hope y'all had a merry christmas! i've spent the last fifteen minutes or so checking all my email accounts - weird to not have it just delivered to my desktop - i have to go out and visit three different websites to get all my mail. nothing too important really, but who's sending out email at this time of the year?
after a huge storm when nick and i were coming into austin (part of which found us stopping at probably the only gas station in austin without a covering to get my luggage out of the back of the truck and out of the downpour), mom, sis and i had a rather uneventful trip to ca. christmas was a huge blur - we went to sleep after our flight, got up, and it was christmas eve. we didn't even make it to midnight mass as we talked late into the night with the family. odd - i don't think i've missed midnight mass in years.
christmas day we opened presents then headed up to see my dad's side of the family. the cousins are rather scattered - we only see one or two of them at a time. andrea was there this time, darin and his family had the stomach flu (stay home!), and i've not seen justin in years. it was great to see everyone, and there was even a surprise visit from one of my distant cousins who hadn't been to one of these in ages. it was definitely more fun than i've had at the christmas day shindig in a while. ;)
well, back to work with me - you probably won't hear from me again until after jan 6 when i get back to tx.
so, happy new year!
i shouldn't eat large lunches - i get sleepy. so here i sit at my desk, trying to stay awake. maybe i should clean off my desk. or something.
two more days until the first of my company! four more days until graduation! seven more days until vacation! yay!
rain.
*looks again*
rain.
*looks again*
rain.
okay. i'm getting a bit tired of rain. oh, it's really not that bad, except for when i have to work. being at home and able to curl up in bed and sleep would be great. but rain while i'm at work? i have to walk out in it to go home. ick. :p and i really need to stop by the grocery store today to get hair gel. i've even scraped all of it from the inside of the bottle - i'm at desparation stage now.
but i really don't want to go out in the cold and rain.
i still can't believe i don't have to do school work anymore. it's really nice. :)
i'm done! i'm done! no more finals, no more school! it's all i can do to keep from dancing through the halls. i don't have to study...i don't have to do homework...no more tests.
i'm done. :)
after spending 9 hours on it yesterday, we finally finished out project for requirements elicitation and gave our presentation this morning. thankfully we got to go first again, so our customer wasn't falling asleep yet. three presentations on the same thing can get rather old, i do think.
my next, and last, final is tomorrow - negotiations. hopefully i'll do okay. i'm actually a little worried, but at this point, i'm fighting an 'i don't care' kind of attitude. i'm burnt out.
i have a busy week, but i sure hope i get a chance to wade through my inbox. and now the dean wants us to redesign before break. yeah. to look "more corporate." yeah. now all of a sudden i'm comforted that i didn't design the site. ;) and i think he means "stuffy" when he says corporate, because all of the corporate sites i was told to look at are yellow, red, bright blue, orange...not boring in the least. well, that is except for www.pepsico.com.
anyway - it's always something. back to work for me. :)
i'm tired. yesterday morning found me at a seminar given by eva archer-smith, an executive coach. most of it was things i'd heard before, but needed to hear again. in the afternoon, with all the meetings i had, i ended up working about an hour and a half. last night i went to houston for my last hammered dulcimer lesson of the year. somehow, i think it's starting to click...
this morning i had class (two more days of classes left!), this afternoon the mays celebration. looks like i have about 2 1/2 hours to get some work done. too bad all i want to do is go home and take a nap. :p
maybe this weekend i'll finally get around to unpacking my suitcases. maybe.
leaving really is almost not worth it - there's so much catching up to do when you get back. at least i was smart and stopped all my listservs, so i didn't have 300 e-mail messages waiting for me when i got back. of course, i just happened to think that i haven't started them up again yet, either. :)
and i'm very scatterbrained. i've been writing this for about 10 minutes - a sentence here, a sentence there... pieces of paper on my desk kinda leap out at me and i feel the need to shuffle through them. there's really got to be a better way so i don't lose them.
anyway, i wrote a little bit while on my trip. here are the excerpts:
(11/26/02)
Amazing how chipper and cheerful everyone was at the Austin airport today. I met only one grouch - a man getting on the shuttle. Other than that, I was directed straight to an open lot, caught the shuttle in, walked staight up to the ticket counter, checked in, then went through security. A pleasant experience!
I was working on my mom's scrapbook and an older lady sat down next to me & we started chatting. Turns out she is also an Episcopalian & she goes to church & lives in Temple. We sat next to each other on the plane & talked some more - about life, religion, travelling, and reading. I have to admit, it made me feel like I was well-educated, having travelled where she had, read what she had... *gasp* does this make me an adult??
The layover gave me a chance to finish (to the extent that I could) my mom's scrapbook. My flight was delayed a little bit, and parts of the flight were rather bumpy. I was definitely ready to be off the plane.
(11/27/02)
It's amazing what you learn about people if you just ask. I learned that my grandmother's husband was born in Chechleslovakia, that he served in WWII in the army, that he has great-grandchildren. I think this genealogy stuff is going to be fun...
{end snippets}
well, the genealogy stuff *has* been tons of fun. i just entered it into my computer program last night and did a little bit of research into when a few people died. it's amazing what you can find out on the internet! i've got most of a generation of somners accounted for - i think i'm missing death information for one or two of the siblings. thank goodness for the family bible! :)
anyway, back to work with me. seems like i have a ton of stuff to do, but i keep telling myself that after next tuesday, i'm completely done with school. :) :) :) completely!! (well, graduation doesn't count!)