You know that feeling where you have something you want to say, but you’re really busy, so finally you just splooge out whatever and slap it up onto your blog just to be done with it? And then you’re left staring at that obnoxiously ill-formed post for days because you don’t have time to write another one? Well, that’s how I feel about my most recent post, and so I’m basically writing this one to bump it down. :>
I’ve been doing well. I’m not sure I have mentioned this on the blog yet, but I’ve had a full time contract position for the past several weeks that has been really fun and rewarding. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the work and the people, and I hope to be called back again for future projects.
In addition to that, I’ve been taking free courses on Coursera to try and improve myself. I’m interested in data, statistics, design, user experience design, programming, critical thinking, all sorts of stuff. I started out taking Statistics 1 from Princeton, but unfortunately the time requirements of the course were too much for me alongside full time work and my home obligations, so I had to drop it in the fourth week :( I do feel that I learned a lot in that time, though. I am now taking Learn to Program: The Fundamentals (a Python course) from Toronto University and Human-Computer Interaction from Stanford University. So far it seems that the workload and time requirements are low enough that I should be able to manage both courses while working full time, which is a relief. I’m really enjoying the Python class, and Human-Computer Interaction is fascinating.
After these two courses, I’m scheduled for a more intense Python course, then a general course on design, then a course intriguingly called Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, and finally, next April, Introduction to Data Science. I am so excited about all these courses. It has been great to engage my brain this much again; I love the feeling. There are other Coursera courses I’m interested in as well; it was so hard to narrow them down! It’s amazing and wonderful that all of this content is free.
Sean and I are coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary next January. We’d like to go somewhere new and special to commemorate it, but we’re having a hard time deciding where. Due to financial constraints, we’ll probably be limited to the contiguous United States, and obviously weather will be a factor that time of year. Suggestions are welcome!
That’s about it for now. I hope to write again soon. :)
If you like winter sports/outdoors stuff, Lake Tahoe/Reno is nice. If you want to stay warm, Key West is a lot of fun. Glad you are doing well!
Dude! Thank you so much for the recommendations. Sean has heard cool things about Key West and is really interested, and I’m getting excited too, so that may end up being where we go!
What a great picture. So good to see you. You sound busily happy.. Love that.
Thank you :) “Busily happy” is a good way to describe it! :)