Wow! I'm pretty sure I have whiplash from the freakishly quick response time. Thanks so much! =)
Code:
So these are the suggestions:
1. Dissect (later contribute to) an open source project.
2. Check Google's mentoring organizations.
3. Solo project (e.g., IRC, non-relational database).
4. Competitions.
Solo projects are odd things to me. I get majorly psyched and invest a lot of time into them. Then once I get beyond the interesting and new—you know, the part where you're just typing while not even thinking anymore—I move on. Maybe I'm just picking really simple project ideas. I'll look into one of those two you mentioned, bithub.
An open source project would be ideal. My mouth waters thinking about it but I can never seem to find one that isn't leaps and bounds ahead of me. I usually find something simple, open it up and the code just looks like magic. I'll sift through sourceforge though because I really would love to find one.
As far as internships and mentoring organizations go, I would say that sean is probably right. Three weeks feels like a long time to me because I'm a jittery bored-when-idle kind of person but I should be able to latch onto a project once I get back to school. To be honest, I wouldn't mind mopping the floors and taking out the garbage if a prof would take me on and show me the ropes.
Thanks again everybody. I'm glad that someone—several someones—knows what my mind's going through!