Eight... But Great?

Eight years.  That's how long this blog has been around.  Eight years.

And I've not really written much here lately.  Like, at all.  It's pitiful.  I mean, the seventh birthday post still fits on the homepage.  I'm sorry, Bloggy.

Part of me has wanted to change that for quite a while now, but it would likely mean a major shift in the overall tone of this blog.  Not that that would be a bad thing; on the contrary, it's just about expected that a 25-year-old's blog is going to read differently from that of a 17-year-old.  But I've needed to get some things in place in my own life before I'd be comfortable doing that here.  This has been a slow but continual process.  Watch this space (just not too intently).

So even though eight has not been great of late (see what I did there?), it's time to bake the annual bloggy cake.  Happy birthday, Bloggy!

Meanwhile, 2013 has been a wild ride for me so far.  The last several months in particular have been especially rough, but I've been getting through it and am making concerted efforts to try to stay happy and content despite the difficulties.  A good part of the difficulty has been in trying to find the right lens through which to view my accomplishments.  According to some of the qualitative metrics I've used in the past to gauge my achievements, I've been failing miserably.  But according to other, newer metrics, I'm experiencing a ton of personal and professional growth.  ("Remind me to tell you about that some time," he says yet again.)

I've never been great at work-life balance, but sometime in the last year, things got way off-kilter, and it's not been fun.  But although not all of my efforts to bring things back into an equilibrium have been successful, I'm still working on it.

Starting with a slice of bloggy cake.

2013

It's one of those years that's going to take some time to get used to, I think.  Unlike 2011 and 2012, which I was able to take more in stride, this year is already shaping up to be more like 2010 in that I just can't quite get my head around the fact that it's here.

Of course, I'll get over that feeling soon enough, but I think a big part of why I feel that way is that I spent so much of last year racing forward to what was next that it was over before I knew it.  At its outset, 2012 seemed to offer myriad possibilities.  That was certainly true, in a sense; in reality, though, my 2012 — not discounting all the personal and professional progress I've made — was primarily to set the groundwork for what is shaping up to be a great 2013!

And so, in continuing a long-standing tradition, I dust off the cobwebs on this blog for a second consecutive evening to present my doodle for 2013, which is interestingly the first year in my lifetime to have four different digits.  They don't take too long to create, but it's important to me, because I always take care to inject a small bit of both my general sense of self at the time as well as my hopes and dreams for the coming year — even if I'm rushed, and even if I never make those thoughts explicit here.  And I enjoy looking back at how those aspirations have developed; how many have been achieved while others remain unmet; and how, with another year's experience and the benefit of the hindsight it brings, I'm becoming a newer and better person week after week, year after year.

To be sure, I can't wait to do this again in another year... but in the meantime, I'll strive to enjoy 2013 to its fullest!

Onward

Well, here I am again.  I have no excuses for my silence here of late, but for once I don't think I actually need any.  As those who know me can attest, I've been pretty darn busy over the last several months.

But busy as it's been, 2012 has been a great year for me, I think.  After a year of postbaccalaureate classes, I was admitted in March into the master's program at Pitt's Department of Computer Science beginning in August.  As a result, I'm living much closer to campus now than I was in the spring and summer, within walking distance (which I've been keen to take advantage of).  I've also made a lot of good new friends this year, while staying connected with some old ones.

My first semester of graduate study was about as tough as I was expecting, but a few situations out of my control made for a bit of a bumpier semester than I'd hoped for.  Overall, though, I handled the situations pretty well and am glad to be moving forward from the experience.

Moving into the new year, I was asked a couple of weeks ago to be a part-time instructor for the department, teaching a course on Microsoft Office in the spring semester; I teach my first lecture a week from today, which is crazy.  So it's been a bit of a working holiday this year, getting a syllabus and plans together... but it's been a fun one with family nonetheless.

I would write more, but I've obviously been quite busy.  It should therefore be no surprise that I'm writing this in the last few minutes of the year, as always.  (Years may go by, but some things never change.)

Onward into 2013!

Random tangent: We're still watching Carson Daly's show for the ball drop tonight, but a certain cousin's affinity for Taylor Swift requires us to shift to Ryan Seacrest's show for a few moments.  Happy to see that Seacrest has finally gotten on board with "twenty-twelve" and "twenty-thirteen".

Seven

Dearest Bloggy, despite my continual neglect, is seven years old today.  Per tradition, the annual bloggy cake has been baked and is now present for all to enjoy.

And now, also per tradition, the filler:

Today's been a somewhat eventful day, I guess.  A Monday this year, Bloggy's seventh birthday started out with the geekiness that was the UNIX timestamp hitting 1337000000 seconds since the epoch this morning at 08:53:20 EDT.  Then I went to work (which is another something I haven't really mentioned here (I should update this more often (so says he again, yet he never does (should I close all these parentheses now?)))) and attended the first day of my summer classes, before heading home.

Meanwhile, my cousin Laurel (if it even makes sense to refer to her with that link anymore) spent all day driving to Chicago where she starts her new job tomorrow after having graduated from Michigan State University back on 5 May.  Pretty cool!

I really don't have much of an excuse anymore.  I recently rejiggered my schedule specifically to allow myself more opportunities for non-directly-school-related things, since that is a large part of how I stay sane.  But for now, instead, you have to put up with this tripe which I put off to the last possible minute (literally) and hastily "finish" before midnight.

Watch this space.