Blog | Caitlin Thompson

Kobo Cover!

I finally made a cover for my Kobo Vox! I totally stole the idea from Gord, who wondered why I hadn’t done one myself yet, since I was complaining about not having a cover yet.
Well, I had to fix that.

I went to the library, but they didn’t have anything suitable for sale, so I ended up at a thrift store, where I snagged a copy of A Little Princess for $1. It was a touch shorter than I’d been looking for, but the book itself was too perfect to pass up. It even had one of those ribbon bookmarks that I left in place.

I made a big mess of my living room floor with all the paper shreds, but it worked out really well! I used my Dremmel to smooth out the edges and make sure the corners were rounded enough

Check it out:

Ta da! I’m very pleased with how this turned out.

(Also, I set up a new gallery plugin. I’m still getting used to it. I can’t find a way to import my old gallery photos yet.)

Oddities

My SAD is getting a bit better the past couple weeks. I think, despite the inherent frustrations involved, going to cons for the past 2 weekends has helped. Human interaction, even when it feels like the last thing I want and I have to force myself (usually unsuccessfully, but lately fairly successfully) to go do it, usually does help.
Anxiety levels are still pretty high.

I have also come to some odd conclusions about my life. I don’t know where they will lead. I don’t yet even know if they make sense. I need to discuss them first, but I don’t want to have that conversation. I do know something needs to change or I’ll go crazy.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2012 bring you joy, amazement, hope, and love! Live your life, unleash your courage, reach for your dreams, and when things get tough remember that your friends love you!

New Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday!
I tried out a new hair salon, and I really liked it.

Before:

I took the blonde photo in the post below, and asked for something similar. Here’s the result:

Short Hair Again?

I’m thinking of cutting all my hair off again. Good idea? Bad idea?

I’m bored again. Normally this means I change my hair colour, but I just did that last week. I went white (ish), and while it’s ok, I’m not thrilled. It’s fun, but not exciting.
Maybe I’ll use up all the leftover bits of dye I have and do a rainbow before I cut it. To of go out with a big finish. That will be a pain in the ass to actually do, but it would be fun. ^_^

I also fried it a bit, which isn’t so bad when it’s dry, but it’s annoying when it’s wet because it’s very fragile.
I’m thinking something like this:

I’m not sure what colour I’d have it, but I’m probably not ready to go natural just yet. ^_~

Monday

Yesterday, my day started out cleaning cat pee off the floor.
Then I tried to use up all the open bananas from yesterday, but I didn’t have time to cook everything before work so some will rot in the fridge.
Then I got to work to find we had more samples than we’d hoped, and we also had to drive to a lab in Cambridge to do our work because a piece of very important equipment here is dead.
Then we got rejected by a possible guest for the convention.
Then we had to go through orientation and stuff at the other lab (fair enough, we’ll be performing work there, after all) and that coupled with the disorientation caused by doing wok in a corner of a borrowed lab meant that our normal extraction took until 2 (instead of noonish like normal).
Then we had to wait for our other reagents to thaw, since we were not here to take them out of the freezer earlier.
Then we had to wait for a salad spinner to be purchased as a band-aid solution to a relatively minor problem caused by a large problem (see previous statements re: important piece of equipment being dead).
Finally got samples into the machine to run, and since it was 3:30 I forgot I hadn’t eaten lunch yet and sat around until 4 wondering why I was so grumpy.
Ate my lunch at 4. It was very tasty.
Samples finished their run at 5:15, and I get to find that half of them had failed. Super.
Then I had to re-run the failed samples, and finally got out of work at quarter to 6.

Today, my day started out cleaning up cat pee off the floor.
Then I got to work and found that 95% of the samples that failed yesterday had also failed in the second run overnight.
So I am thawing reagents to run them again.
I only have 6 samples to test so far today, which would be amazingly helpful, since I have a smaller replacement for the dead piece of lab equipment that I can use to do a small run here quickly and easily… if all of our other supplies weren’t in the other lab already.

I am not overly optimistic for the rest of today.

LJ Test

Ignore me!

