Work/ School Balance

I know I haven’t posted anything in a while, and I know you’ve all been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to hear from me because my life is so interesting. So here’s what been going on.

I now have three aquariums, a 1 gallon with three shrimp (they don’t have names but are called the shrimpers), a 5.5 gallon with a betta (Fishy Fishy, very original, I know), and a 10 gallon with two platys (Jeff and Emily), an otocinclus (Cooper) and if you don’t know what they are, they eat algae and swim around, and two mystery snails (they don’t have names). I spend more time than I want to admit looking at my tanks. I like searching for the shrimp, Fishy Fishy likes coming up to the edge of the tank and saying hello. He does not like other fish and has killed two mystery snails so he’ll always be by himself. The snails are so entertaining. One picked up a green bean and looked like it was going to eat the whole thing. They move around the tank effortlessly and I’m pretty sure I will have babies from them soon. My platys also look like they’re going to possibly have babies soon. I’m going to have to get a bigger tank! I’m going to see if the pet store near me would like some of the babies, though. I will say, if anyone is interested in fresh water fish, get snails. They really are fun to watch.

Scarlett is not impressed by the tanks. She’s taking the noises better than I thought, but she is playing jealous a lot. She’s doing well in the house now. She’s eating both of her meals and loves “her” bed, but still refuses to sleep in it with me. She did have a run in with a skunk though, thankfully no tomato baths were needed. It was running away and I was telling her to get her behind in the house. She’s playing outside at least once a week now, so there is a huge improvement. That’s more than she was doing in our old house. The life of a reactive dog, it’s fun and rewarding, yet challenging.

School is going. That’s about all I can say. I am counting down the weeks until graduation. I can’t tell if I am procrastinating on my painting class because the end is near or if I just don’t particularly like painting. I enjoy it, but it takes a lot for me to get started. I only have two more paintings and 3 1/2 weeks of school left. I actually walk across that stage in my cap and gown in less than 4 weeks. I am excited, but at the same time, it’s the end of a 4 1/2 year journey. It is something I’ve worked very hard on over the years and I deserve to walk across that stage and be proud of it. It’s just the end of a big part of my life. I guess after that I start the next chapter of a new career, then in the fall of 2025 I will start yet another chapter called my master’s degree. I even have my dream school lined up, which is less than an hour from my house so that’ll be in person classes.

I think I’m afraid of the end of this chapter, and the next one is scary. I’ll be out there, using the knowledge of all the hard work I’ve done. While, yes, I could stay with my current job full time and just keep doing that, I want to do something with my career. There is nothing wrong with being a pharmacy tech, and there is nothing wrong with not going to college, but I spent $40,000 on this degree, I want to use it. I wish in a way, time would slow down a little, but it just keeps plugging along.

Well, that’s it for now. In a few weeks I’ll have my friend coming from the UK and maybe I’ll have something more interesting than fish and rambling about life.