You have some really good ideas in this article "A Long Delayed Update". I am glad I read this. I agree with much of what you state in this article. Your information is thought-provoking, interesting and well-written. Thank you.
July 06, 2013 3:07 AM
So, have we been busy? Yes. Abnormally so, even for us? Yes. Is this truly something you didn't expect from me? No.Going back to school is a great thing (I think) but it certainly has cut down on the amount of time I have for hobbies, one of which is updating this blog. I've found I'm spending ~8 hrs/week on the school stuff just to keep up with lectures. That doesn't include time reading the textbook, or working on assignments. Speaking of which, I turned in all three of my term papers yesterday. Yes, you read that righ, three term papers for one course. All due within a week of the final. Which I'm taking Monday. Wish me luck. I know I'm better prepared for it than I was for the midterm, but there is an incredible amount of detail to be absorbed. In just this half term, we covered 40 techniques. All of which I need to understand how they work, what they measure, in what range etc. I see a stack of cuecards coming. Actually, I've started on them, which is how I know there are 40 of them! The hard part is figuring out what needs the rote memorization... Remind me again why I wanted to go back to school?So, with that time sink, there went most of my crafting time. I have one stitching project going, which is a Christmas gift, and so should be posted soon, except it's been stashed somewhere from our madcap trip home*. I'm really hoping I haven't left it at my MIL's house because if I did, it certainly won't be done! I haven't been taking time to stitch so I could get school stuff done. I've been so slack on birthday cards this year it's disgusting. Maybe during term break (three whole weeks off!) I'll premake a bunch of them. And my Google Reader is just informing me I have >1000 things awaiting me... I'm afraid to know how many more!*Madcap trip home. So, my plan for Thanksgiving weekend was to have 4 days to study, write my term papers, and finish the stitchy gift. Brian would be working a lot of it and I'd have the place to myself. Except they've just changed his boss at Gamestop (another long story there, grrrrrrrr) and Brian wasn't scheduled at all. So suddenly we had a 4 day weekend, haven't been home since a weekend trip in April, and wouldn't be able to go home over Christmas. Hrm… Well, I'd have 24ish hours in the car to study… and if I can buy my birthday present early** I can use it to listen to lectures while driving, adding in extra review… But we certainly hadn't budgeted for a trip home, and hotels at home are EXPENSIVE if we want to stay somewhere you don't have to worry about catching something from the sheets… Enter Mikey, best friend from highschool and his awesome wife Jan, who out of the blue offered for us to stay with them and their daughters at their new house. A trip home, no hotel costs, fabulous downtime with Mikey, Jan, ,L and M (as opposed to normal quick trips home where we don't have time to visit with friends) and I was sold. As expected, it was mostly a mad rush, but we had a great time and are very glad we went. I even took part of a morning and got one of the three papers half written at Mike's table. Mean Brian wouldn't let me go to Costco for the chocolate run until I had. Grr. Not that it surprises me, but Brian was astounded Mike's daughter L remembered Brian from the last time we saw them. At Disneyworld two years ago when she was 3. It's amazing watching them grow up. We were supposed to meet up with them at WDW again this year, but then had to change the dates of the trip so we missed them, and we were not happy about that aspect! When I'm not posting by email, I have photos of all the neices and nephews to share since we got to see all of them. Brenden seems like he's finally recovering more fully from his case of H1N1. Fingers crossed.**Yes, I chose my own birthday present. And bought it, opened it and started using it before my birthday. Live with it mom! :P We'd bought an iPod Touch before our last trip to Disney for Brian to use on the plane. He's so terrified of flying it's nuts, and anything that distracts is good. But we were already having to haul my gigantic laptop (silly Florida schools go back in August. AUGUST!) and didn't want to carry a dvd player along as well. Yes, we could have used the laptop, but the battery isn't *that* great, even if it does weigh a ton. Besides, the Touch has games, movies, music, internet (wifi) and fun! Not to mention a great app with all the Disney restaurants with menus and meal plan options in it. But then we started feeling guilty about the cost. And were glad we bought it from Costco since they (as expected) released new versions the week after we got back. We returned the original one. And I've missed it ever since. My lectures this term are all provided online, and conveniently come in a format designed specifically for iPods. And my slides are all .pdf's, which can also be accessed on the touch. So I bought myself a shiny new 8GB iPod Touch for my birthday. I used my $20 in GC's I'd saved, and a 10% off coupon I'd earned to make it even more reasonable. Go me! I'd have liked the larger size, but we don't really need it. As it stands right now, I've got half my term's lecture videos, all the slides, an 800 page textbook, far too many games, 1 movie, and ~650 songs on it. So Brian got to listen to all 17 hours of lecture from this half term during the drive to Canada and back. His main comment: How do I keep the alphabet soup straight? :) -- It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney
"A Long Delayed Update"
4 Comments -
It was great to have you come home for Thanksgiving.
December 11, 2009 10:23 AM
Good luck wiht your exam. I'm sure you will do really well on it.
December 14, 2009 9:25 AM
Hope the exam went OK. :0)
December 22, 2009 12:38 PM
You have some really good ideas in this article "A Long Delayed Update". I am glad I read this. I agree with much of what you state in this article. Your information is thought-provoking, interesting and well-written. Thank you.
July 06, 2013 3:07 AM