Growth Decision

I have been thinking a lot about my future and what I want to learn. Music production of course, but in regard to my career I have been considering going back to Graduate School and getting a Masters degree. The problem is that I am do not know what I want to major in (Music? Design? Motion Graphics? M.B.A.?). Another problem is that I am so in debt from my undergraduate education, it just does not make sense for me to go into more debt right now. Also, I value my time off, and taking classes and having homework to complete is not sounding all that great to me right now. I would rather put my time into producing music.

It is looking like I am not going to be going back to get my Master's anytime soon.

I did, however, get approval to take a week long Flex Training course and become a Certified Adobe Flex expert from U.Va. and they are picking up the bill. I am feeling really great about learning something new that could potentially be lucrative to me in the future.

If I did not have this coming down the pipeline, I would probably be starting to get a little stir crazy at work. CSS is cool but I am not really all that excited by it anymore. I need to learn more PHP but for some reason it just does not get me excited like Flex does.

Progress!

So this morning I weighed myself for the first time in a month and saw that I have lost four more pounds! Yes! I have now lost about 10 pounds since October 2008. Now I have 8 more pounds to go until I have lost all of the weight I gained at the end of 2007 and 2008.

The great part is that I am now well within the realm of being in the "healthy weight range" for my height. I never really went too far above it, just a few pounds, but still. I would prefer that I get near the bottom of that range. I have been there before and I just feel better and look better that way.

In addition to the weight training I have been doing over the past month, I think taking synthroid and my new diet (no dairy, wheat, gluten, or sugar) has also played a big part.

I really am starting to feel like my old self again. Thank GODDESS.

INFP

A few months ago I took a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and tested as an INFJ. For a retreat at work on monday, we had to take the test again and take a day-long workshop to learn what that means. This time, I tested as an INFP, although my P(erceiving) was a very weak value of 3. Apparently, this makes me a cross between a "Healer" and a "Conselor", with more of a bent towards the "Healer" side. Also interestingly, I scored a VERY high score of 26 on the Introversion side. This supposedly means that I get most of my energy from my own internal world. I think this particular insight is very true!

Healer Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in striving for their ends, and informative and introverted in their interpersonal relations. Healers present a seemingly tranquil, and noticeably pleasant face to the world, and though to all appearances they might seem reserved, and even shy, on the inside they are anything but reserved, having a capacity for caring not always found in other types. They care deeply — indeed, passionately — about a few special persons or a favorite cause, and their fervent aim is to bring peace and integrity to their loved ones and the world.

Healers have a profound sense of idealism derived from a strong personal morality, and they conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place. Indeed, to understand INFP's, we must understand their idealism as almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. The INFP is the Prince or Princess of fairy tale, the King's Champion or Defender of the Faith, like Sir Galahad or Joan of Arc. Healers are found in only 1% of the general population, although, at times, their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity.

Healers seek unity in their lives, unity of body and mind, emotions and intellect, perhaps because they are likely to have a sense of inner division threaded through their lives, which comes from their often unhappy childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood, which, unfortunately, is discouraged or even punished by many parents. In a practical-minded family, required by their parents to be sociable and industrious in concrete ways, and also given down-to-earth siblings who conform to these parental expectations, INFP's come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. Other types usually shrug off parental expectations that do not fit them, but not the INFP's. Wishing to please their parents and siblings, but not knowing quite how to do it, they try to hide their differences, believing they are bad to be so fanciful, so unlike their more solid brothers and sisters. They wonder, some of them for the rest of their lives, whether they are OK. They are quite OK, just different from the rest of their family — swans reared in a family of ducks. Even so, to realize and really believe this is not easy for them. Deeply committed to the positive and the good, yet taught to believe there is evil in them, INFP's can come to develop a certain fascination with the problem of good and evil, sacred and profane. Tutors are drawn toward purity, but can become engrossed with the profane, continuously on the lookout for the wickedness that lurks within them. Then, when INFP's believe they have yielded to an impure temptation, they may be given to acts of self-sacrifice in atonement. Others seldom detect this inner turmoil, however, for the struggle between good and evil is within the INFP, who does not feel compelled to make the issue public.

http://star.goddess.tripod.com/INFP.html

Loving my job

I have had mixed feelings about going back to the work for the University over the past year, but now that I approaching my one year anniversary, I am really feeling like I am settling into a very positive phase in my life. Yesterday I got approval from my supervisor to take a week long Flex training class and become an Adobe Certified Flex expert. I am very psyched.

For a while I was worried that I was going to get laid off, but a few signals have occurred which reassured me otherwise.

Saturn is in retrograde until July 2009, and I am trying to focus ALL OF MY ENERGY towards paying off credit cards by then. After then I am going to be house shopping in a very hardcore way. House prices have really been coming down splendidly, and I feel like I have a very real chance at purchasing a dream home for our first house.

Santino's job is going really well, also. The medical industry is not suffering at all, and he has plans to eventually buy his own car (probably a Prius!) so he can serve medical companies directly rather than contracting through someone else. On top of that, he only usually has to work about three days a week. It seems like things are going to work for him! Yay!