hi guys! i've finally got the time to sit down, think, and pen my thoughts here. a lot has happened in the past year, so let's start with teh paul since there's relatively less to talk about.
teh paul's grant ended in may and for the past 4 years, he couldn't have an outside job per the grant's requirements. anyway, he started working as an intern at his current job. the president of the company is an instructor at school and has been trying to get him to work for him for like 7 years now... then with hard work and overwhelming votes of confidence they switched him to full time over the summer, and he began getting benefits etc. the fall semester came and went, and he and i had some final discussions regarding his PhD. trying to weigh out the pros and cons, versus the new full time position... it was a lot to think about, but in the end the conclusion was that it would be too much more time (minimum 2 years) before he'd get it finished if he kept at the current pace. not to mention the program he began writing to create simulations for his thesis is buggy, nowhere near complete, and hard to muddle through. so based on all of these things and some additional requirements by his major professor, it makes more sense for him to quit. additionally, his salary level would not change by much even if he did finish the PhD.
for me, it's been a roller coaster. i'm just shy of the 1 and half year mark and still trying to keep up. the end of 2015 was pretty crazy, i was on an internal project that quickly died, then literally thrown into training for a newer (more exciting) technology and started on the project just shy of a year ago, with no practical experience. it has been great! ^___^ anyway, 2016 for this project was crazy and i'm surviving my project. i felt awful the first couple months on this project. new to the technology, only ok at programming (at least by my standards... and yes i'm aware that i'm selling myself short here.), and my friends were being kicked off the project seemingly left and right. (literally there are only 3 devs in our office for this project now, and i'm one of them.) but i somehow have managed. there are a few things that i know i can attribute to how i've managed to hang in here.
first is previous experience -- working in groups, lots of them--between jobs and my extensive schooling. second is my two degrees, having both of them is actually pretty useful in hindsight even though i often discounted my first while working on my second. having both psychology and (loosely) business technology degrees has helped me quite a bit on this project. these give me a different perspective that a lot of my team members don't have. being able to see the whole picture, ask pertinent and very often overlooked questions, and understanding what the business or customer actually wants. i often feel like i have a more open view or understanding to how people (customers of the client) could potentially break the site because of oversights, or features or placements of objects that make a more logical sense from their perspective. and a third reason that is to a wayyyyy lesser extent and i'm probably a terrible person for thinking this --but i'll say it anyway-- is that i help diversify the team. i'll leave this one at that. =P
one last note regarding the roller coaster project, a huge takeaway that i have from this project is communication. if you've been reading any of my work- and planner-related posts in the past year, you've seen the many frustrations that i've had over the course of this project. and i'm fairly certain i've mentioned it on here before, every sunday at my great grandparents' house, pawpaw would always say 'the most important things in life are mutual communication and mutual respect'. as much as you don't really want to admit something like this growing up, he's right, the old-old soldier knew what he was talking about. anyway enough about actual goings on of the project.. last year was pretty exciting. i saw two promotions and raises. one of them significantly larger than the other, but the client thinks we're doing a good job and wanted it to happen. and i'm really grateful to them for that, as well as this roller coaster experience that i have both learned from and can use to better myself in the future.
and that brings us to today. 2017, a new year! i think i'll first start of with the blog situation. as some of you may have read my original post or can blatantly see across your entire screen..... i opted into google adsense, which doesn't really draw that much revenue since lol who and how many people actually come here? and that brings me to some new changes. not too long ago, i finally added the blog link to my instagram to get more exposure, considering i am paying for this domain. maybe eventually i'll get it more out to the family instead of this 'closet' business, but this is my first step at a pace i am comfortable with. secondly, i will try to continue to post at the current rate and pace that i had since last year. considering that my work project is exhausting, and i don't always want to be on the computer more than the 9 hours a day that i am already investing in my project. as for life goals or plans for this year, as i have gently beaten over the head in this post, we are making more money now, like two legit incomes. and with that, we are anticipating having saved a comfortable house down-payment by the summertime. for the past couple months or so, we've been casually looking online at houses in the area (especially so after the flooding to know where to not go! lol), seeing what we do and don't like about houses, and making feeble attempts to locate houses in actual good school districts. lol, this is louisiana. haha. but we will see what happens over the course of the next several months. i will keep you all updated.
anyway, i hope you all have a great 2017! ~Lin-chan ^.~
by the way sidenote because this is an update post and there's not really any other logical place to mention it....... i know i keep saying this like in real life and to a few of my friends. i swear, i will eventually get our end of october cruise pictures up. i think most of my issue is getting the video edited so i know what photos i'm including into it and not repeating in the photo album. and by the way, several weeks ago i did spend a good 4-5 hours editing a 15 minute video, which encompassed days 1-2.5 ... but my tablet wasn't having it to export it, multiple times -- like it'd spend a long time compiling, but then video players tell me it is corrupt. ~.~ but i'll make another attempt to recreate the first video (on my phone this time!) over the weekend because i should have time to do so.
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