I'm a bit muddled today

Goals

In discussing goals with my husband this morning; I realized that while we have a clear picture of our long-term goals (ie. after the kids are grown up, and my "career" is established)  we haven't really been good at deciding on short term goals.  Sure, we make plans; but something always comes up; that's life right?

Well, in at most 8 years I will have my Bachelors in Computer Science and be headed out of this seemingly black hole that is Western NY.  Before then however; comes the working to fix up our current house, and helping my Father-in-Law fix up "Poppy"s house down in Cuba, NY.

In order to do this, we are going to attempt to put together an exhaustive list of  projects that must be done, and the dates that they will get done.  I am not convinced that things will go exactly as planned; but I know that we need to make them happen. We will need to get rid of the carpets, replacing most with a quality laminate of some sort, we need to fix the holes in the walls from doorknobs.  Then there are the hideous ceiling fans, the power outlets that seem to have randomly decided that some will work, while others will not.  The list is long, but also includes our hideous deck, siding, and our two toned roof.  All we can hope for in the end is that when the time comes to move West we can at least get more than we paid for it.

School is still going well, with straight B's for now, though I am hoping to bring at least my math and programming grades up to A's before the end of the semester.  I have time, and I'm learning from my mistakes which is the point anyway right?  I've been thinking about what to do next semester, and while I'd prefer to not have a ton on my plate while taking a 4 credit math class, I need to get both Calc 1 and 2 done and out of the way, and I need the cash from financial aid in order to cover the gas I'll use driving to and from school.  I am really nervous about a group project in programming, simply because in my portal course, we just finished a group project which saw me putting everything together last minute, most of which was gathered by myself.
I keep forgetting that I have a lot to get done this week, but now that I'm reminded I had better get to it. Especially since the Dentist trip we took yesterday and was only supposed to take an hour instead took nearly 2 hours and more because they changed how they do things.

Mid October 2012

School

In two weeks I need to have a presentation ready that will convince others to choose Computer Science  as a major at FLCC.  Because my group for this assignment is a group of  three, while the Gaming majors were split into two groups of 5, and the IT majors have a group of 5 (I think); and also because our professor has expressed that Computer Science majors are his favorite, I feel a certain amount of pressure to do well.

My thought was that it would be beneficial to our purpose if we could each find job offerings locally which would fit our career goals and that would be available to a new graduate.  It really became somewhat frustrating when I was unable to find jobs in mobile development in the Rochester area, I realized that perhaps I should start talking to the local recruiting agencies that most companies in the area use.  I haven't yet, but on Monday I hope to have gotten things going, and while perhaps there will be no success in finding positions with my criteria for my personal goals, maybe there will be helpful information gleaned for my teammates.  If nothing else; I will have made one or more connections with the people who will potentially be helping me find employment when the time comes.

Kids

My kids continue to amaze me.  My daughter brought her guitar home after a guitar unit in her music class, and I am more convinced than ever that her talents lie in music.  Music and band have been her highest grades in school since she got to middle school.  I'm not sure if this is more to do with her interest level, or her seeming to have been labelled as a problem child.  She's been waiting to show us how well she can play This song; and I can't wait to hear it.  My oldest boy, who just started 5th grade has always had a unique way of solving problems.  He offers solutions that many might not have thought of; and I am thankful that our middle school has a Lego Robotics Club, allowing him to actually use his way of thinking to help find possible solutions to real world problems.  In Elementary school, the two younger boys are thriving also.  At the end of last school year, our now 3rd grader was reading at a 4th grade level.  This year, the 1st grade boy is actually doing his homework without being forced and considering how hard it was to get him to do it last year, I am impressed with him.

Technology

At some point in the near future I will be heading to Staples to buy my new Kindle Fire HD 7 inch.  Having debated internally over which tablet would be best for me, and deciding that given both timing and personal preferences that the 10.1 Galaxy Note would not suit my usage.
In case anyone was curious; our house is "home" to a large number of devices.  Presently we are the owners of:

• 2 HP Touchpads
• 2 Nexus 7 tablets
• 2 Galaxy Nexus phones (I refer to mine as Nexxy)
• 1 Raspberry Pi
• 1 Dell Inspiron 15R laptop (My new "school" computer)
• 1 2009 Macbook (My old "school" computer, now my husbands)
• 1 desktop which dual boots Windows or Ubuntu
• 1 HTC Incredible (not activated presently)
• 1 iPhone 5
• 3 iPods (I no longer use mine, but it's here somewhere)
• 2 different versions of the iPod nano
• 1 iPod touch

I keep thinking that today is Saturday, because everyone is home, but it's not, and I need to get some more things done.