I know what I am doing this summer

With the rejection from the summer exchange with Stanford today, I think it more or less confirms my plans for the forth-coming three-month break from regular classes.

I have an unpaid internship at the local bureau of an international news agency starting in mid-June and ending in mid-August, just before I start school as a senior.

They are also letting me take three weeks off in July to represent my school at a summer conference in Virginia in July, after which I would spend one week in New York.

I just secured my air ticket to NY on Northwest after much heartbreak -- which at SGD 1.7k after taxes, was the cheapest I could have bought. If I had taken up the ANA offer last week, it would probably be below SGD 1.5k.

But because I waited for the rest, I missed the offer. And now it seems the rest don't seem to have much clue about wanting to do anything about it or wanting to want to do anything about it either. So I bought the damn ticket. Without them. And now I got to transit twice, at Narita and Detroit.

All I need to do now is to find a way to get to Charlottesville without burning a hole in my pocket.

Maybe I should find some paid work for May that would also let me do some preliminary research for my honours thesis on Thai politics, just so that I can reduce the financial burden of my American jaunt on my folks -- which reminds me, I think I have decided to withdraw my VCF exco nomination anyway.

The Stanford programme caused me reconsider my decision to run for VCF exco, because the dates clashed with the exco planning retreat, there was no way I could do both things.

I had to choose one, but in reality I knew that all I needed to choose was God -- I just needed to figure what that entailed. So after much thought and prayer, I decided choosing God involved not so much choosing Stanford, but not to run for exco.

Being forced to go back to the drawing board made me realise all the things I have been telling myself have been merely things to convince myself that I should run for exco, and not things are they are.

Attending a regular weekly exco meeting and some meetings with the incumbent exco person I was to have replaced later, I realised I have just been considering the abstract notion of going on exco, but not the practicalities of the committment that was involved.

Quite simply, I don't think I am prepared to live, breathe and eat VCF for the whole of my final year as an undergraduate -- especially after talking to the incoming chairperson about his plans for the organisation and all.

So I decided to withdraw, but I didn't announce it at the last public opportunity because I wanted to respect the incoming chairperson's request and also, for me to have the peace of mind about this decision before I make that public.

Eventually, even though this runs contrary to my human nature, I sensed this was something I should be doing. I talked to G last week, after not seeing him for 3 weeks, and he reminded me what he told me 3 months ago, when I started mulling over this.

He had reminded me of my pledge to unclutter my life a year ago, but never really gotten right down to doing it when I started Campus Observer.

So this is it.

Decisions made, and air tickets bought. Now for the 5000-word ISM belatedly due this Friday and a 7-page paper on the biosemiotics of any animal, before 3 finals on Apr 26, 30 and May 2 to end my arguably most trying semester to date.