The Home Stretch

The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur. The weekend after I last wrote, we had our final culture night. The Chinese crew stole the show that evening. Everyone had been working really hard after the rough few days. It was amazing to see how quickly the team pulled together, but after a long, stressful week, everyone was ready to have some fun.

Our team put together a very nice 150 page report on micro- and nanotechnology related to space. It required lots of long hours and hard work to get it done, but we made it. I was on the editing team, so I am one of the few people that has read the entire report (a couple of times). At one point someone actually made me a paper crown, and titled me the queen of editing. In the end, there was a small group of people that worked for almost 72 hours straight to get it done by the deadline, and it would not have come together without the help of our TAs, Ed and Dustin. I managed to get very sick the last night...I guess it's true that your immune system shuts down at some point when you're not taking care of yourself. I spent most of the day after our project was due in bed trying to recover. I had several wonderful friends that helped take care of me.

That was also the night of the talent show, which I refused to miss. It was hilarious. A group of guys dressed up as the "Space Girls" and sang...so tell me what you want. I don't know when I've ever laughed so hard. There were also several really talented musicians, singers, dancers, and even a juggler. Everyone had a great time that night. We were done with our reports and ready for a break!

It wasn't a long break though. All of that happened last Saturday, and we had another deadline for our 15 page executive summary on Monday. Again, the team worked really hard and put together a great summary. The last two days have been spent preparing our presentation, which will be given tomorrow morning. It involved creating videos, scripts, presentation slides, costumes, and more. I think everyone has enjoyed working on this final piece of the project and using their creativity, but you can also tell that everyone is tired. I know I am much more easily annoyed at this point. I think patience is one of the first things to go when you loose sleep. It's all coming together nicely though. We will present in the morning, get feedback in the afternoon, and have our closing ceremonies on Friday. Then we are all headed home. It will be hard to say goodbye to all of the wonderful friends I've made here, but I'm looking forward to coming home!