I'm very cross

Haven't posted much.  I suck.  Sorry!

Saturday we had Nathan's birthday party, though his birthday was a week ago.  We had Ben and Julie over and played tabletop games.  It was a lot of fun!  Nathan and I made shrimp tacos with fresh mango salsa for dinner and I made a cheesecake with dark chocolate cookie crust and dark chocolate ganache.  I was very happy with how it came out.

...also, I made people wear pointed paper hats and I decorated with streamers and balloons.  If you're going to have a birthday party, you might as well have a birthday party!

Good news!  Both Nathan and I have received raises in the last week!!  This is just pure coincidence, since we don't work at the same place, but very nice.  Mine won't actually go into affect until the end of March.  At that point, I intend to purchase for myself a new scanner and new stamps will resume then!  I have a number of drawings just waiting to be scanned, but the attempts I made at Office Max and Staples were for naught, as they came out unusable.  Le sigh.

If you're curious what I've been working on while I'm not drawing, I've started posting pictures of my cross stitch projects to Tumblr.  I don't want to post them here, as they'll clutter the place, but I will post final projects.  If you want to see my WIPs, go here: Mayzy's Tumblr

Here's a taste of what you'll find there now, but for info on the details, you'll have to check Tumblr...

Unicorn'd

Came in this morning to find that my desk had been completely PLASTERED in unicorn pictures and the message, "MAY ROCKS" to celebrate my 6 year anniversary with the company.

Sometimes this job is really hard on me, but my team is so great.

Six Months

Went to Chompie's to celebrate the six month anniversary of our first date, the same place where we had our first date.

The food at Chompie's is always good.  Love that Chicken Matzo soup!  Had the grilled salmon sliders.  The salmon itself was tasty but it was kind of pathetic that they put cheap pre-made grocery store 'salad mix' on it.

Need to get around to putting away the Christmas tree...

Happy New Year

Working on being better about recording this year.  

I have been having the worst artist's block.  Not sure what to do about it.

Yesterday was nice.  Just sat around the house and with Nathan and watched Doctor Who reruns all day.  Then we went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.  Ok, the pizza sucked, but getting out with him was nice.

Today was the first day back to work and oh it was tiring.  I need to sleep early.

Wish me luck.

Elementary Algebra

I want to take the CLEP exam for Calculus to minimize the pre-pharm coursework I will need to do when I enroll at the University.  It's been forever since I've taken a math class, so I am currently re-teaching myself.

Here are my goals right now:

July - Learn Elementary Algebra

August - Learn Intermediate Algebra

September - Learn Pre-Calculus

October & November - Learn Calculus

December - Prepare specifically for the Calculus CLEP (practice exams, etc)

End of December - TEST!

Today I finished Chapter 1 of 10 of my Elementary Algebra textbook!  I spent basically the entirety of today working on math.  I'm going to have to be spending pretty much all my free-time on math because I want to score as HIGH as possible when I take that CLEP exam.  99 percentile, Baby!

Like a bolt from the blue

I have had a lot of tugging at me lately.  I want to stay in Phoenix, I want to go back to Montana.  I want a job that makes me happier, I don't want to lose the security and paycheck of my current job.  I want to continue my education, I am just not interested in Psychology.

A little background for those who do not know me well.

I got my Bachelor's degree from the University of Montana.  I started out in the Fine Arts department but... the Fine Arts department and I had differing definitions of quality and so I changed over to Psychology.  I really enjoyed some of my psychology classes, like Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, but found that most of it was such soft science as to border on touchy-feely nonsense. Sorry psychology.

By the time I realized that I really wanted to be in a more traditional science, I felt like it was too late, so I finished my degree in Psychology.  I figured there wasn't much call for someone with a degree in Biology anyway, and if there was it didn't pay well. (Mind you, this wasn't backed up by any real research, but was mostly my way of convincing myself that it was okay to stagnate.)

Fast forward 6-odd years.  I'm fortunate in my job that I can pursue a Master's degree with a steep discount, but the psychology classes I took just couldn't keep my interest.  My grades slipped and my motivation slipped faster.  I felt stuck.  I felt like I couldn't change programs and even if I could, none of the ones I had access to were any more interesting than Psychology.

Then my lovely friend gave me a pep-talk.  She told me how I didn't need to limit myself to what I had access to through work and that I needed to find what really sparked new hope and motivation in me, something I would be really happy doing, rather than getting a degree for the sake of having a degree.  Like what about Pharmacy?  It's in demand, pays great, and it's all chemistry and sciencey stuff.

Oh my god it pissed me off.

What did she know about me?  What did she know about my situation and the cold, hard facts of the real world anyway???

I resolved to put it out of my mind.  Get back to work.  Figure out a realistic plan... but it kept ticking away in the back of my mind.  Limiting myself.  What I really wanted to do.  Pharmacy... Pharmacy... Pharmacy...

To prove to myself that it was a stupid idea, I looked up the pharmacy program at my alma mater, back home where I intended to move soon anyway.  The list of classes made my little heart beat with excitement.  The program length, requirements and cost... all were mildly worrisome but definitely overcome-able.

Before I realized it, I was convinced.  Apparently my friend knows me pretty danged well after all.

So here's where I am now.

I'm planning to move back to Montana in January.

I plan to stay in Montana a year to get my in-state tuition again.

Then I will enter into the pre-pharm program, which is listed at 2 years but which I think I can shorten to a year between my transfer credits and some classes I intend to test out of during the break.  Also during the break, I will self-study for the PCAT and the other classes I have to take so that I will be able to earn a good, strong GPA and be a good candidate to get into the Pharm-D program.

Four years in Pharm-D and I'm set.

So now I'm sitting in the library, taking a short break from my algebra textbook.

I have to re-learn algebra so I can teach myself pre-calc so I can teach myself Calculus so I can test out of that course.

homigosh.

Books, books, books...

I've been doing a lot of reading lately.

Since I barely use this poor blog, I thought I'd at least record my book adventures here.

I recently reread

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

This is... perhaps my tenth time reading this book. I enjoy it for a good light read.  (Light read at 848 pages...)  I like it because the main characters are less people and more avatars of good, justice and wisdom.  They make mistakes, but their intentions are always pure and when they screw up, they acknowledge it and work to fix it.  A lot of people complain about this series for that exact reason, but I find it appealing.  It's like reading about super heroes only in fantasy.  Yeah, they're over-powered in some ways, but in the end I'm reading about someone I think I'd like to be like.  A lot of characters in modern fantasy literature kind of make me feel a little slimy and I certainly don't want to be them.

That said, I now skip over all the torture scenes.  Too much.

On that same note, I'm currently reading

Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind (982 p)

The sequel to Wizard's First Rule and also a book I've read many times.  I'm sort of easing my way through this series when I have some downtime away from the computer.  I'm about halfway done.

When I'm at the computer, I'm reading

Abraham & Mary Lincoln by Kenneth Winkle (162 p)

The school where I work has a very nice library online.  There are tons and tons of books on history and science and religion and whatnot.  I'm just in hog heaven browsing through the titles!  I'm about 1/3 of the way through this one but I'm eating it up.