Georise - The final chapter

Days 72 to 100, 18th Apr to 16th May 2009:

Finally, the last post for the Georise programme. What took me so long you ask? More work and activities as usual which took up most of my time and energy. Oh, and not to mention cooking (which takes up at least 2 hours of my time). After all that, i just didn't feel like i had anything left in me to put up a new post. That, and the fact that it takes me ages just to write one because i can be pretty long winded.

Anyway, this is the last post on my adventures in Texas. I actually got back on the afternoon of the 18th of May but only got round to putting together this post now (due to laziness this time). Since it's been more than a month since the previous post, i will not go into details and just give a short outline of what's happened during that time.

Since the Easter holiday, we've watched a baseball game, gone to the aquarium, attended an Irish festival and visited the Johnson Space Center. To be honest, the baseball game was one of the most boring i've ever watched. Then again, baseball is boring if you don't really know anything about it. But the tickets we bought were for charity, so it was also for a good cause. The game was on a rainy Friday night and Neil (our lecturer) was kind enough to let us go early.

The Houston Astros vs. the Cincinnati Reds (i think)

The following day was also a gloomy one so it was good that the places we were going to were indoors. We went to the aquarium located in Downtown Houston and it was another ho-hum affair. Well, it was just so-so for me but the others found it rather disappointing. The visit took up about 2 hours if i remember correctly. We followed up with a visit to the Museum of Sciences since we were downtown. We didn't actually go into the museum since by the time we got there, it was about an hour and a half to closing time and the museum employee advised us to come another day since that amount of time was not enough to cover the entire museum. I never did manage to visit it after that, though a few of the others did i think.

One of the tanks in the aquarium

The following weekend, we were in Downtown again to attend an Irish Festival. Every year, the city would host an international festival and this year the focus was on Ireland. It wasn't entirely Irish though; there was a South American and Jamaican section as well as some other countries (which i can't quite remember now...blame it on my short term memory). Again, it didn't exactly turn out to be a super fun weekend.

Some kids performing an Irish dance

For our second last weekend in Houston, Jocelyn, Melanie and I finally went to NASA. Most of the others had already been there in the weeks before that. Shifa hadn't been there before but she decided to join the three others who were making a trip to the Six Flags Theme Park in San Antonio on the same day. I would have really loved to go but i was no longer in any mood to make such a long trip and frankly, between NASA and an amusement park, i decided that there probably wouldn't be many other chances to visit NASA in the future compared to an amusement park. Was it worth it then? I definitely had no regrets. It was educational yet interesting and we spent six hours at the Johnson Space Center because it really took that long to cover everything...well, almost everything.

One of the displays in the Johnson Space Center

The actual Mission Control Center - it's empty because it's a Saturday

The actual Saturn V rocket

It was now the second last week in Houston and we were all rushing to finish our processing reports. Half of us were trying to finish it before the weekend in order to have a free final weekend in Houston but i knew i couldn't finish by then. I was quite tired by now with all the brain activity during the weekdays and going out in the weekends that i did not have much left in me to try and complete it after work hours. So i settled for using part of my weekend to finish the report. Even though it had been a phenomenal experience so far, i was looking forward to going home. Before all of us were to go home though, we held a BBQ by the swimming pool in Briar Forest on that second last Friday. Almost everyone got wet (a few involuntarily) but i managed to sneak away before i got dragged in. Frankly, i was pooped as well and went straight to bed after showering.

We handed in our reports on the final Tuesday and everyone immediately felt a sense of relief. No more assignments, presentations or reports. Like me, some of the others couldn't wait to get home as well. And so, the Georise programme came to a close on Friday. More pictures were taken and 'Thank You' cards were presented to the administrators of the training programme. During these last few days, i did some last minute (and i really mean last minute) gift shopping and was again reminded why i hate shopping for gifts. I was even shopping on Saturday afternoon, a few hours before we were to fly. And that Friday evening after the final class, we were in Walmart for the last time to get some chocolates for our office colleagues. After that, it was just down to Melanie and myself making a trip to a shopping mall in Sugarland in order to get a Coach handbag that her friend had asked her to help buy for his wife. Such expensive things these bags...

That last night, a few of us gathered at the pool again to just chat and hang out together for the last time. We didn't really do anything else except chat. A little after 10pm, we got ready to leave and finish our packing. Goodbyes, hugs and even a little bit of French style cheek-to-cheek greetings were exchanged. And that was it...the end of an extraordinary experience of a lifetime. I would say we gained a lot more than just knowledge and skills for our work. The friendships we forged and the experiences we went through will surely be etched in our hearts forever. And if ever we forget (God forbid), there's still all those insanely huge amount of pictures to remind us :)