old school

When I said I was re-entering the web world, it’s coming to pass that I meant with a vengeance!

I’ve had to put the brakes on seeking more work because I’m so busy working on several pretty huge projects. (And man, I wish I could talk about them now but they’re still somewhat hush hush.) But I will say it’s exciting and I’m loving it.

I have become so re-involved with web development that I’ve had to get a new laptop. Actually, we needed LOTS of new computer equipment because there are huge changes, overall, within our household. I’ve always tended to run laptops into the ground pretty quickly – to say I’m a power user would be an understatement. My last laptop (a custom built Vaio) was about 5 years old and it had to go.  The specs for laptops always make my head spin – as does thinking I’ve found the right laptop and then reading a few bad reviews that touch upon something that’s often an issue for me. I couldn’t get a new Vaio because they’re no longer making them – it’s all about tablets now? But c’mon. Tablets do not work for the type of work many of us do.

So….. I finally did it. I finally went back to Mac.

And I effing love it. I started out on Macs over 15 years ago but due to my jobs (working in more conservative environments with a company that worked for very PC based companies), I went to PC for all that time. Lucky for us, timing worked out that we got all the latest and greatest – and I have to say, student discount, FTW! I even enjoy refreshing my coding skills – I had become a little too dependent on WYSIWIG editors (hello, Dreamweaver) over the years. But I refuse to spend money purchasing the stuff I already had PLUS this Creative Cloud thing irks the heck out of me. So text editor coding, old skool style, is my new way.

Everything old is new again!

Speaking of old and new – I have 13 days left of relative freedom before Fall quarter starts. Did I mention I got accepted into UW? Out of 5400 transfer applicants, they only took a little over a thousand and I was one of them. All that hard work wasn’t for nothing – AND I did it based on a transcript for which all the most recent classes were math & science. *High fives* for me.

Also, because I’m completely insane and a bit of an overachiever – when I heard that the major difference between a BS (bachelor of science) and BA (bachelor of arts) is that the BS is more difficult and involves harder math… well, yeah. I tried to talk myself out of it. Especially when a few alumni at orientation said that they wanted to go for the BS but switched when the math was too hard… well, yeah. YUP. Challenge, accepted. For what it’s worth, I’ve discovered I really enjoy math and I’m good at it. I’ve been told that the hard part about pre-calc is the algebra involved and I got an easy A in all algebra courses. I also got a B in the one precalc I took at community college – a B because I put in barely any effort. (There are two pre calc courses at community college that equal the one at UW. Since I didn’t know that at the time and only took the one, I have to take precalc at UW. I’ll manage.)

My concern is that I’m taking on too much. When I discovered that the precalc and biopsych courses I’d registered for counted as full time (10 credits), I thought… if I’m paying for full time anyway, then why not add the third. Save money in the long wrong and get done quicker. Two seems like a waste for that amount of tuition. So I added a class that I’m REALLY excited about – Law & Politics of International Human Rights.

I’ve given up on all travels for the next year or so, including the Costa Rica trip I’d signed up for. It was just too much money to put out right now – tuition AND retreat costs, plus, there’s too much panic involved in the idea of missing an entire week of classes (especially since I added the third class.) ALSO, husband is doing some big things with his work, too, and holding off on travel now, for the bigger picture, is the right thing.

But when I finish up with my B.S., we are taking a nice, big trip – I foresee visiting friends in my old home of Prague, as well as revisiting my beloved Spain. I cannot wait but it’s entirely worth the wait.

And I’ll need a nice big vacation because OF COURSE I’m already eyeing up the next step in college… Master’s, PhD, etc…

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