Gasp of breath amid busy but exciting weeks

I haven't updated the blog for a while, mostly due to the busy activities I've gotten myself into. Granted, most of this is exciting and enriching, but now I just feel tired and want to sleep.

Last weekend, I went to a 4 day conference in DC on climate change. This was the largest lobby ever for the environment, and 12 000 young people showed up! (www.powershift09.org) 15 of us from Duke went, and we slept on the floor of a local church. At the conference, I attended instructive panels on different types of Carbon capping schemes, the immense work needed for the climate conference in Copenhagan this December to yield a good deal, what people in North Carolina doing to fight for green energy, how to reconcile faith (mostly associated with right wing, pro-business politics) and environmentalism, and many others. On Sunday, we practiced how to lobby and on Monday, we stormed Congress and collectively met with just about every Congressman and Senator and argued for 1) immediate, hard carbon cap 2) green energy 3) investment in green technologies and 4) for the US to take a position of leadership in combating global warming. It was such an enriching experience and I still need time processing all I've learned.

Coming back from DC Monday night, I was hit hard with school work: 3 paper reviews for Data mining and think up some BS to talk with my research adviser on Tuesday; presentation for Econ on Wednesday; 10 hour problem set due on Wednesday but got extension for Friday. (This problem set is so ridiculous, 1 of the 4 problems turned out to be the main result of a paper published in 1982. If only I got into computer science back then...) And now, I'm about to leave the comfort of my dorm and internet access again for 10 days for a volunteering spring break trip.

I will be volunteering through a local church called CHBC, helping with charities including Habitat for Humanity, Durham Rescue Mission, Urban Ministry. All this time, we will be sleeping on the floor of a church. (I'm getting used to this now.) It should be similar to the Bronx missions trip I participated in last year, and that was such an amazing experience. But this will take up all of spring break and I won't get any rest... Right after break I will have a midterm, two project proposals, two research meetings to go to. Although I'm excited about the trip, I'm longing for a gasp of breath right now...