So far
Quick summary of life since September:
School is awesome, but it's molesting me hard. In the I need knee-pads kind of way. I just passed my first midterms (although I have 'part II' of one of them on Monday). I think chem went decent to well, but my physics midterm was not good. I transposed a variable from x to y, giving me the completely wrong data to solve for (and a different method of doing so, since I had different variables to solve for). I'm also getting used to how this teacher asks questions still; and I know I screwed up at least one of the theoretical questions. I don't think I'm going to get the GPA I was hoping for this term. But I'm enjoying being back in school and learning, so all is good.
On the work front, I'm loving GarageGames. The company is really fun, the people are great, and the work is interesting enough to keep me thinking hard but not enough to exhaust me or make me take my work home. I've also determined that thanks to the tanking exchange rate, I'm now making more with equal benefits (none) working at GarageGames part time than I was 'full time' (e.g. 50-90 hours a week in the last few months) for my old company. So that is bigtime awesome.
I'm still volunteering and enjoying it; in fact the blood-bank had a benefit a few weeks back for our major donors and staff. We got to hear from some people who had recieved donations, including Kieu's family (http://www.lmbb.org/success_stories/kieu.html), a girl who had multiple (hundreds of) donations for Beta Thalassemia Major. She has just undergone a marrow transplant at Dornbecker's, and is looking at a normal, healthy life ahead of her. Doug's description of their journey with Kieu and their experiences with medical staff was a really encouraging note for me during my hardest week scholastically so far. Interestingly, he also said it was the nurses that really added the human element and helped their family understand what was going on. Given the nurses I work with, I can understand it. Our nurses rock!
Rache and I also got the chance to see Gogol Bordello in concert at the McDonald. They were amazingly awesome. Eugene Hutz has a crazy amount of energy - the man is a machine. It was the most fun I've had in ages. I was sore for two days from dancing for 3+ hours. I'm hoping to get some new concerts in.
Overall, I'd say life is really looking up. We get to hit L.A. soon for Deb's 30th. We get to meet Piete and Sarah's babies soon when they come home from the hospital (and when I'm done with my horrid wheezing cough). We'll get to welcome another set of twins into the world in the middle of next year. Life is feeling pretty good :)
School is awesome, but it's molesting me hard. In the I need knee-pads kind of way. I just passed my first midterms (although I have 'part II' of one of them on Monday). I think chem went decent to well, but my physics midterm was not good. I transposed a variable from x to y, giving me the completely wrong data to solve for (and a different method of doing so, since I had different variables to solve for). I'm also getting used to how this teacher asks questions still; and I know I screwed up at least one of the theoretical questions. I don't think I'm going to get the GPA I was hoping for this term. But I'm enjoying being back in school and learning, so all is good.
On the work front, I'm loving GarageGames. The company is really fun, the people are great, and the work is interesting enough to keep me thinking hard but not enough to exhaust me or make me take my work home. I've also determined that thanks to the tanking exchange rate, I'm now making more with equal benefits (none) working at GarageGames part time than I was 'full time' (e.g. 50-90 hours a week in the last few months) for my old company. So that is bigtime awesome.
I'm still volunteering and enjoying it; in fact the blood-bank had a benefit a few weeks back for our major donors and staff. We got to hear from some people who had recieved donations, including Kieu's family (http://www.lmbb.org/success_stories/kieu.html), a girl who had multiple (hundreds of) donations for Beta Thalassemia Major. She has just undergone a marrow transplant at Dornbecker's, and is looking at a normal, healthy life ahead of her. Doug's description of their journey with Kieu and their experiences with medical staff was a really encouraging note for me during my hardest week scholastically so far. Interestingly, he also said it was the nurses that really added the human element and helped their family understand what was going on. Given the nurses I work with, I can understand it. Our nurses rock!
Rache and I also got the chance to see Gogol Bordello in concert at the McDonald. They were amazingly awesome. Eugene Hutz has a crazy amount of energy - the man is a machine. It was the most fun I've had in ages. I was sore for two days from dancing for 3+ hours. I'm hoping to get some new concerts in.
Overall, I'd say life is really looking up. We get to hit L.A. soon for Deb's 30th. We get to meet Piete and Sarah's babies soon when they come home from the hospital (and when I'm done with my horrid wheezing cough). We'll get to welcome another set of twins into the world in the middle of next year. Life is feeling pretty good :)