During my time in Phoenix, I�ve been able to take some pretty cool trips. First was when my friends Sean and Tim, and my brother Rob came out to visit over New Years ‘06 and we all went up to Las Vegas. And yeah, the place lives up to its reputation. I also went out to Washington, D.C. in April 2006 to visit my friend Jeremiah before he left for Peace Corps duty in Paraguay (more on that later.) The District of Columbia is quite a cool and cultured town if you can manage to ignore the politicians. And I was lucky enough to spend an action packed 48 hours in Puerto Pe�asco, Mexico with Tim when he came out for a visit in April. That was my first time in Mexico and it�s truly a seedy, dangerous, and often sad place, yet there�s something strangely appealing about it.

My parents also came out for a nice visit in March, and that was also about the time that I was thinking my original plan of staying in Phoenix through 2007 was just not going to happen. My experience at the research job was starting to plateau, but I also realized if I wanted to have one last bastion of college debauchery, I better go back to Auckland in 2007 and not 2008 as I was thinking earlier. This has the added benefits of actually graduating earlier, avoiding a really long academic break, and getting back overseas.

I stayed full time at the research job until the end of May 2006. For some odd reason I had the strong desire to get a job as a server, so I ended up working at a Greek restaurant for about 6 minutes. Okay, a little longer, but barely. I had done a little serving years before and wanted to give it another shot. I also wanted to do something with lots of people interaction so I thought serving would be a good match. Well, not so much, so I quit. After that I got a job begging alumni of ASU to give money to the university. I also did this before and thought it would be cool to try again. Well, kind of. Not quite as good as my old job but I decided to keep working there on a limited basis. I actually ended up doing some more research work on a contract basis similar to the arrangement I had while in NZ. This is actually pretty nice, and along with classes, a little bit of alumni calling, and preparing for the future, I stayed fairly busy.

Phoenix turned out to be a fairly nice place to live overall. I met some great friends living in Tempe including Chris, Chris, Kelsey, Paul, Rosa, and Ryan. Generally speaking, people my age here also have more of an optimistic outlook on life compared to what I remember about the Midwest, which is always nice to be around. And having big beautiful mountains randomly pop up out of the otherwise flat-as-a-pancake ground is pretty sweet too.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the staggering heat and lack of real seasons have got to be some of the worst things about the place. During the summer, you can expect 2-3 months of consistently topping out at 110 (F) / 44 (C). Not something I look forward to doing again, but I�m a strange way I�m glad I experienced it once.

Something else I couldn�t help but notice about Phoenix is how a lot of people my age are way too into themselves. If I was as attractive as some of these people, I�d be tempted to do the same, but in my opinion, peoples� attitudes too often put a hamper on how much fun could be had.

As I continue to learn, every place has its own ups and downs, and Phoenix is certainly no exception. I�m really glad I had a chance to experience living there, but it’s nice to be moving on for now.

This is the fifth of nine posts recapping events between April 2004 and November 2006. Click here for the overview.