated medication sorter and dispenser. It was a huge project: the six of us probably put collectively over 1000 hours into it over two semesters. Yet despite all the frustrations along the way (and the less than adequate instruction in the course), it was an enjoyable and rewarding experience - mainly because I got to work with five of my closest friends! On the last day of classes, we presented our project to a board of accreditors who determine whether the project satisfies their criteria for deeming ASU's engineering program sufficient in producing industry-ready engineers. Afterward, we got to show off our prototype to friends and family, which was particularly rewarding.
The #BestTeamEver, looking quite dapper, and our prototype
Were those the only two projects to deal with, I think the semester would have been manageable. But I had projects in two other classes as well, plus it was crunch-time for fabricating our robot in the underwater robotics club I'm a part of. So, yeah. Pedal to the metal, all the way till the end. But all my class projects were successful, and our robot turned out pretty good, too, so it's easy to look back positively on it all now!
The robotics team and our robot
And of course, graduation was the perfect end to it all. I went to an awards reception last Monday, then to the Honors convocation on Tuesday, and the Engineering convocation on Wednesday, then celebrated with family Wednesday evening. It felt like one big, long celebration! Amidst those celebrations I also found out I got a job as a Graduate TA this fall, which will cover my graduate tuition for the semester and earn me a pretty solid stipend! Needless to say I felt pretty blessed this week. Now I can finally slow down and relax before I begin my internship with Stryker a week from Monday!
If there's one thing I've learned this school year, it's that friends mean so much to me! Going through the most challenging year of my life alone would've left it at just that - the most challenging year of my life. But because I was able to go through it all with friends, because we were there to support each other and commiserate about the challenges, it was also one of the best and most rewarding years of my life so far.
Probably the biggest news unique to Hannah is that she's now living in a townhouse with two of our friends from our church small group! It's been a really great experience for her so far. I think she's especially enjoying the independence of it, even more so than dorm life. For the first time in her life she gets to cook for herself, pay her own rent, and most importantly, live with friends! She's also gotten a great start on her thesis, which, if she hasn't mentioned it before, is about the mental toughness of pole vaulters. She'll defend it late this fall, and I can't wait to see what she's learned!
I think that covers all the big stuff from the last two months. If not, Hannah will have to follow up with her own post after me. Things have been so busy, I wouldn't be surprised if I forgot to include something!
Here are a couple other miscellaneous photos from the last couple months...
A camping trip to McDowel Mountain with my Capstone team and our significant others
My last performance with the ASU trombone choir - the National Anthem and Fight Song at an ASU-UA baseball game
