and life continues

I just realized a couple of days ago how long it's been since I've blogged anywhere. Even then, in spite of my good intentions, it's taken me longer still to get back online. Life, or my lack of it continues. I'm in the middle of my 6th quarter back in school, and have 5 more to go after this one, assuming that I'm able to get the classes that I need. I'm starting to enjoy my program again after the mess I had last quarter. I'm sure everyone goes through a period of "why am I doing this to myself again...?" For me, the fact that I've gotten another promotion, and am now a manager in my department, with all that entailed in that (raise, more responsibility, etc), I asked myself even more that question. But, now I'm on the downslope of the program. I can do this, especially if I can just keep my momentum going. Of course, being able to use digital photography for all of my classes this quarter really helps :-)

I find myself out of patience with film. Don't get me wrong, I know some people love the format and never want to change, but I'm no longer one of those people. This is kind of amusing to me, as even a few years ago I was arguing against the necessity of switching formats. However, in that time, cameras have changed. We now have digital cameras capable of catching as much information as film was, with advantages that film will never be able to match. for instance, one of the things I hated the most in my early (film based) classes, was that if I was shooting a roll of film for one class, I had to finish that entire roll before I could take photos for my own enjoyment, or even for another class. With digital, I no longer have that issue. Overall effect, I can have fun taking photos again! No matter how engrossed I am in a particular subject, if I see something I want to photograph, and I can't because the roll is for classwork only, my enjoyment of photography goes just a bit downhill... I also love that fact that digital processing has gotten soo much easier as well (I LOVE Lightroom 2!!!). I went through the 422 photos of my brother's wedding (which was lovely btw) and got all of the work done on the photos, as well as narrowing them all down, in about 5 hours time all told. Before Lightroom, this would have taken me 20-25 hours. before digital, it would have taken me 2-3 weeks to do the printing on the ones I like. Big difference. And, of course, since I'm a hippie at heart, I love the lack of chemicals needed for every print that you do; and that everything I'm doing can be done on my computer! Digital has found a place in my heart, and it's not budging :-)

I am in that part of the quarter where my normal life has taken a back seat to my classes and work. My house is a disaster, and I doubt it's going to get fixed before this weekend. Of course, the fact that this past month was chaotic didn't really help. We made two large trips this month, including going out to Seattle for my brother's wedding, and then going to WI to visit Obrseamus's mom. We then had 2 parties to attend, and I had 2 field trips for class that messed with my schedule. So I guess I can deal with the mess as long as I get to clean it up SOON!!!!

On the plus side, we had a lovely domestic episode 2 weeks ago :-) I am more and more convinced that anything is fun if done with the right person! We had a blast, going to buy a new vacuum after the old one bit the dust and started smoking (Seamus's hair must be made of steel :P). And, while we were there, we looked around for a while at all of the kitchen stuff they had Sometimes all that saves us is knowing that we don't have ANY room for more kitchen stuff :-) On a sad note, one of our favorate linens/kitchen supplies stores in the area is going out of business, so I'll have to find a new place to torture myself.

In any case, I plan to get myself back on track this month, and by Thanksgiving, I will have updated my flicker, and have put some new images up to enjoy. Hopefully I'll also have the energy to continue blogging :-)