yikes

I feel like I’ve all of a sudden gotten really really busy.

But then I remember that I’ve always been busy.

It’s just that now, I’m busy doing things I want to be doing instead of things I have to be doing, for the most part.

I signed up to take French again! I’m really excited about it. I start on July 16 and I’ll be taking FR 105. I took French for four years in high school and for another three years in college, but I’ve forgotten so much of it since that was a loooong time ago. I have always wanted to get back into studying French, because I would hate to completely lose everything I spent so many years learning! I had to take a placement exam of sorts to register so they could figure out what level I should start at. I basically sat down with one of the instructors who I think was a native speaker. Then we proceeded to have a ten-minute or so conversation in French. It was funny…the words I remembered and the words I forgot surprised me! But I guess I did okay since I exempted the first four classes. After FR 105 I’ll move into the 200-level courses. I need to review the first four quarters of material before class starts to refresh my memory on things like le subjonctif and l’imparfait. I’m really excited about it though. I’d love to be conversationally fluent one day!

I’m also beginning to prepare for PMP® certification by the Project Management Institute. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and I sent my manager an e-mail asking her if the company would pay for classes. She responded and told me that there is an online course beginning on Monday and that I should take the exam by September since the guide is changing in October and the test will change. That’s not a lot of time to prepare…the hardest part of the whole process will be documenting all the hours I’ve spent doing project management over my career. That’s going to be a major pain in the ass.

So it’s almost the 4th of July! I’m not a very patriotic person (yeah, yeah, whatever) but I <3 fireworks!! I am already getting excited just thinking about huge fireworks exploding over my head, filling the sky will streams of beautiful sparkles. I can almost smell them now…and feel the little pieces of soot and ash falling from the sky. I can’t wait!

I’ve also joined a Web site called PEERtrainer. It’s for people who know what they should be doing to eat right and get in shape, they’re just not doing it. You can join one or more groups of two to four people, and you log your meals and exercise every day and encourage each other, ask questions, etc. So far, I really like it. It has made me a lot more conscious of what I’m eating, and I worked out four times last week and have worked out twice this week so far. I lost 3.5 pounds last week…hooray! Hopefully I can keep it up. Halloween is not that far away and I think I know what I want to be….