Welcome to 2006
Whew...first real update in over a month. I suppose that's not as bad as previously. Well, with the holidays, I have been quite busy!
My new position has been quite interesting. I really enjoy most of the work. It involves a lot of research and investigative (for lack of a better word) work. The team I work on is very close-knit. Haven't had a chance to get to know a lot of them yet because this past month has been very busy for everyone-what with having classes start on the 1st. Hopefully I'll get to know them all soon. I also get a lot more useful information in this department (in my previous department we either wouldn't get the information or find out about it weeks/months after the fact). There are also a lot of interesting, challenging, special projects that we get to work on. I just finished creating the spreadsheet that will be used for our monthly reports. I really enjoyed it since I like tinkering around with creating documents like that. Probably the one main thing that I really don't like about this new position is that a lot of our returning students have major (real or imagined) issues/problems. So, quite a few are very angry, difficult students. I don't deal well with anger and confrontation. I have a tendency to avoid it, which isn't good in a professional, work setting. So, this is definitely going to be a learning experience for me. A stressful, learning experience. I've already had several tense situations that I probably didn't deal with that well but I'm determined to do better! :) Right now we are at a lull at work. Since classes just started a few days ago, we are just wrapping things up. Work has been rather slow and boring. But that'll change since classes start again on 2/5 so I'm sure we are going to get super busy again in a couple of days. I'd rather be busy than bored. Busy means the day goes by fast and there are more opportunities for overtime! :) Another really great thing is that the girl I trained when I became a team lead has been taken off of audits by the manager and is now a permanent employee. :) It's a big accomplishment and its a great feeling knowing that I played a very important role in helping become a perm. employee. Although, it would've been better if it had happened before I had moved to the new department but oh well!
Well, enough about work; I'm sure that's rather boring! :) Had a great Christmas and New Years. Only downside was that my parents and sisters weren't here to celebrate. Christy flew out to China carrying mine and my aunt's gifts to the family with her (which was rather convenient). Felt really bad for her because she was going to fly from Memphis to Chicago to China but her flight from Memphis to Chicago was cancelled. Which was ridiculous! She had to stand in line for hours while my dad was on the phone in China with the airlines (at 1am) trying to get her on different flights. Luckily she managed to get to Chicago and spent one night with us before going out to Beijing. It was nice to see her again, even if it was only for one night. She and the family went to Singapore after Christmas. I was so jealous of them! They did a lot of shopping, eating, and sight seeing at all the places that we used to regularly go to when we lived there. :( They even had to suffer through the normal downpours so they didn't get to swim that much. I, of course, spent way too much $$ on Christmas presents. Did most of my shopping in a couple of days but did wait until the 23rd to buy my last gifts for Mike's mom and grandma. I worked for four hours Christmas Eve day, which I didn't really mind. I didn't do much work and it was easy money. Then Christmas Eve Mike and I went to his grandparents' for their usual Christmas gathering. Had a real yummy dinner and then opened gifts. I was pretty nervous about my gifts but I think his mom and grandma liked them. I got a gift certificate to Kohl's from Mike's oldest sister (yay!), a Gloria Jean's coffee mug and gift certificate and coffee to go with it (but I don't have a coffee maker to make it in!) from Mike's mom, and a christmas decorative trinket type thing from Mike's grandma. I feel like I got something else but can't remember what at the moment! After the party went over to Mike's grandparents and hung out there for awhile. On our way over to Mike's parents we had a little car accident because of the fog. We could only see a few feet in front of the car due to the fog and lack of stree lights (keep in mind that this is out in the countryside). We thought we were turning into the driveway of Mike's parents but Mike turned too early and drove into the ditch. Luckily we and the car were fine but the guys had to push the car out. I, of course, was wearing open healed shoes and had to step in a 1/2 foot of snow to get out of the car and then walk up their long drive; that wasn't fun (yeah, I'm a big baby!). Mike was pretty embarrassed about it but, really, it could've been a lot worse given the lack of visibility so we were pretty lucky. I didn't get home that night until 1am. I was exhausted. Then I woke up really early the next morning to call my parents and sisters to wish them a Merry Christmas. My aunt went to volunteer at a women's shelter for most the day so we didn't exchange gifts until the evening. She got me some Mary Kay lotions and perfume (love the perfume; it's called Belara-love the name!) and a hemp shirt (yeah, rather interesting). She made us a nice dinner.
