Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Wednesday Nights

So, I had a dentist appointment Monday after work. What does that have to do with Wednesday nights? Well, other than having pearly whites to display in class presentations, it reminded me that I will be out of school (relatively) soon!!! The reason for the reminder was that she scheduled my 6 month checkup, and I was able to make it for WEDNESDAY in February, because I'll be DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!

But, here I am THIS Wednesday night sitting with some classmates waiting for 6PM to roll around. Not looking forward to the next 8 week class that begins tonight. From what we have heard, our teacher is a Russian lady who has no sense of humor, loves giving out busy work, and will keep us until 10PM every class. Blech. Already I've had to do 2 homework assignments for this class and turn them in...and it hasn't even officially started.

But hey, it won't last forever and I hope that International Business holds some interesting concepts for me to learn.

OH. The book. I've read the first two chapters of this book, and while it is an interesting read (for a textbook) I was shocked and disappointed to say the least when in the very first chapter he referenced (as actual footnote references) a previous work he had written, and Wikipedia. WTC!?!?! So, if he says it twice, in two different places, it must be true? I thought chapter 2 would be better, but 1 out of every 6 references were to books/papers the author had previously written. I think for this class I'm going to reference papers that I've already written.

Fun Times.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

End of Furlough

So, the furlough is over. Bad news is that I can't say that I met all of my ambitious goals I set at the beginning. The good news is that I met some that I should have had but didn't.

Cancun was GREAT!!! We had a lot of fun, and seeing the ocean was so nice. I miss the ocean. I seriously can't think of a better place to retire than somewhere I can smell that ocean smell, feel that ocean breeze. I'm sure all of the people who have been through hurricanes will probably disagree with me...but there have to be storms in life so we really enjoy the good parts, right?

On the descent back into Wichita, my right ear wouldn't pop despite chewing gum vigorously and drinking tomato juice (my drink of choice on an airplane, I'm not quite sure why). That set off a chain of events that included a bad sinus cold that I of course graciously shared with my wife. So we spent most of the week after Cancun recovering.

Then I started attacking my list of things to do. Didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to, but I did get the storage room cleared out and an entire car load of stuff taken to the Salvation Army.

Oh, and I'm typing this on Anna's macbook because mine is in the shop. :-( The superdrive wouldn't read data CD's so I had to take it in. Advice for anyone who buys a Mac...get the AppleCare!!! It's so nice to get it fixed for "free", but it sucks not having it. I am definitely attached to it.

Probably the most important thing during this time is that I was able to de-stress. It is truly amazing to me how low it takes to truly relax and let things go. The challenges of this economy and worrying about job security thankfully melted into the background during these four weeks.

I think I am going to really like retirement. :-)

Now I've been back to work for a few days, and I need to remember that my life is in God's hands, and I need to trust Him no matter what.