Another semester come and gone

Finally done with another semester, well, almost just need to write a paper for my research project. It is amazing how some days I feel such a sense of accomplishment and others I feel like the road ahead is never ending. I am excited about some things ahead of me in my studies but I am also looking forward to graduating and getting out into the workforce again. Right now, I am just looking forward to having the next couple of weeks off although it probably will go by quick with the holidays and preparing for next semester.

Struggles

I had one of my moments yesterday when I wondered what I was doing. I was sitting in the computer lab with a bunch of kids cramming for my final that started in a few minutes when a discussion started among the kids as to what year they graduated. It struck me that I was a decade older than some of them, it was rather depressing. Seems I have never been able to get things quite right, when I was growing up I was so anxious to be older that I skipped a lot of being a kid to act like an adult. Now that I am an adult I am trying to go back and do the things I should have done when I was younger. Trouble is, it was always easier to fit in with people older than me than younger than me which makes the gap appear that much larger. I have come too far to stop now but I have to admit sometimes I think about it, I had a good job with a good company where I was moving up quickly but that wasn't enough for me, sigh. Sometimes I wonder how I will be able to handle it when Baileigh comes to me for advice when I have made so many bad decisions in my life, I suppose the only thing I can do is try to use my experience to try to help her avoid making the same mistakes I did. I just hope that one day I can be someone who is worth looking up to for her rather than just an example of what not to do.

Updates

As usual the new semester at school is keeping me very busy, I am taking Organic Chemistry, Genetics, and a couple of labs which put me at school every day during the week. Jeremy and I decided this winter that Baileigh was ready to start snowboarding and so we invested in getting us all outfitted for that and headed up to Monarch. I was afraid Baileigh was going to be scared but that fear turned out to be completely unfounded, the girl had no fear at all! We have been up twice now and she is getting really good. The other skiers and snowboarders are really great with her, they cheer for her and tell her what a great job she is doing, it has been really fun. Dad and Jasmine went with us the last time and Jasmine tried snowboarding the first time, she did a great job as well though she says she wants to try skiing next time. Dad watched Baileigh for Jeremy and I so that we could go do a run on our own, I am suspicious that Jeremy took out a life insurance policy on me as he decided to take me down a black diamond that I had no business on with this being my fifth or sixth time ever snowboarding! Worse yet, this run happened to be right under one of the lifts making my embarrassing attempt at this run very public, people on the lift were actually heckling me yelling things like, you can do it! At one point I actually got buried above my knees in powder and couldn't move, pure entertainment for the hecklers. Eventually I managed to dig myself out and in trying to recover some of my pride actually did a decent job of getting the rest of the way down the run, I assure you it was not skill that allowed me to do a decent job but pure stubbornness and a desire to regain some dignity that was larger than my fear. We all enjoyed the rest of our day and made it home in one piece and we are hoping to get out again the weekend after next. Besides the snowboarding Baileigh has been taking swim lessons twice a week and doing martial arts once a week. She is doing well with both and even took third place in a martial arts tournament last weekend. The swimming still needs some work as she struggles with having enough confidence in herself but I am hoping that comes around soon. She is currently deciding whether she wants to do soccer in the spring or go back to doing ballet. I will try to post some more photos and videos soon.

End of Semester and the Holidays

My semester officially ended on December 11th with my last (and most difficult) final of the year. That was one semester I was glad to be done with and while I was sure the semester was ending in complete and utter disaster I ended respectably with a B in one class and A's in the rest so while I was sad to see my 4.0 go down, I felt I performed well considering the difficulty of the classes and the obstacles I had to overcome during the semester. Baileigh had her last day of school and Jeremy had his last day of work today and are now both on a short vacation too and I am looking forward to some family time over the next week. My next semester starts January 11th and is shaping up to be a monster with 8 hours of lab a week plus another 8 hours of lecture! We had a sad week this past week as we dealt with the loss of one of our dogs. Bear passed away in his sleep and it was hard to say goodbye. Bear started as my dog before I had even met Jeremy then became our dog after we got married and then our family dog after Baileigh was born. He was a good dog and we will miss him.

Finals

I haven't been doing a great job of posting but there has been a lot going on lately. We are approaching the end of the semester and that means time for finals. On top of reviewing everything from this semester, one of my finals is going to be cumulative over 2 semesters which means I have to go back and study all the things I dumped from my brain between semesters! On top of that I had surgery on my right wrist last Monday so writing and typing have been difficult. I have no idea when I am going to do Christmas shopping as I have not even accomplished shopping for Baileigh's birthday which is next Sunday. Ugh, crazy time of year! Finals, and Christmas, and Birthdays, Oh My!

Can't we have an extra 8 hours a day?

Busy, Busy, Busy and only going to get worse. Friday was Baileigh's parent teacher conference and first ever report card. She did very well receiving perfect marks in her morning class and nearly perfect marks in her afternoon class. Both of her teachers were very complimentary and said she was a joy to have in class. I in the meantime have not been the best student, I have not been to classes since last Wednesday! I took Friday off to hang out with Baileigh since she did not have school and then she was sick today so I missed classes again. I have an exam on Friday that I am likely to fail after missing so many lectures. Baileigh's last soccer game was on Saturday so that will open up some time but I have also signed on to become an Arbonne consultant which I am excited about but will definitely take up that time that just opened up. I signed up for next semesters classes and will be taking 16 credit hours, 3 labs, and I will be there every day of the week! Crazy, but I am ready to be done and trying to get it knocked out I wrote out a tenative schedule and figured out that my last semester should be Spring 2012 so there is a very faint light at the end of the tunnel, of course it could just be an oncoming train..........

School Days and other misc

School is starting to go better than it started off for both myself and Baileigh. She is doing great, there is hardly a paper she brings home that she didn't get a 100% on and her cursive is looking really good. She has also had perfect behavior the past two weeks and seems to be making a lot of friends. I am really enjoying my Physics class and the lab too, I love playing with the toys in there. Chemistry is going better after a very rocky start so I hope to continue that and Statistics is a lot easier than I thought, in fact after calculus last semester, it is a breeze! Baileigh had her first soccer game and although her team lost I think it was more from a lack of coaching than a lack of talent, the poor girls had no idea what they were supposed to be doing, one of the girls on Baileighs team assisted in at least two of the goals the other team scored! Hopefully with some experience both they and their coach will figure things out! As far as Jeremy goes, work and everything is going good and he has now been a non-smoker for about 8 weeks so he is doing really well with that. That is about it for us, stay tuned for the next installment! :)