Had Monday off and...can't remember what I did! :P I think I just lazed around. Didn't do much during the week except work. Friday night, Linnae and I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha. It was REALLY good. I haven't read the book so I wasn't really sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. It doesn't glamorize the whole geisha phenomenon but it really shows how it negatively affects the lives of the girls and women caught up in it. While, of course, it's fictionalize, I'm sure that a lot of it is accurate. Plus, it had a happy ending, which I really liked. Linnae gave me the book (as well as a nonfiction book about geisha). I'm only on pg 15 but hopefully I'll get around to finishing it (as opposed to doing what I usually do, which is get halfway through a book and then move on to a different one). I hear it's really good and obviously it's going to provide a lot more detail than the movie. New Year's eve day my Aunt Barb+family came over. It was really nice to see them. They seem to be holding up well despite the hardships they have and will go through. New Years eve Mike and I went over to his sister's for her annual holiday party. We played games, ate lots of food, and drank a lot. Mike and I crashed on the floor in her basement around 3:30. I slept horribly and then I had to rush home on Sunday to prepare for the rest of my family to come over. I was a bit hungover, dead tired, and stinky (didn't have time to shower before they all came over because my aunt barb et. al. were hogging the showers...grrr). But, despite it all, I had a lot of fun seeing my family since we hardly ever get together. They stayed for 9 hours though-way too long if you ask me since we still had to clean up afterwards. I slept like the dead for 12 hours and then took a 2 hour nap only a half an hour after waking up on Monday (didn't help that it was cloudy/rainy out-perfect day to lay in bed). Lazed around in bed all day on Monday but unfortunately, my sleep schedule is all wacked now. Work has been rough this week due to that.
Wow...that was rather longwinded and absolutely uninteresting! What can I say, my life isn't that interesting. I think that's about it. I never officially made a New Year's resolution but I think it'll be to not be so selfish with my free time and try to hang out with friends more. That'll be really hard for me since I LOVE my free time and my personal space. Don't really have any major plans yet for the coming year. Hopefully Mike and I will consider going on vacation somewhere together. And I definitely hope that my family comes back this summer (although, if they do, the house is going to be REALLY cramped).
I hope that everyone had a great holiday season and I wish you all a GREAT new year!! :)
My new position has been quite interesting. I really enjoy most of the work. It involves a lot of research and investigative (for lack of a better word) work. The team I work on is very close-knit. Haven't had a chance to get to know a lot of them yet because this past month has been very busy for everyone-what with having classes start on the 1st. Hopefully I'll get to know them all soon. I also get a lot more useful information in this department (in my previous department we either wouldn't get the information or find out about it weeks/months after the fact). There are also a lot of interesting, challenging, special projects that we get to work on. I just finished creating the spreadsheet that will be used for our monthly reports. I really enjoyed it since I like tinkering around with creating documents like that. Probably the one main thing that I really don't like about this new position is that a lot of our returning students have major (real or imagined) issues/problems. So, quite a few are very angry, difficult students. I don't deal well with anger and confrontation. I have a tendency to avoid it, which isn't good in a professional, work setting. So, this is definitely going to be a learning experience for me. A stressful, learning experience. I've already had several tense situations that I probably didn't deal with that well but I'm determined to do better! :) Right now we are at a lull at work. Since classes just started a few days ago, we are just wrapping things up. Work has been rather slow and boring. But that'll change since classes start again on 2/5 so I'm sure we are going to get super busy again in a couple of days. I'd rather be busy than bored. Busy means the day goes by fast and there are more opportunities for overtime! :) Another really great thing is that the girl I trained when I became a team lead has been taken off of audits by the manager and is now a permanent employee. :) It's a big accomplishment and its a great feeling knowing that I played a very important role in helping become a perm. employee. Although, it would've been better if it had happened before I had moved to the new department but oh well!
