Masters Of Their Universe? Wait And See.

"Masters" of their craft... Nyssa (left) and Sandy (right)
(Click to enlarge)

"For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously." ~ George Gissing, "Winter," The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903

The weather tried not to cooperate this last graduation weekend in Mississippi... but for these two, that only added an additional air of excitement as they scanned the weather channel and the local channels, pointing out those who graduated from the program in previous years... now some on air locally. There was wind and rain and lightening, but nothing as bad as in surrounding counties. It seems that the area around Mississippi State University has this legendary "buffer zone" that magically dissipates tornadoes and severe storms as they approach.... only to have them reform north and east of campus.

For me, it was déja vu, the heavy oppressive humidity was easy to remember from our years living there but hard to experience again. When I left home at 3AM Eastern time on the 29th it was 42 degrees, cold and a bit windy. It was cold all the way south and through Atlanta... then I hit the front that stalled or at best moved at a crawling pace east.... and there was the heat. At first, not so much heat, but the humidity. Humidity so dense that stepping out of a cool car, your arms immediately become wet with condensation... not sweat. You could almost cut the air with a knife.

Sandy, Nyssa's roommate, was on the Mississippi State University forecasting team. Each year there is a national contest among the best meteorology schools in forecasting. Mississippi State has been either number one or two for the last eight years. This year they won first place for the second year in a row... beating out MIT... yes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They also won over Penn State, University of Oklahoma... even over the team from NOAA. This group was pretty proud.. and deservedly so.

So, now the Master's is done... a new and expanding direction ahead. Sandy is hoping to be forecasting on a local news station in the near future and Nyssa will be off to the University of Nevada, Reno for her doctorate studies. Combining geology, meteorology and geography into a combination of climate and earth science, she hopes to have a wide area of expertise and would like to do research and teach on the university level.

My love and congratulations to both!!!!!!

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit. " ~ Samuel Johnson

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