Starting My MLIS

I am beginning a new chapter in my life. I have started a Masters of Library and Information Science program through San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science.

Throughout my study, I will try to post updates about my progress, information I found helpful and the work/life balance I hope to create.

2010

It has been a long time since I posted.

My sister has launched a successful blog about her hobby, stamping. I have become a fan of some other blogs. I got a job teaching in the subject of my college degree. My daughter has started pre-school. A new baby will join our family soon. All this, and we're still a military family.

The last year has had very little struggle for me. I would like to share, in the coming days and posts, the joys of this year and how I'm savoring them.

I hope others will enjoy what I have to share.

Plan for the Future

I'll wait for my audience to stop laughing.

See, it's well known among us in military families that we cannot adequately plan for the future. Orders change. Paperwork gets mis-filed. Regs get rewritten.

I have driven myself up one wall and down the next wishing I could plan for the future. The only thing I can do is hope that we have the right budget to support our family and can pay the bills on time. I don't know where we'll live or what our bills will be.

The future is just an adventure.

Long Times Apart

I've been forced to think about spending extended periods of time away from my chosen partner in life so much more than I thought I would in an ordinary, committed relationship.

As a military spouse, it's not just deployments we deal with. Sometimes it's weeks of twelve hour shifts, or spouses switched to odd shifts, other times it's trainings at far away bases for 2, 3, or 6 weeks.

Recently, a marine was upset that, just after a 7 month deployment away from his baby, he was going to have to "deploy" for 3 weeks to another base. I said, "you mean TDY?" He said, "what's a TDY?" If the different branches have different ideas about what their job descriptions are, how are we supposed to understand how to support each other? Do the various branches really want to support each other? I hear lip service to support in public, good natured ribbing of each other, and then I hear muted grumblings about each other under their breath. Perhaps we don't understand each other like I thought.

How to Communicate When You Are a World Apart

The internet has brought the world so much closer.

I remember the old funny story about my Grandfather, stationed in Panama, who neglected to write to his mother. She called the commander of his installation and said she was worried about her little Davy. Davy was summoned into the Commander's office and ordered to write to his mother right then and there.

Today we don't have the excuse of letters getting lost in the mail, or no time to write a letter. Most of us get the chance to at least send a passing "I love you" via e-mail on a semi-regular basis. It is so important not to take that for granted. On your busiest day, if you have a moment to send of a sentence, you should snatch it and remind your family of those words. That is a priceless opportunity.

I have the great advantage of owning my own computer and incorporating high-speed internet into my meager monthly budget. My spouse also has this advantage. So, even when we're apart, we can use the webcam to speak to each other, face-to-face, several times a week. I would say we take this privilege for granted from time to time. The cost is little, so the sacrifice does not mean as much as my great-grandmother's call to Panama.

A Career on the Go

I am struggling with the budget. The family budget. The funny thing is that we have so much luxury, but I want more. I can't figure out if I'm being awful and selfish, or normal.

My cousin said she works so much because she's afraid to be broke. I'm not working because I want to stay home with my kids. That's not the whole story, though.

Part of my not working is that I'm being an elitist snob. I don't want to hand my kids over to be raised by someone else, so if I were going to work, it would have to be on my available time. I'm not willing to go down the street and work at McDonald's part-time or Wal-mart, so someone would have to practically drop a "career worthy" part-time job into my lap to get me out of the house.

I hope that writing can be a career for me, but actually earning anything is taking even longer than I thought. I thought I had earned enough to pay for Elaina's dance class by advertising on my blog, but Google has said that there were too many suspicious clicks and has denied me the use of their advertisers anymore. I have submitted myself to clinical trials, voluntary MRIs and medical studies to make some extra cash, but I thought I'd be able to buy new shoes with that cash. Now I'm going to be using it for dance and music and it doesn't even come close to covering gas.

I will take journalism classes in the future. I want to write. Writing is enjoyable and worthy, not to mention portable to travel with the military career of my husband. I'm just so scared that, in the effort to have it all the right way, I'm not using my own standards to measure my success anymore.

Taking some time off

My computer has been giving me problems and Google has disabled my adsense account because of "suspicious click activity", so until this is resolved I will be saving my blogs. I'm typing at home and will post when I can.

I hope that all of my readers remember me when I come back and continue reading.

I thought it was a good month, I guess it was too good.