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There's an essay about my wild youth in the dales of Jackson County. Gee, wonder why Stanford didn't want me? Another about who influences me the most. No, no, I didn't include Gumby! This one I wrote in 15 minutes and actually had fun with -- sort of a blow off, but amazingly it got me accepted at U.Chicago. Finally, here's a righteous essay on progress. Can you imagine working in admissions and having to read 5,000 of these things? Hell, you probably can't believe you read 4 of 'em!
Yes, I am a rabid Hoosiers basketball fan. Yes, I was a freshman in the spring of '87 when Keith Smart hit The Shot to beat Syracuse in the NCAA finals. Whether you like coach Bob Knight or not, you will find his quotations entertaining and enlightening.
After graduating I worked for the remainder of 1991 on GIS projects for the City of Indianapolis (about 8 months). Then I got the hell out of Indiana -- I worked for half a year in Germany for a company called Geospace. They were selling pc mapping and services to a reluctant Vaterland, but I did get to do some fun stuff with mapping for the rebuilding of eastern Germany. I then wandered around Europe for 2 months or so before deciding to take the train to China. That was a great trip -- maybe I'll get around to putting some photos of the experience in there, too.
I returned to the United States in August, 1992, just in time to deal with the recession. I applied for a few GIS jobs and worked as night shift manager for Braun Media Services in Indianapolis. Basically we produced software diskettes. It was not a high-tek procedure; I found myself sleeping away the days and dealing with people living on the absolute edge all night. I was going nowhere and not liking it.
I did save up some cash, though, and moved to Bloomington to escape the intolerable and conduct a nationwide search for the perfect GIS position for me. I didn't find it. By August '93 I'd latched on to pc skills instruction (so as to pay for the mac 'n cheese) and found it fulfilling -- designing courses, compiling exercises, working with motivated people, teaching. That's when I started thinking grad school. I applied to 5 excellent schools, which gave me once again the opportunity to wax on about myself in the most flattering manner possible. I was struck by the comparison to those mid-80's essays, so I've included my statement of purpose for your perusal.
For insane, nonrational reasons I fell in love after accepting UC Santa Barbara's offer; this made the grand cross country "Manifest Destiny"-style trek in September '94 more bittersweet than it normally would have been. In spite of my separation from Anastasia, we persevered, and she moved out to Santa Barbara , cats and all. Now we're even married! Life is all right, it really is.
Natty Bokenkamp shares with me an interest in Warcraft, and I've made a few PUDs you might enjoy.