Wow, the last couple of weeks has been… stressful. At the same time, I’ve had some of the most fun I’ve had in Seattle. Weird.

Anyway, so with the large amount of work I’ve been doing trying to get things sorted out for the end of the quarter (and the end of my exchange), I’ve been staying in the labs until late, then getting up relatively early to head back in and do it all over again. As my title suggests, this is not insomnia, it’s me very deliberately getting less sleep in order to get everything done. For those of you who read this and go “you’re not looking after yourself, Leith”, I do make sure that I get fed (pretty well), have fluids and all that jazz. Now that I’m at the end of the quarter I can afford to just sleep and wake up when I wake up, so I’ll recover and I’ll be fine. I can’t say that I want to do it again, but I know how to manage it and listen to my body telling me how to recover. I’ll certainly be having words with the International Exchange people back at Canterbury, since I think the requirements (that they made up on the spot since no one had done it before) need some revision.

The academic stuff: I got my security paper done (which is my group project) and I think it came out really well. Our presentation went off without a hitch on Friday morning (except for one of our group-mates not showing up) and all in all I learned a lot from that class. I don’t know if I can actually post the paper we wrote online or not, there were one or two revisions that we might need to make to make sure no privacy is compromised and possibly giving my professor the last authorial credit. Anyway, I’ll be looking into that to see if I can post it here somewhere. For my research, I spent a lot of time working away at it and I’ve got a reasonably working implementation for the basic stuff… still a couple of things I need to modify and then I’ll be spending the next week or so writing the report, I suspect. I’ve also been given a remote access to the servers I need here, so if I feel like continuing with the work before it is worked on by others in February or so (which I might, it’s pretty interesting), I can. I’ve had a blast working with Magda, she’s been a way better adviser that’s really guided me and helped me in just the right way. I’ve really enjoyed my research this quarter and learned a whole lot. I think if I come back to UW, I’ll try and work with Magda again for my Quals project or something.

In other news, my flatmate Joe left for Canada earlier this week to spend the Christmas season up there with his Dad. It was sad to see him go, I’ve really enjoyed living with him. We talked about anything and everything all the time, we had meals a whole lot… all in all, he was everything I imagine flatmates should be like. The crazy flatmate Sam actually moved out this week as well, which means that the temperature in the apartment won’t be continually set to 85 degrees (about 29.5 degrees Celsuis). My last flatmate, Donald, has been great as well. I haven’t talked to him as often as with Joe, but every time I do he’s really friendly, we’ve gone out for meals together a few times and he’s just generally a nice guy. I had a chat to him just yesterday, in fact, in which he was extolling the virtues of studying in Hong Kong (where he’s from). The scholarships to go there and do a research-oriented Masters is… impressive. I don’t have any interest in learning Chinese as yet, but Donald tells me that being a native English speaker is actually to my advantage. Some of the research coming out of the universities there is some of the top in the world, so I’ll probably at least look into it. If nothing else if I get it then I’ll be able to have a great international experience and save money, which will be rather novel. I’m still planning on applying for the scholarship to do a Masters in Japan, and if I get that I’ll be taking that over the Hong Kong one since I have a stronger interest in Japanese culture and in learning Japanese.

Oh, I also submitted three out of four of my graduate school applications yesterday. I still need to wait until my transcripts are complete and send those off as well, but other than that it’s out of my hands.

Other things: I leave Seattle on Monday, back to Tampa for at least the Christmas/New Year season. After that, I’ll be moving up to Gainesville with Anastasia as she continues her education at the University of Florida in their Engineering program. After that, it depends on where I get a job. If a company in Seattle finally decides they like me I could be back in Seattle, or I could get something local in Gainesville, or I could get nothing and end up just working on my own business, which is a perfectly fine option. Ideally I’d like to do something that’s relevant to my studies and sets me in good stead for finding any future jobs (or studies), but I recognise that I won’t necessarily be able to find that kind of thing right off the bat.

I’m looking forward to seeing Anastasia again, I’ve really missed her. I miss my other friends in Florida as well, and I know that I’m going to miss the friends that I have made here in Seattle. Being an international man of mystery certainly involves missing a lot of people since, unfortunately, I can’t be everywhere at once.

Oh, amusing story: the International Student Office here at UW managed to lose my Employment Authorisation Document card, after copying it for my file and emailing me to tell me to come pick it up. It was later returned after a couple of days (somehow it had gotten put into the campus mail system), but for a while there the whole office was a shambles looking for it. In any case, I now have official permission from the US government to work here from the start of January to the end of December next year. I don’t think I’ll be using even close to all of that time, but it’s nice to have the option, I guess.

I also went to a party last night at Armin‘s house. Armin is one of my group mates for Security and it’s been a ball getting to know him and hanging out with him. I had a few drinks, met a whole bunch of new and cool people. I hung out with a bunch of the CSE people who showed up, that was fun too. At the end of the night there was some kind of misunderstanding and I ended up leaving… it appears that some of the people that came along have bad temperaments after they have had a few drinks. In any case, I said my goodbyes and came back to my apartment. I had still had a good time throughout the evening, so while I’m a little non-plussed, I’m ok.

I caught up with Greg and Philipp for coffee this week as well, it was good to see them again before I left. I actually saw Philipp at the party last night as well.

I just cleaned out my office, which didn’t take very long, I didn’t make a lot of clutter. I’m going to hand in my office-key, then maybe do a bit more work here in the lab, then I shall head back and continue to pack. I’ve started tidying and packing the little things, but I’m still not sure how I’m going to fit everything and get it back. A few things I’ll end up mailing down, I’m sure.

For those of you reading this back in New Zealand, I miss you all terribly and I wish I could somehow teleport back and see you whenever I wished. That or bring you here, I’m not sure. I’ll be back in June, so hang in there and you can get your dose of my Leith-hugs and dry humour when I return.