It's been a busy time for me and I thought I'd write a little about it so that anyone curious about me or feared that I was trying to keep away could learn a bit.

Last time I wrote here I was attending Anthrocon having just come from a month's stay in Los Angeles. Immediately after AC I had driven up to New England to spend a few weeks visiting with friends and to spend a concentrated amount of time learning how to use the Toon Boom Harmony animation software. My goal was to become familiar enough with Harmony that I could take a roughed out animation sequence and turn it into a fully rendered finished product in a much more efficient manner than my previous workflow in Adobe Flash would allow. I've been using Flash since version 4.0 and while I really like the product and its capabilities drawing has never been one of its strong suits. In contrast however Harmony is everything an artist making animation could want and more. However the REASON I wanted to get up and running in Harmony is because it looks like I've finally got a real full-time job opportunity again. Without going into the long and tortured backstory I'll just say that my previous job of creating art assets for slot machines is resurrecting like a phoenix from the ashes, and while I'm not working *yet* the groundwork is being laid for this to happen sooner than later. I'm READY. I've been crossing my fingers for a long time that I'd be able to find full-time employment that would take advantage of my knowledge and experience with slots but I hadn't expected THIS to happen. At this point in time I don't know how this is going to affect my schedule for the future, but that's only part of what's going with my future activities...

...the OTHER big thing that's happening in my life is that after a long, dry, and depressing period of little hope for future job prospects I decided to explore some alternative career choices, and that ultimately lead me to enroll at a nearby college where I'll be working to earn my Masters Degree in Education. This will also provide me with a license and certification to teach in Kentucky public schools, but should also allow me to gain certification in any other state in the country with only a minor additional work. I'm pretty excited about this because I've always had an interest in teaching and have enjoyed the opportunities to do so in the past. My area of specialty will be in art (to the surprise of no one) but the specifics of what I'll ultimately do will evolve and crystalize over time as my initial exposure to classroom environments has shown me that there's a lot more potential in art curriculum than I had realized.

These two things are pretty awesome but their time investment is making me a little nervous. The graduate program is designed to accommodate candidates who are working full time, and the program is largely online based to facilitate that goal, but it's still college work at a graduate level so I'm feeling a little anxious about doing both this and the tasks at the new / old slots job. The graduate program is ideally completed in 18 months, but has provisions to be stretched out as long as 5 years if necessary but I really don't want to drag it out if I can help it. For now I'm feeling good about my ability to do both simultaneously while keeping to my other obligations at home, but any well wishes people want to send would be appreciated.

For now I'm finding the learning to be rather time consuming but not yet particularly challenging as the subject matter is largely about initial introductions to what teachers are expected to do. Before long there will be classroom visits and participation, action research projects, and observational studies. It's going to get interesting fast.

Anyhow, I'm pleased on many levels about how things are going and I wanted to share.