Well this all blew up in a hurry

A lot has happened since I last posted.

We got a house. It's in Thornton, which is closer to several of our friends and also (a little) closer to school for me. It's also not much further from work. It's a great balance, and it's a lot smaller payment than we used to have. That was the entire object of this move, after all. We're getting a nice house of the same size in a good neighborhood for something like $70,000 less than we sold the old one for. And if the real estate market turns around like everyone says it will, that house will go way up in value. So that's all good news.

Now the loan approval is tricky. In the last month we've seen business levels at work drop from near-record highs (largely due to the novelty of 24-hour gaming and higher bet limits) to all-time record lows. My paychecks are half of what they used to be, and still going down. I believe we'll recover, and if we don't I'll find a different job to get the bills paid, but the loan underwriters may not agree with me. So at this point I feel like I'm holding my breath and hoping. I should find out at some point this week, which is good, since we have to be out of our house by the 26th. (If you live in Denver and want to help me move, that'll be the morning of the 24th.)

Yesterday I took the last exam in Science Foundations I. That class is done. I will pass it, although not with an A. That's OK. Your GPA doesn't show up on your pharmacy license. I'm thinking I'll probably have a B in the course. It feels good to have finished something already. That was quick, wasn't it? Tomorrow is the final exam for Principles of Drug Information. I've already earned a C in that class (if I skip the final) so no worries there. The potential sad news is that we could lose people from our class this week. Actually, I think they let you finish the semester first, but you can't continue in the curriculum if you have one F or two Ds, or a GPA below 2.0. So anyone who fails one of those classes, or gets a D in each of them, it's no more pharmacy school for that student. I don't want to see my class shrink. We've already dropped from 161 to 158 students (I don't really know what happened to those three, but they were gone after the first week - probably accepted somewhere else or realized that pharmacy school wasn't the way for them) and I know we'll lose some more along the way, but it still breaks my heart to see someone put in that much work (and tuition money!) just to fail out.

The ethics committee met for the first time last week. I can't discuss anything that was said in the meeting, but it looks like it's going to be a busy year for us. I dig it.

How about those Bears? That week 1 loss was a little bit of a fluke there, but JAY CUTLER is lighting it up. Now imagine what he could do if he had some real receivers! Maybe the Bears can sign Brandon Marshall in the off season, or trade for Calvin Johnson.

It was cool to see the Rockies make the playoffs. It was heartbreaking to see No-clutch Troy Tulowitzki make the last out of two home games with runners on first and second. But the Rockies are for real, and everyone important is under contract, and if ownership forks over a little bit of money in the off-season, the Rockies will contend for the National League West next year. We can talk about the Cubs later. I like to stick with a winner.

And thankfully, basketball season is soon upon us. I'm sure the Nuggeys will be a frequent topic for me in the near future. Plus, I'd like to see more of those cool NBA ads on my blog. They look more professional than the little text ads that pop up normally.

We've been calling this week "hell week." We had two tests (Science Foundations I, Law) yesterday, one tomorrow (Drug Info), and one Thursday (Professional Skills Development). My case gets especially fun because I had a training class (Advanced Customer Service) at work yesterday and I get to go in to pick my new, less money-making schedule this afternoon. So that's two of my days off that I go up to Black Hawk for instead. I'm going to make a total of nearly 22 dollars for those two days. That will at least cover my gas for the trip. I'll have to make sure I stop off at the Golden Gates casino to enter their football pick-ems contest. It pays $250 to the weekly winner, and I was close two weeks ago (13-1, but three people were 14-0).

I don't really want to overload you any more at this point. I'll try to get a picture of the new house up and talk a bit more about it next time. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.