Well, enough about work; I'm sure that's rather boring! :) Had a great Christmas and New Years. Only downside was that my parents and sisters weren't here to celebrate. Christy flew out to China carrying mine and my aunt's gifts to the family with her (which was rather convenient). Felt really bad for her because she was going to fly from Memphis to Chicago to China but her flight from Memphis to Chicago was cancelled. Which was ridiculous! She had to stand in line for hours while my dad was on the phone in China with the airlines (at 1am) trying to get her on different flights. Luckily she managed to get to Chicago and spent one night with us before going out to Beijing. It was nice to see her again, even if it was only for one night. She and the family went to Singapore after Christmas. I was so jealous of them! They did a lot of shopping, eating, and sight seeing at all the places that we used to regularly go to when we lived there. :( They even had to suffer through the normal downpours so they didn't get to swim that much. I, of course, spent way too much $$ on Christmas presents. Did most of my shopping in a couple of days but did wait until the 23rd to buy my last gifts for Mike's mom and grandma. I worked for four hours Christmas Eve day, which I didn't really mind. I didn't do much work and it was easy money. Then Christmas Eve Mike and I went to his grandparents' for their usual Christmas gathering. Had a real yummy dinner and then opened gifts. I was pretty nervous about my gifts but I think his mom and grandma liked them. I got a gift certificate to Kohl's from Mike's oldest sister (yay!), a Gloria Jean's coffee mug and gift certificate and coffee to go with it (but I don't have a coffee maker to make it in!) from Mike's mom, and a christmas decorative trinket type thing from Mike's grandma. I feel like I got something else but can't remember what at the moment! After the party went over to Mike's grandparents and hung out there for awhile. On our way over to Mike's parents we had a little car accident because of the fog. We could only see a few feet in front of the car due to the fog and lack of stree lights (keep in mind that this is out in the countryside). We thought we were turning into the driveway of Mike's parents but Mike turned too early and drove into the ditch. Luckily we and the car were fine but the guys had to push the car out. I, of course, was wearing open healed shoes and had to step in a 1/2 foot of snow to get out of the car and then walk up their long drive; that wasn't fun (yeah, I'm a big baby!). Mike was pretty embarrassed about it but, really, it could've been a lot worse given the lack of visibility so we were pretty lucky. I didn't get home that night until 1am. I was exhausted. Then I woke up really early the next morning to call my parents and sisters to wish them a Merry Christmas. My aunt went to volunteer at a women's shelter for most the day so we didn't exchange gifts until the evening. She got me some Mary Kay lotions and perfume (love the perfume; it's called Belara-love the name!) and a hemp shirt (yeah, rather interesting). She made us a nice dinner.
Had Monday off and...can't remember what I did! :P I think I just lazed around. Didn't do much during the week except work. Friday night, Linnae and I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha. It was REALLY good. I haven't read the book so I wasn't really sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised with the movie. It doesn't glamorize the whole geisha phenomenon but it really shows how it negatively affects the lives of the girls and women caught up in it. While, of course, it's fictionalize, I'm sure that a lot of it is accurate. Plus, it had a happy ending, which I really liked. Linnae gave me the book (as well as a nonfiction book about geisha). I'm only on pg 15 but hopefully I'll get around to finishing it (as opposed to doing what I usually do, which is get halfway through a book and then move on to a different one). I hear it's really good and obviously it's going to provide a lot more detail than the movie. New Year's eve day my Aunt Barb+family came over. It was really nice to see them. They seem to be holding up well despite the hardships they have and will go through. New Years eve Mike and I went over to his sister's for her annual holiday party. We played games, ate lots of food, and drank a lot. Mike and I crashed on the floor in her basement around 3:30. I slept horribly and then I had to rush home on Sunday to prepare for the rest of my family to come over. I was a bit hungover, dead tired, and stinky (didn't have time to shower before they all came over because my aunt barb et. al. were hogging the showers...grrr). But, despite it all, I had a lot of fun seeing my family since we hardly ever get together. They stayed for 9 hours though-way too long if you ask me since we still had to clean up afterwards. I slept like the dead for 12 hours and then took a 2 hour nap only a half an hour after waking up on Monday (didn't help that it was cloudy/rainy out-perfect day to lay in bed). Lazed around in bed all day on Monday but unfortunately, my sleep schedule is all wacked now. Work has been rough this week due to that.
Wow...that was rather longwinded and absolutely uninteresting! What can I say, my life isn't that interesting. I think that's about it. I never officially made a New Year's resolution but I think it'll be to not be so selfish with my free time and try to hang out with friends more. That'll be really hard for me since I LOVE my free time and my personal space. Don't really have any major plans yet for the coming year. Hopefully Mike and I will consider going on vacation somewhere together. And I definitely hope that my family comes back this summer (although, if they do, the house is going to be REALLY cramped).
I hope that everyone had a great holiday season and I wish you all a GREAT new year!! :)