I’ve been super busy over the past several weeks, with school, work, and freelance work. To complicate matters further, I’ve been having chronic headaches which are really doing a number on my life in general. I went to the doctor on thursday, and I’m getting a CAT scan on wednesday to hopefully rule out something wrong with my head. For now, though, I’m just trying to keep my head above water in the realm of school. I missed 3 days this past week, and still have to make up a few things. On the positive side, I’m finally getting the remainder of my application materials off to SCAD on monday. I wrote my statement of purpose this past weekend, and got my last letter of recommendation a week ago. I took some photos of my packaging today, and will be finishing that up and bundling it out to CD. It will be great to have that off of my head so I can concentrate on other issues of more immediacy.

In other great news this week, I received a call back from erickson marketing this week, and will hopefully will begin doing contract work for them in the next couple of weeks. This is pretty darn good news for me, and an answer to a lot of prayers regarding work during grad school. A particular job I’ve been promised has a contract length of 9 months, and I should have work beyond that as well. All in all, very good news, considering that this will allow me to cut back on stressful hours at PCJ, and provide employment once I move down to Savannah. God really works things out in the right timing–sometimes I just have the weakness of wanting immediate results or leading on a specific issue.

Monday, that blessed, never-celebrated holiday Valentine’s Day became celebrated for the first time in my life. I prepared some gifts for Crystal and cooked up a reasonably good dinner for the two of us at my house. Mom and Dad graciously chaperoned from the comforts of the downstairs living room while we dined. I prepared a cheese appetizer, spinach salad with strawberries and a fresh vinegrette, strip steak seared with peppercorns and horseradish, asparagus, and to top everything off, heart-shaped brownies made from scratch for dessert. It was a good time, but things had to get cut short because I wasn’t feeling too well. She went to all of the trouble of putting together a classic french bistro lunch in the snack shop. She got some really good cheese (a semi-soft with sage, and a semi-firm with parsley and horseradish), fruit, and classic french limonade, with dark chocolate covered almonds and espresso beans for dessert. I’m so blessed to have someone so unselfish and patient to call mine, and it’s a wonderful bonus that we have the same taste in food, history, culture, and pretty much every other area I can think of.

To wrap things up, I’m posting my statement of purpose for anyone that really cares. Just follow the link at the end. (more…)

in conjuction with the holiday season, I thought I would dress up my blog a little bit more, leaving the slightly garish look of neon green behind (blame those silly people who write code for a living). If you’re late to the party, check out the old and nasty look at this address.

I was thoroughly inspired by my recent trip to chicago, and have been so caught up in academia and work that I forgot to make time to design. this frontend is probably the first bit of creative web design I’ve done in some time, so mark this one on your calendar, folks. I’m going to try to finish up the things that are supposed to go in the sidebars (yes, I really didn’t mean to leave them empty, although it looks sort of cool bare…), but that’s another coding project and another day. I’m planning a section for recent photography and upcoming projects, but if you’re the type that reads other people’s code (and you guys are weird and freaky people–I count myself among you), you’d already know that.