The end of the semester was crazy still and between studying for finals, preparing for a cross country bike trip, and selling still more cycling clothes I had no chance to blog but I’m now ready for the trip, done with finals, and in Yorktown with my girlfriend at her house, the trip leaves in ONE WEEK from VA Beach!

School

Mass and Energy Balances: A.  My best class this semester, I didn’t really study at all for the final because I wanted to concentrate on O’Chem and I only needed a 50-something on it to get an A in the class.  Well, it was actually realllly hard and I was worried, but I got an 81 which left me with a 96 overall still haha, the class average at the end was a 63.

Organic Chemistry: B-.  I studied really hard for the final, but somehow did pretty poorly on it…and ended with an 82.4 which rounded down to B- …which was pretty dissappointing.  I accidentally missed one HW assignment, and that was the difference, I went in and talked to my professor but he can’t really do anything.

Those are the only classes that I know my grades in….I’m still waiting to find out what I got on the Calculus of Several Variables final, which I studied all weekend for and think I did really well on.  I felt like I walked out with a 100, but that usually isn’t the case haha.  That final can count up to 50% of our grade too!  Syntech lab and ES are totally in the air too…I’ve always done well in ES and my grades have been good, but every semester I’ve done 5 extra credits (the limit) which add 5 points to my final grade in the class…and this year I was more involved but so busy that I only wrote one extra credit paper, so that worries me a little.  I’m going to cut myself off of speculation here haha….I’m just going to have to wait!

Our ES Action Project Manuscripts (which were ALOT of work) got put together and published into a book!  The book came out really well, and is our keepsake of sorts from the ES class.  The class series is over now, which is sad, after four semesters of getting to know everyone it had become a pretty tight-knit little community, but we’ll still all see eachother! Check out this article in VT News about the book.

Cycling Clothing

On Monday after my last final, I officially turned over all the clothes (10 boxes), the two huge binders of orders, and a GIANT computer folder full of spreadsheets…and went over the whole thing with her.  Sounds like she’s really excited for designing the kit this year, which sounds like it is going to be sweet, she’s going for a “retro” look!  Think Team Radioshack in the Tour de Gila this year.

Overall, I’m glad that I did the clothing this year, but it was wayyyy more work than I could’ve ever guessed.  There are a few reasons that I think I made it so much more work, I’m pretty sure I ranted about them in an earlier post though haha.  I think that kit came out really well, and if anybody is still looking for one (we still have lots of extra’s…) email Ashton Graves!

Bike and Build

Last, but certainly not least! I’ve been spending the past few weeks really getting ready for the trip, last Saturday I took a long ride with Hayden Shea and Greg Pfister, and worked on my tan lines.  Squeezed in a physical and PPD test at Schiffert, got my volunteer hours with Habitat for Humanity in Roanoke signed off, and with everyone’s help finished raising $4,000!!

So I’m really good to go…it’s crazy now to think that in LESS THAN A WEEK I’ll be biking across the country…man did it sneak up on me.  I’m beyond excited for it though, and I’m going to miss my family, my friends, and Lauren over the whole summer but it will hopefully be an experience of a lifetime!

I”m also really excited for my parents to come down to see me off, they rented a beachhouse and my best friends are coming down too! And my uncle Carl and Jean will be coming to the beachhouse to see me off as well! Flattering for me that everyone is going to come down to see me off on my trip, but I think they really just want to spend a few days on the beach haha :-P

That’s all for now, I will be blogging every few days (as internet access permits) during the trip so stay tuned!!

And pictures!!

Just a few random ones I could find on FB haha.

Before doing the Mule Hell Robeaux, a charity ride in Wytheville

Struggling to hang on to Reid and Justin through the gravel section, gravel is hard!! They ended up riding away for 1st and 2nd haha

Dominating the rock climb on some May Day carnival thing on the Drillfield haha

The hammer, however, was not my specialty lol

Hard at work, here my ES Action Project group working on the Manuscript

And Lauren trying to drown me in the river haha, look on the far right