The weeks of work and school

*pant pant* It's not February yet! I can still make two posts in January. *cough*

*wheeze*

Anywho, about three weeks ago, I started my new job. For the last three weeks, I've been reading through quality assurance documents, documents describing the design process, documents describing the technology that goes into the machines created at my work... you name it, I've read it. It's been fairly boring, but I've gotten the chance to talk to quite a few people at work and shake some hands and learn some very interesting technologies. Now that school has started, I'm going to be working about 20 hours a week. With 20 hours a week, I'm able to enroll in benefits and start accumulating vacation time. Also, it means that I can actually start working on real projects!!! I'm excited. However, I'm also a bit disappointed as it seems I will only be working on software for the upcoming project as the hardware has already been designed.

I'm finally in my last semester of school (at least for the time being). I'm taking 11 grueling credits... just enough to finish up my master's degree. I even filled out the graduation forms and had them signed by the Dean of Graduate Studies. He kept asking me why I was only doing a master's degree and not a Ph.D. as I had initially intended. Apparently he remembered me from a presentation I gave in his lab group regarding my research my first semester as a grad student. He asked me why I hadn't come to talk to him sooner... he told me that he could have found me a TA position and possibly a new adviser. He sighed as he signed my forms. He told me that if I passed the qualifying exam, I could take one class a semester to keep my graduate student status and he'd help me find an adviser to do a thesis. I told him I'd think about it, even though I know I don't have time to properly study for the qualifying exam. So it goes.

Last semester is going well so far. My classes seem relatively easy... we'll see if I say the same thing when I have time to make another post in 3 weeks. Heh. Well, back to homework, I guess.