*test to fix LJ crossposting and comments import*

More text
to be longer
woo

Tighten the Belts

Word from On High (that is, the HR department) has arrived, and it’s not happy. They have decided that since a Masters isn’t required for my current position, they won’t fund any of it. Boo.
I get where they are coming from, in that they don’t want to set the precedent that they fund any random extra education an employee wants that’s not necessary for their job, but I’m still sad that they won’t even cover a small percentage when the degree I’m going for is directly related to what I do now and the direction that the company wants to grow into in the future. I was never expecting the 100% coverage offered for “normal” training courses, but a token would have been nice. As long as I don’t get any requests to do something for the company using my school work/connections for the next few years I can live with that. ^_~

Oh well, I’m obviously still going forward with the plan and will be starting classes in a month. It’ll just require some shuffling around financially, and may take a touch longer depending on tuition costs for each semester as I go along.
This past week marked the 3-year anniversary of our mortgage, which signifies an end to paying for the bank’s SNAFU last year involving our property taxes, which results in a lower payment overall, so the remainder can be directed to other debt and tuition. Unfortunately, it’s still too far out from our renewal date (2 years) to be able to get a better deal.
Time for budget cutbacks and eating rice and beans. Except I can’t eat that*, so budget cutbacks and eating thousands of turnips.

*cut from my diet along with all grains (minimal rice) and other legumes

Master’s Studies

Yesterday I received my acceptance letter from the U of G for entry into a part-time Master’s of Science – Population Medicine (Epidemiology)!

Ok, actually my parents received my acceptance letter, all I got was an email from the school telling me to check my mail for the acceptance letter. For some reason they sent the paper copy to my parent’s address, instead of the address I put on my application. I understand how it happened; I was a student there previously and that was my permanent address while a student, and the address I had them mail my degree to when I graduated back in 2006, so they had it on file, but you’d think they’d update their system to use the new address I gave them.
Now I must wait for my parents to forward it to me so I can fill out the acceptance of the acceptance form and get it back to the school by August 4th. Should be ok; I think the mail backlog from the Canada Post strike/lockout is mostly gone now, but just in case they were nice enough to scan the forms to me just in case.

Despite that, I’m pretty darn excited! ^_^ I love learning, and this Master’s is focused on coursework rather than research (a big plus!), and I can earn another degree while still keeping the job I really like.
I’m also nervous and sort of worried (as is my nature) because the first time through university things kind of sucked. Partly because I had come direct from college – where we got to do everything hands-on and learned so much from independent lab projects, to university – where the TA did most of the fun stuff, and we just had to write 6 pages about the results.
This time, there’s a gap of 5 years (OMG, really?? o_0) since the last time I was in school of any sort, so I’m hoping it’ll feel different. I’m hoping my real world experience will let me adapt easier this time.

This time, however, I also have a full-time job to worry about. A full time job I really like and won’t jeopardize, though fortunately my job requires little thought outside of work hours. To this end, I have effectively shut down the t-shirt business I run with a friend. I feel a tiny bit like a failure for “giving up”, when I know it could succeed if I just put more time and effort into it, but I have come to realize that I’m currently more enamoured with the idea of being a business owner than with actually running a product-based business at this point in my life.
Getting a new degree is more important to me than “making it” as an indie shop owner, so I’m adjusting my priorities accordingly and freeing up time. I’m sure I’ll find I need to give up other things as well once I actually start classes, but this is a great start and feels right. ^_^

Now all I have to do is wait for the mail from Kincardine, sign the form and drop it off, and wait for another reply from the school telling me when class registration is, etc. Then I should be able to find out how job-friendly my classes will be. It’s not a night school, or distance education, or adult education program, it’s a normal degree, which means the classes are in-person and many of them will be scheduled during normal work hours. I guess this time around I’ll be pleased instead of annoyed when one of the classes I need is scheduled for 7pm.

I have an awesome boss who is pro-education and is willing to let me flex my hours a bit to be able to fit in both classes and work, but I only want to push that so far, ya know? I don’t want to wear out my welcome, so to speak, especially since this degree will take a few years at a part-time rate. My acceptance letter has allotted me 11 semesters (~3.5 years) for completion. I rather hope it doesn’t take that long, but it all depends on how much I can handle at once, and I’m definitely going to start slow.
MY company itself is also pretty awesome when it comes to employee education that is relevant to the company (and this MSc definitely would be), and will often provide funding assistance, but the policy is usually geared toward individual continuing-education classes, not entire degree programs, so I have to wait and hear back on that point. It would be awesome to have any kind of financial help, though. ^_^

TL;DR: Caitlin is going back to school and hopes she doesn’t go insane this time.