Small Update
So I will be heading back to Italy on Monday! I write a blog. rax set up a LJ feed for my blog. (Thanks R!)
mimiinmilan
So if you want to read it that way, go for it! The base address for the blog is:
http://mimi-in-milan.blogspot.com/
I post pictures and short notes.
I suppose I should also reflect on my 2011, and speculate on my 2012.
2011 was a pretty packed year. I went on several vacations (Maui, WDW) and went to visit my family in CA several times including for my cousin Molly's wedding. The first half of the year was spent finishing my PhD. I pretty much just worked that whole time. There was a three-month run up to graduation where I worked in my office every day except one that I spent with Ross's parents. I spent the summer and beginning of the fall doing post doc work in my old lab. I got offered the chance to work in Italy for an indeterminate time period with some colleagues I really like, so I moved to Milan at the end of October.
Finishing my thesis sucked, but I developed productivity techniques that work for me. Essentially I now make a to-do list for everything in my life, including work tasks, errands and chores, and personal items (like uploading particular things to http://www.flickr.com/photos/malimawolf/). I maintain a separate list of art and personal projects. This has been working well and I drop less tasks by accident. After I finished my thesis I felt pretty relaxed. My summer was relaxing, even without having a firm future plan in place. Going to Italy has taught me a lot, too. I realized that am pretty good at and getting better at handling unexpected tough situations, from being lost and not speaking the language to having travel plans get completely blown apart. Both the problem solving part and the emotional turmoil part. Living and just being alone was tough at first, but I am finding that, while I don't love it, I am actually OK at it.
My plans for 2012 are to work more in Italy for at least another 4 to 8 months. I will hopefully shepherd my project through its initial development phase in this time. If things keep going well, I may stay for longer, though I do hope to find a US job that I am excited about for the end of 2012 or at least 2013. (Right now I am thinking corporate, but national-labs-type work isn't out of the question.) I will probably be getting married in 2012. My cousin Ferg and my Uncle O are both getting married this year, so I am putting myself on the schedule for later.
Resolution-wise, I kept my 2011 resolution. It was a lame one: to eat more fruit. I like fruit, but I never really ate it. I am a vegetable person. Fruit is snack food, not meal food, and it's a messy snack. It's expensive. It has a short and unpredictable shelf life and probably isn't ripe when you buy it. But I put aside all my fruit issues, and have successfully been enjoying fruit. Lame, but healthy! For 2012, I want to work on my Italian some more. I have been laying my foundations and making an effort to speak, but I need to work a little more. Perhaps this will go hand-in-hand with my goal of losing my thesis gut. I gained at least 15 pounds working on my thesis, and I would like to get in better shape. I am thinking, I will try to do a half hour of stretching and light weight training while listening to the next sixty Pimsleur lessons. I think I have lost a little weight already from all the walking I do in Milan. I am pretty OK with myself, but Italy is much thinner than the US. On the plus side, this keeps me from being too tempted to buy the expensive clothes that are all around me. I have been good with money, all things considered, having only bought myself one pair of earrings and a purse. I have many other small goals, but nothing on the scale of resolutions.
I still read my LJ friendslist (Am thinking about the dreamwidth switch so many are doing...) and usually my google+, but still not facebook. If you are primarily posting in a blog, I am big into my feed reader, so link it below and I will subscribe. See y'all soon!
mimiinmilan
So if you want to read it that way, go for it! The base address for the blog is:
http://mimi-in-milan.blogspot.com/
I post pictures and short notes.
I suppose I should also reflect on my 2011, and speculate on my 2012.
2011 was a pretty packed year. I went on several vacations (Maui, WDW) and went to visit my family in CA several times including for my cousin Molly's wedding. The first half of the year was spent finishing my PhD. I pretty much just worked that whole time. There was a three-month run up to graduation where I worked in my office every day except one that I spent with Ross's parents. I spent the summer and beginning of the fall doing post doc work in my old lab. I got offered the chance to work in Italy for an indeterminate time period with some colleagues I really like, so I moved to Milan at the end of October.
Finishing my thesis sucked, but I developed productivity techniques that work for me. Essentially I now make a to-do list for everything in my life, including work tasks, errands and chores, and personal items (like uploading particular things to http://www.flickr.com/photos/malimawolf/). I maintain a separate list of art and personal projects. This has been working well and I drop less tasks by accident. After I finished my thesis I felt pretty relaxed. My summer was relaxing, even without having a firm future plan in place. Going to Italy has taught me a lot, too. I realized that am pretty good at and getting better at handling unexpected tough situations, from being lost and not speaking the language to having travel plans get completely blown apart. Both the problem solving part and the emotional turmoil part. Living and just being alone was tough at first, but I am finding that, while I don't love it, I am actually OK at it.
My plans for 2012 are to work more in Italy for at least another 4 to 8 months. I will hopefully shepherd my project through its initial development phase in this time. If things keep going well, I may stay for longer, though I do hope to find a US job that I am excited about for the end of 2012 or at least 2013. (Right now I am thinking corporate, but national-labs-type work isn't out of the question.) I will probably be getting married in 2012. My cousin Ferg and my Uncle O are both getting married this year, so I am putting myself on the schedule for later.
Resolution-wise, I kept my 2011 resolution. It was a lame one: to eat more fruit. I like fruit, but I never really ate it. I am a vegetable person. Fruit is snack food, not meal food, and it's a messy snack. It's expensive. It has a short and unpredictable shelf life and probably isn't ripe when you buy it. But I put aside all my fruit issues, and have successfully been enjoying fruit. Lame, but healthy! For 2012, I want to work on my Italian some more. I have been laying my foundations and making an effort to speak, but I need to work a little more. Perhaps this will go hand-in-hand with my goal of losing my thesis gut. I gained at least 15 pounds working on my thesis, and I would like to get in better shape. I am thinking, I will try to do a half hour of stretching and light weight training while listening to the next sixty Pimsleur lessons. I think I have lost a little weight already from all the walking I do in Milan. I am pretty OK with myself, but Italy is much thinner than the US. On the plus side, this keeps me from being too tempted to buy the expensive clothes that are all around me. I have been good with money, all things considered, having only bought myself one pair of earrings and a purse. I have many other small goals, but nothing on the scale of resolutions.
I still read my LJ friendslist (Am thinking about the dreamwidth switch so many are doing...) and usually my google+, but still not facebook. If you are primarily posting in a blog, I am big into my feed reader, so link it below and I will subscribe. See y'all soon!