Suzanne Calling

This time last year, we were preparing for our second cruise, after attending the first CTTE in April.  Celtic Thunder was more low key, as we relaxed more, spent time with some of our prog friends and I only made an effort to get to one show (Gaelic Storm, loved them). Prior to the first Cruise to the Edge, Ed and I both friended people on Facebook, but didn't know anyone else IRL going on the cruise (or so we thought-we ran into my first serious boyfriend the last night).  However, we made many friends during CTTE, that we spent time with on Celtic Thunder. This year?  It feels like a reunion of friends in addition to an amazing music festival. Two weeks from today, three of us head aboard.  Game Teen will be staying home and my sister flying down from NY to keep him company, as he had no interest in going.  This time, some long-time IRL friends will be joining us. The lesson from last year was that we would have no sleep and need to recover, so we booke...

I started this blog. While I haven't written much lately, the urge to write is still here.  Much of it is career and research based, so I'm not sure if this is the right venue for that content.  Perhaps I should write more about the craft beers we've been drinking, or the upcoming trip(s), or the other stuff going on. A coworker who barely talks to me (because I'm not young OR cute...) came to me yesterday to ask me where the good sushi places are near work.  I found it funny that he was coming to ask me something, and that about a restaurant.  It seems that my coworkers told him 'you want to know where the good places are, just ask Suzanne-she knows them all." It's rather cool to have that reputation, and it made me smile.  I truly am the product of my parents.  They always were called upon to get suggestions for the new, the good or whatever specific cuisine someone was in the mood for. Thing is, he'd had another restaurant in mind, because it...

One of my most favorite shows of the 2014 Cruise to the Edge was performed by Lifesigns.  As soon as we were back home, I ordered their CD and it is easily the most played disc in the car-one which Ed and I each choose a different harmony line and sing along while we're driving along. When the group announced a crowd funding campaign to record new music at a concert in January, we jumped on board.  Even though we were wishing we lived in the UK to attend (and regularly wish we could teleport to all the European shows), it seemed a good alternative to relive the enjoyment of that Black and White lounge show.  If we move to the UK after my Ph.D, it is likely that we'll do a lot of exploring based on band appearances! Anyway, the other day John Young shared this teaser from the DVD and it has me happy to see that the same energy and cohesiveness we saw that April day once again. Check out "Different"! It is also making me antsy for November to get here, so we ca...

All assignments for the graded classes were turned in by midnight-one minute late on the last one.  Hey, I count that as being done on time! The work class, I'm missing one discussion board exercise, but I can easily make that up and do all the week two content tomorrow, plus the reading for at least one of the credit classes.  Might as well use the holiday to be productive, since the kids deemed it still too hot to travel to Universal.  It's just as well, as the batteries in my scooter need to be replaced...

Yeah, I know. I need to get back into the habit of blogging. I guess I need to pick a time every day once again and get back to it-especially since I have about a half-dozen Urban Spoon reviews to do and several nail posts to make. I think the main news is that I'm almost 3 months into the current job and boy, what a world of difference I am experiencing as compared to the last job. It's a big department, about 60 or so of us, and I interact with a handful outside of work. I've traveled to the northeast once already for work, and have another trip on the books for November.

This semester, I have two classes-both online.  One is in my autism cognate, the other is in my program and both will be easy to manage, but require a decent amount of reading or work, so the game plan is to do the autism readings during my lunch breaks and work on weekly assignments at night. Then, to add a monkey wrench, I'm taking a course through work on the adult learner.  At least it is only three weeks.  Everyone in my department was encouraged to take it.  At least it prepares me well for when I take the same course for my degree, and I have the textbook for that course-so I may be in good shape for that. Four semesters left...