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.
Showing posts with label JAY CUTLER. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JAY CUTLER. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Almost flat-lined for a second, didn't I?
Hello, faithful reader. We almost lost this blog... two weeks between posts? That's unacceptable. As it turns out, pharmacy school is time-consuming. To this point I haven't run into anything that's hard, but I've had to devote significant amounts of time to study and assignments. I'm still working 30 hours a week (although that goes down to 23 this week, and then we'll see), and I like to spend time with my wife and son, too. There are times when my wife works, and I have to spend time with Xander (I'm not complaining about that "obligation!"), and it's pretty hard to say no to some family time if we're all home. I end up with very little time to do the studying. You can see how I have even less time for the blogging. So now I am blogging from Science Foundations class.
This course covers all of general chemistry in like three weeks. It's pretty intense. I see why they make you take all those prerequisites, because if you were seeing this for the first time you would be in way over your head.
I didn't get the class president position. That may turn out to be a good thing (see above paragraphs about not enough time). I did, however, get the student ethics committee position. I told almost nobody that I was applying for this because it all happened at the same time as the student council madness, but this is actually the position I wanted more. The ethics committee is a student and faculty body that meets to decide issues of ethics violations within the school of pharmacy. Most of these end up being academic issues, such as cheating on a test. The ethics committee reviews all the facts of the case and then makes a recommendation to the Dean about what sort of disciplinary action should be taken. For those of you who didn't know me then, I did a similar thing in my last year of undergrad. It was called the judicial board (J-board) at CCU, and most of those cases were student life violations, but it was the same principle (and we dealt with a really hairy academic dishonesty issue that probably shouldn't have come to us at that point). I love doing this. I think one of the greatest ways to serve a student community is in pursuing justice and figuring out how best to apply the rules to a variety of situations. I guess I could have been a lawyer, but for the fact that lawyers represent their clients, not the truth.
We sold our house. That was exciting. We close next week, but the buyer has agreed to rent the house to us for an extra month. His mortgage is better than ours, so we save some money in this deal, and have until the end of October to get out. Now we're doing house-hunting, which takes up so much of my time. It's exhausting. Hopefully we'll find the perfect house today.
Football started yesterday. That was great. It was a good game, too. The reigning Super Bowl champions always get the first game of the year, and the NFL used to schedule them an easy opponent to sort of guarantee a win. The last time the Patriots won the Super Bowl, they got to play the Raiders in the kickoff game. That game was over almost immediately. Now they give them a really good non-divisional opponent. It makes for much better football. Even though it was a 13-10 overtime game, the game was fun to watch. There were key turnovers, blocked field goals, drives that picked up steam only to abruptly end in a defensive stand. I loved it, and I'm glad football is back. Especially because Sunday night sees the regular-season debut of Mr. Jay Cutler in a Chicago Bears uniform. He looked like his usual self in the exhibition game in Denver, and I look for that to continue (although the Green Bay defense should be a little better) this week. I was especially encouraged by the way he handled himself under the surprisingly strong pass rush of the Broncos. I think all those guys just wanted to knock him out for skipping town in the offseason, but he remained composed under the pressure. That's a good sign. He also hit a bunch of different receivers, often in pretty tight coverage, and managed the game well. Plus, Matt Forte is a stud in that backfield. I'm excited.
Well, I'm starting to get rambly right now. I think I'll leave you here and save some of my other thoughts for another post. Hopefully it won't be two weeks from now. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.
This course covers all of general chemistry in like three weeks. It's pretty intense. I see why they make you take all those prerequisites, because if you were seeing this for the first time you would be in way over your head.
I didn't get the class president position. That may turn out to be a good thing (see above paragraphs about not enough time). I did, however, get the student ethics committee position. I told almost nobody that I was applying for this because it all happened at the same time as the student council madness, but this is actually the position I wanted more. The ethics committee is a student and faculty body that meets to decide issues of ethics violations within the school of pharmacy. Most of these end up being academic issues, such as cheating on a test. The ethics committee reviews all the facts of the case and then makes a recommendation to the Dean about what sort of disciplinary action should be taken. For those of you who didn't know me then, I did a similar thing in my last year of undergrad. It was called the judicial board (J-board) at CCU, and most of those cases were student life violations, but it was the same principle (and we dealt with a really hairy academic dishonesty issue that probably shouldn't have come to us at that point). I love doing this. I think one of the greatest ways to serve a student community is in pursuing justice and figuring out how best to apply the rules to a variety of situations. I guess I could have been a lawyer, but for the fact that lawyers represent their clients, not the truth.
We sold our house. That was exciting. We close next week, but the buyer has agreed to rent the house to us for an extra month. His mortgage is better than ours, so we save some money in this deal, and have until the end of October to get out. Now we're doing house-hunting, which takes up so much of my time. It's exhausting. Hopefully we'll find the perfect house today.
Football started yesterday. That was great. It was a good game, too. The reigning Super Bowl champions always get the first game of the year, and the NFL used to schedule them an easy opponent to sort of guarantee a win. The last time the Patriots won the Super Bowl, they got to play the Raiders in the kickoff game. That game was over almost immediately. Now they give them a really good non-divisional opponent. It makes for much better football. Even though it was a 13-10 overtime game, the game was fun to watch. There were key turnovers, blocked field goals, drives that picked up steam only to abruptly end in a defensive stand. I loved it, and I'm glad football is back. Especially because Sunday night sees the regular-season debut of Mr. Jay Cutler in a Chicago Bears uniform. He looked like his usual self in the exhibition game in Denver, and I look for that to continue (although the Green Bay defense should be a little better) this week. I was especially encouraged by the way he handled himself under the surprisingly strong pass rush of the Broncos. I think all those guys just wanted to knock him out for skipping town in the offseason, but he remained composed under the pressure. That's a good sign. He also hit a bunch of different receivers, often in pretty tight coverage, and managed the game well. Plus, Matt Forte is a stud in that backfield. I'm excited.
Well, I'm starting to get rambly right now. I think I'll leave you here and save some of my other thoughts for another post. Hopefully it won't be two weeks from now. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.
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