I can't help but feel a little sense of disappointment this year as people are sharing their movie and books for the year. My own is far shorter than usual, as I've had very little personal reading time. I go to the movies less often than when I was in the city, as well.
For the movie thing, when I found I had the time, I'd usually opt for a matinee. Well, the small theater we have here doesn't do weekday matinees. Meh. As a result, if I found I had a chunk of time, I'd spend it catching up on Bones, Glee and Big Bang Theory.
When it comes to reading, don't get me wrong, I did a TON of reading this year. For the past 4 months, however, it was assigned, and often textbooks. I'll admit that while I have a month off between semesters, I haven't even touched my Kindle, despite the fact it has a ton of good books loaded onto it, just waiting for me. Honestly, I have very little interest in reading an actual novel. I have, however, enjoyed several relatively-mindless magazines and am pretty caught up on a majority of my blog feeds. Baby steps. I do look forward to reading books for pleasure again, but it likely won't happen until summer.
Really, when it boils down to it, if I have the time and school is in session, I'm more likely to just take a nap or talk to other human beings.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
So Many Changes!
I figured I'd start out with a little about myself and all that's going on. I'm a newly wed, full-time student and musician, with more than her share of health challenges (chronic headache, back and joint pain, for starters), who loves spending time in the kitchen and prefers to eat healthily a majority of the time, though I have my foodie weaknesses.
I'm majoring in Childhood Education (grades 1-6). I'm officially a Junior, but I changed my major pretty drastically (I was a Music major my first time around), so it's going to take a few years to finish. I spent the last 4 years in NYC and loved it. I've always been a city girl, originally from the west coast, but I was already starting to think I'd head out of Manhattan soon for someplace slightly slower. At the time, I thought that would just be Brooklyn or Queens.
Last summer, I moved upstate for school and to be with my now-husband (then-fiancé). I figured it would be a lot more fair of me to move up here and live like a student than for my husband to move down there (he's from the area where we currently live). NYC would be a challenge on a lower budget. It's quite an adjustment for a city slicker like me, but not necessarily a bad one. There are plenty of pluses and minuses to this small-town life.
Prior to leaving the City, I lived in the tech world. I enjoyed some of the people a lot, but the work itself was burning me out a bit, so I wanted a change. Before the IS/IT career, I also spent many years in professional theatre (singing/acting/dancing). A really bad injury took out the dancing part and it was far less fulfilling after that, thus the career change to high tech (the only other thing I really knew how to do at the time- and the $$ was certainly good by comparison to that of a "starving" artist!). I still love to sing (I stick to jazz now), and continue to do so, but it's not my main focus any more. I find it's much more satisfying when I can pick and choose my gigs, rather than following the dollars.
For years, I'd told myself that if I won the lottery or something similar, I'd go back to school. I wanted to give back to the community and do something I really enjoyed. After a small bout of unemployment, and discovering I was burned out and very happy not being in that world any more, it occurred to me that I didn't necessarily need to hit the lotto in order to do something about this. So, I applied to one of the better, more competitive Education programs in the state and was accepted. I began last semester and am really enjoying myself! I've been working my butt off, but enjoying it.
In October, in the midst of my first semester back, I also married the love of my life. He's truly an amazing man. He's also been extremely supportive of my decision to go into the oh-so-lucrative field of teaching. He also happens to be an excellent study partner! Some may (and did) say that it was a bit of a crazy decision to plan a wedding to take place over the 3-day weekend of Fall Break (and during midterms, to boot), but we had fun surrounded by people we love and it wasn't nearly as stressful as it could have been. Thankfully, we have very good friends who helped ensure that!
I'm now on Winter Break and in recovery mode from the last few months. I was able to escape my first semester back with a 4.0 GPA. Whew! A few classes felt touch and go there for a bit.
I'll probably write about pretty much everything here.
I'm majoring in Childhood Education (grades 1-6). I'm officially a Junior, but I changed my major pretty drastically (I was a Music major my first time around), so it's going to take a few years to finish. I spent the last 4 years in NYC and loved it. I've always been a city girl, originally from the west coast, but I was already starting to think I'd head out of Manhattan soon for someplace slightly slower. At the time, I thought that would just be Brooklyn or Queens.
Last summer, I moved upstate for school and to be with my now-husband (then-fiancé). I figured it would be a lot more fair of me to move up here and live like a student than for my husband to move down there (he's from the area where we currently live). NYC would be a challenge on a lower budget. It's quite an adjustment for a city slicker like me, but not necessarily a bad one. There are plenty of pluses and minuses to this small-town life.
Prior to leaving the City, I lived in the tech world. I enjoyed some of the people a lot, but the work itself was burning me out a bit, so I wanted a change. Before the IS/IT career, I also spent many years in professional theatre (singing/acting/dancing). A really bad injury took out the dancing part and it was far less fulfilling after that, thus the career change to high tech (the only other thing I really knew how to do at the time- and the $$ was certainly good by comparison to that of a "starving" artist!). I still love to sing (I stick to jazz now), and continue to do so, but it's not my main focus any more. I find it's much more satisfying when I can pick and choose my gigs, rather than following the dollars.
For years, I'd told myself that if I won the lottery or something similar, I'd go back to school. I wanted to give back to the community and do something I really enjoyed. After a small bout of unemployment, and discovering I was burned out and very happy not being in that world any more, it occurred to me that I didn't necessarily need to hit the lotto in order to do something about this. So, I applied to one of the better, more competitive Education programs in the state and was accepted. I began last semester and am really enjoying myself! I've been working my butt off, but enjoying it.
In October, in the midst of my first semester back, I also married the love of my life. He's truly an amazing man. He's also been extremely supportive of my decision to go into the oh-so-lucrative field of teaching. He also happens to be an excellent study partner! Some may (and did) say that it was a bit of a crazy decision to plan a wedding to take place over the 3-day weekend of Fall Break (and during midterms, to boot), but we had fun surrounded by people we love and it wasn't nearly as stressful as it could have been. Thankfully, we have very good friends who helped ensure that!
I'm now on Winter Break and in recovery mode from the last few months. I was able to escape my first semester back with a 4.0 GPA. Whew! A few classes felt touch and go there for a bit.
I'll probably write about pretty much everything here.
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