It's now late September, which makes me not a prolific blogger, but I hope to get going! September is a crazy month! School starting for me and the kids, activities gearing up and summer ending. This month we have started school, Brownies (I am now a leader and district treasurer), and piano lessons. We will be starting swimming next week and indoor soccer a couple weeks after that! I love the structure and predictability of the school year but could have used a break in between fall routines and summer fun for transition. The pool is down in the back yard, the cabin season is coming to a close.
Now let's talk about my academic progress - slow is a generous description. I'm planning to be completely done my degree, thesis submitted and printed by the end of June. To do that I'm going to need to start putting in some serious hours. Being productive during the hours would also greatly help!
To gear up for the new school year I tackled my home office. This is the before photo.
YIKES!!!
This is after.
Ahhhh - before school started!
and this is today - the command centre. Processing data on one computer and using the laptop for writing a paper. Every geeky engineer's dream!
Getting down to work. Next blog: Keeping my creative side alive!
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Sunday, 26 August 2012
The First Post
As I mention in my profile, I am currently in school. After some years as a consulting engineer, and many years as a manager of outreach and recruitment, I decided to go back to school. I have been a creative, craft-sy person for as long as I can remember. Engineering school slowed that down - just no time for hobbies. I did quite a bit of sewing, decorating and some scrap booking, and then we had our kids. We have two wonderful children: A (our eight year old girl) and J (our six year old boy). I am married to a wonderful man, W who is also an engineer. As we were starting to settle into a routine with the kids, their school and activities, them sleeping through the night, I thought I'd be able to become more active in some of my hobbies and pursue some hobbies I've been interested in for years. New hobbies I am interested in pursuing are: quilting, knitting and photography. While quilting is going to me my main focus of this blog, I am also going to talk about other pursuits like knitting, school and family.
That brings us to my current pursuit - keeping me from any hobby time - school. For several years I've been bored and unsatisfied with my career. I loved what I was doing, but I had done the same type of work for many years and was ready for a change. The problem was that I had a technical background and managerial experience, but the technical work was in the far past. While pursing various avenues, I had a chance to speak with a former engineering classmate of mine/current transportation engineering professor. She offered me a chance to pursue a Master's degree in transportation engineering - my first engineering love. After much consideration and a lot of support from W I decided to head back to school. This is the second time I've returned to school since I graduated from engineering in 1995. From 2000 to 2005 I did a management certificate while I worked and we started our family. Turns out management was a whole lot easier than a Master's in engineering! I have to say this Master's degree has kicked my butt!!! I've really struggled with the time management, the boundless content and the "new age" research tool: the Internet. I have been in school since one year, full time since January 2012 and will likely be done in June 2013. Eighteen months full-time for a 24 month program is very respectable, but definitely threatens my sanity.
What has been keeping me going is thoughts, dreams and plans of future time with hobbies, travel and most importantly my family.
That's it for the first post. Welcome, I hope you enjoy following my journey.
That brings us to my current pursuit - keeping me from any hobby time - school. For several years I've been bored and unsatisfied with my career. I loved what I was doing, but I had done the same type of work for many years and was ready for a change. The problem was that I had a technical background and managerial experience, but the technical work was in the far past. While pursing various avenues, I had a chance to speak with a former engineering classmate of mine/current transportation engineering professor. She offered me a chance to pursue a Master's degree in transportation engineering - my first engineering love. After much consideration and a lot of support from W I decided to head back to school. This is the second time I've returned to school since I graduated from engineering in 1995. From 2000 to 2005 I did a management certificate while I worked and we started our family. Turns out management was a whole lot easier than a Master's in engineering! I have to say this Master's degree has kicked my butt!!! I've really struggled with the time management, the boundless content and the "new age" research tool: the Internet. I have been in school since one year, full time since January 2012 and will likely be done in June 2013. Eighteen months full-time for a 24 month program is very respectable, but definitely threatens my sanity.
What has been keeping me going is thoughts, dreams and plans of future time with hobbies, travel and most importantly my family.
That's it for the first post. Welcome, I hope you enjoy following my journey.
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