Trips back "Home" and OH!..I like what I do.

We are back. Back to work, back to school, back to my life here in Kansas.

It was nice to spend some time back in Michigan. I miss it there quite a bit. However, I do enjoy where I am. I like the people, location, job, and weather. It struck me as I was on the plane headed back to The Mitten that I am no longer a resident of the state of Michigan. Now it has been this way for quite some time. I guess I just never let it sink in. I am a Kansan. That is something I definitely never thought that I would say.

I have had a strange crystallizing realization in the past few months. I have been watching my close friends with great interest. I have been watching them get married, visiting their new homes that they have purchased, observing them getting jobs and starting companies, and the whole time comparing. Comparing my accomplishments to theirs, and always dwelling on the parts where they have outperformed me. While talking with an old friend from high school who I assumed since college had it all together, it was revealed to me that indeed he did not. He was not wealthy, he has just left his job where he was unhappy to start a company, and all in all his future with his wife is very uncertain. That was the moment that I realized that I have got it more figured out than I care to admit.

I may not be wealthy, and from the outside looking in, it may look like I abandoned the "professional world" to go running back to school. However, I know that the majority of my friends and acquaintances couldn't do my job. They couldn't wake at 3am to talk a frantic and wildly upset college student down of a ledge and they wouldn't dare try. What I am doing makes me happy and I like it. It may not look like the most professional gig in the world. I may not walk out my door everyday in a shirt and tie (I did that for two years...it really isn't much fun.) but I work in a professional setting with people who count on me and I need to remember that more and trust the path I'm on!  

So I got to see some old friends while back up north. That was quite nice. I did, however, spend most of my time just hanging around my parent's house. I don't have too many friends that still have weeks of vacation given to them at a time. It was nice to be back in familiar territory for almost a month, but I do think that it was the last time I will spend so much time back there at one time. It is also weird to see those words typed out.

I missed my fiance' dearly over the break. She was in the UK visiting her sister and spending time with her new niece. It was tough being apart for so long and I can only hope that it was the last time we spend so much time apart. Although, unfortunately, I cannot say for certain. Oh, by the way, I'm getting married.

After much work and many stressful nights I managed to score a 4.0 for this past semester. It was not until after the semester was completed that someone shared with me the fact that GPA really doesn't matter in grad school. As long as you pass, you pass. So does it suck that I won't be recognized for my great-good work? Yes. Yes it does. However, I am still glad that I was able to accomplish it. My program is not an easy one and I was doing some major original research for the first time in my academic career. I am just happy to feel that I accomplished something and that I lived up to my own expectations of myself.

Life is good. I am poor and still mildly irresponsible at times, but things are going well in all ways always.