My Lack of Physics Bites Me in the Butt Again

Every once in a while I think maybe I should go back to school and take something completely different. One of the things I've thought about a couple of times is Applied Chemistry. I took the intro chem courses as part of my first degree and I didn't do too badly. I also find chemistry kind of interesting. And mixing things to create new things? Awesome.

So I looked into it a little farther, and in order to do the industrial chemistry option I'd have to take physics. I didn't take physics in high school because my high school physics teacher was kind of a jerk. And I didn't take the prep courses in University because well why would I spend $300 for 0 credit courses that prepare you for courses you don't need to take?

So no physics means no Applied Chemistry. I'll just have to come up with something else.

Missed Opportunites

Last night's election filled me with an odd sense of nostalgia. When I was in university I had a little stalker. Actually he wasn't a stalker at all. He was just this guy in one of my classes who liked to walk me to my bus and talk about how well I would fit in with his family and friends. Okay so it was a little strange. But he was from Texas and so we shared alot of ideology. Maybe it's just because I'm going through a bit of a dry spell but I kind of miss those days. A least it was nice to have someone who agreed with me around once and a while. Anyway I guess the point is clearly he liked me and well it's been a long time since I found someone who really liked me. So uh yeah.

The New Crush

I would like to believe that at some point in the five years it took me to escape from university with my degree I had grown up just a little. Perhaps in some ways I have. I’ve learned a lot more about who I am and what I feel passionately about. However I do have this one terrible pattern that keeps repeating.

My first year of university I went through five crushes, not to mention my numerous crushes on celebrities. Second year I did a little better, there were only three. I would like to tell you that I had outgrown this pattern but sadly not. I just hope that now I’m a little better at hiding it. But maybe not that either.

Until last week I probably would have said that I’m too old to be having crushes but I think that as we get older we just expand our vocabulary and call it something else, or maybe we want to believe that our feelings are either something more or something less.

Okay wow talk about be a little wordy this is really getting away from me. Here’s the deal, you already know about my first two office crushes, which really could be expanded to four if you count office hotness (which I don’t) and my fleeting interest in someone who now makes me cringe every time I think about it. Anyway I’ve moved on to a third. Details are still not quite clear to me, and it’s probably yet another case of me over analyzing a situation. But I’ll keeping you posted as things continue to develop.

Freedom

I wrote the last of my accounting tests today. I am now done my accounting course. I'm so happy. Of course I'm still going to have to wait for a mark on this test and I'm pretty sure it's going to be ugly but thems the brakes I guess. I know I really ought to have studied more for this test but I just got to the point where I didn't care.

The next order of business it determining which course to take next. I've done a lot of focus lately on HR stuff and management which I thought would be a good career move but is really useless considering that that is what my degree was all about so I'm thinking something more practical. Either Swine Disease prevention, Swine nutrition or Cattle Nutrition. I could always take a second spreadsheets course. The first one only took a month to do.

For right now I'm taking a little break. I'll start the next course in July or maybe August. I hope to be done my certificate in September and then I'll try to take a course at the University by distance ed, or maybe evening depending on what I can get into.

The greed of my generation.

Excuse me while I get up on my soap box for a minute. If you don't want to be offended then perhaps you'd best not read this particular entry but I think it needs to be said.

First of all I'd like to say that while it's going to seem hypocritical of me to say the things I'm about to say but more than anything it's actually an observation about the things that I need to change in my life. Alright here we go.

Yesterday I was talking to one of my co-workers who is considering going back to school. She has both financial and time constraints to completing here education. She tells me she can't afford it right now but she wants to be done her education by the time she's 30. This prompted me to think about the way all of the people of my generation are living.

I once read an article that said the the average Canadian is spending $1.25 for every $1.00 that they earn. When I first read this I was in University and quickly justified this by saying I'm in debt right now I'm spending $10,000 a year and earning about $7,000 a year at best, every other student in the country is in the same situation. Now that I'm out in the "real world" I realize that this is not just a problem for students.

Having watched my brother struggle with debt, I swore up and down that I would not live paycheck to paycheck once I got a job. However now that my roommate had moved out and I'm paying all of my expenses myself I realize that perhaps I'm living beyond my means. It's not that I don't have enough money to pay for my basic needs I can easily pay rent and grocery bills but it's all of the other little things.

My first thought was "where is all my money going? What can I live without?" For example do I really need high speed Internet at home? Yes. Do I need to have the largest range of channel packages on TV? Also yes. Do I need to buy Starbucks coffee every morning? probably not.

While this is not an extensive list of all of the money that I spend in a month. It made me think about all of the things that I have and all of the things that I want that are strictly for my own enjoyment or convenience. But when did it become nearly impossible to live on a salary of $40,000? Hell I lived on a fraction of that while I was in school and some of that went to pay tuition.

Another thing I've noticed at my company is the length of time that people stay here. Recently some of my co-workers have celebrated 30 or more years at my company. While it's listed as one of the top companies in the province very few people of my generation intend to stay here for any length of time. So what's the difference. Some would call it ambition, the desire to move up to a better job even if it means changing companies. The problem with this is that the ambition is less the desire to move to a better job and more to move to a better paying job. No longer is it desirable to be the "company man".

I really do have more to say on this topic, things like the idea that it is the "right" of young people to attain higher levels of eduction. But I think I've been up here long enough. Time to get down from the soap box before I fall off.

The tough choices in life.

Most of you know that I graduated from university in the spring. With graduation comes the convocation ceremonies. I skipped my spring convocation ceremony thinking that I would go to the fall one. Yesterday I realized that my convocation is on the same day as the Colts/Patriots game. Which is quite possibly the biggest regular season game of the year. Particularly if both teams remain undefeated.

Convocation starts at 3:00, game starts at 3:15. So there is no way that convocation will be over by the time the game start. What's a girl to do?

The boys at work looked at me like I was crazy when I told them this. They said it was an easy decision. I should mention here though that 2/3 of them are Colts fans.

I know the game will be re-broadcast later in the week on NFL network but I also know that the boys at work will be discussing the game on Monday. Gah!

Dreaming of high school

Okay I haven't been in high school for a while and I hated every second I spent there but last night I had a dream about people I went to school with. Strange. It's funny because it's the sort of thing that totally could have happened logically based on things that actually did happen in high school but I know it didn't just because of the cast of characters. People always told me that high school was going to be the best time of my life. I never believed them but obviously there's something I still miss about the place.

Even stranger than dreaming about people I knew in high school is when I start dreaming about people that I know from college and then mix them in with people I knew in high school. This is strange because even though I left home most of the people I went to school with didn't. In fact I saw them at a social a couple of weeks ago and things are exactly the same. It's the same people hanging out with the same people, doing the same things. It's kind of sad actually.