I finally made my way back to Houston after 11 weeks of fun and fire science. My last week in Maryland was curiously loaded with advice, presentations, and fun until the last day. Exiting the tunnel of the summer left me with a closed but living chapter in my life.

Have you ever left for a few months to return to a new house? That is an intriguing feeling. The new house is exactly what I wished for upon returning from a conjoined environment like NIST for the summer. I’ll be certain to post some pictures in the next couple of days. The house truly has a homely feeling like no other – it was built in 1939. I love this neighborhood; you just can’t get a home in a neighborhood like this anymore in newly built residences. Oh, and a fantastic porch and backyard help, too!

Now that I am back, I will be embarking on many adventures at school during this coming academic year. One more week and I will be teaching a couple of classes, Fire Dynamics and Intro to Fire Modeling. I can’t wait! Hopefully I will be able to grab each little thing that I have learned from a slew of different types of professors and turn that into the best form of teaching that I possibly can. A class where you just can’t pry the book or notes from your own hands regardless of the subject matter – because it reaches inside of your brain and immerses you in its intellectual glory.

And that’s the point.

Yes, I do fire modeling, fire dynamics, and the such. But forget all of that. One year ago in this month of August, I dropped everything that I was doing – including an income from work – to pursue my dream. I wanted to be able to read, write, and teach something. For me, that something was fire science (what’s yours?). It was a tough year with money and stress to start with, but I stuck to only doing what what I loved, and let the rest work itself out. A mere year later, I am not closer to anything, because there is no end – it is a way of life.

I had no idea what I would be doing. I am simply here, doing what I love, surrounded by people who do what they love.

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I head back to Houston tomorrow mid-day.

This week was so sickeningly action-packed that I constantly forgot where I was. A visit to University of Maryland’s fire protection engineering department proved to be mind-expanding yet makes my decision for graduate school that much more difficult, like blinding insight on a decision for how to spend two to five years of your life.

Also this week, getting great advice from my advsior, co-advisor, and another NIST fire employee regarding life, computational fluid dynamics, grad. school, the philosophy of fire, and other such fire things. I got to take pictures of every book on the fire research bookshelf too before I left, this makes me happy.

The bad part of the week? Seeing close friends leave for the long-term, sort of like a lightning-fast mental death.