Laura's Thoughts

I need to do my devotional and get to bed, but wanted everyone to know that I have a house! Well, not really until April 21, but the contract has been signed! I'm so excited. Be ready for the house-warming party!


My new house!

Nevermind on two statements in the previous post. First, I will not get involved with a divorced man with three children. Thank you all for your concern. Second, I will not be embarassing myself on the softball field as we couldn't find enough girls to make a coed team, so the guys are abandoning Liz and myself to form a team in the guy's league. Oh well. Have a pleasant Friday. I'll be spending the entire weekend inside, away from the "freezing rain and sleet." Gross.

Well, I've been at Lockheed for over a month now, and I feel like I'm getting into the swing of things. I've only been through one month-end period, so I haven't gotten totally comfortable with my monthly responsibilities, but I'm getting used to the terminology, the culture, the people, etc. And so far, I really like it!

I'm just now getting some formal training. I'm in training all this week and through to next Wednesday. I like that I got to just play around on my own first before going to training. It makes the material I'm learning now easier to grasp. Anyway, there a few people in the class who came from the Aeronautics facility out in Palmdale, CA. The group I support, ADP, is based in Palmdale, so there are a lot of people I talk with everyday whom I've never met. So one of the Palmdale students is in ADP, and I recognized his name from contact lists and things. I introduced myself and we talked a while about differences between the two sites, blah blah blah. I didn't even think to take him over and introduce him to the rest of my group. He did it on his own, though, clever guy. He ended up going to lunch with one my coworkers. Anyway, my point is that I guess I haven't gotten this whole networking thing down yet. I don't see the opportunities when they present themselves. I'm more than willing to take advantage of opportunities, and I want to, but I need to know when they present themselves. Live and learn, I guess. I get to go out to Palmdale sometime next month, so hopefully I'll make some good contacts that way.

I work with mostly guys -- nature of the defense industry, I guess. Definitely a different environment than XTO's accounting department, which was dominated by women. We were talking about rodents one day and our encounters with various species. Not really sure how that conversation got started. I told the story of finding a rattlesnake under my bed one morning at my parents' house several years ago. Tom found much more humor in this than I thought necessary, and he and Wade have now taken to calling me Rattlesnake, or RS for short. If I had known my office nickname would become Rattlesnake after telling that story, I would have kept my mouth shut. Oh well.

Wade hooked me up with some people on another program who have formed an intramural volleyball team, so I'm playing indoor volleyball every Tuesday night. The team isn't all that talented, but we have so much fun it almost doesn't matter. Almost. I'm still very competitive. Tapp convinced me to play softball with them this spring. We'll see how that goes. I don't think I've ever even played softball.

Love life is relatively uneventful. Went out with a guy from work, but on a different program, so I don't really work with him. I didn't think it would go anywhere before we went out, but thought I'd give it a shot. My original instinct was correct, and we are now friends. However, I think I may be falling for a guy I should not be falling for. I really like him, but he's divorced and has three kids. At first, it was an obvious no way, but I'm starting to open my mind to the idea. I don't even know if he'd go for it, so all this thinking about it may be in vain, but I can't help thinking about it. Open-minded opinions on the subject? Lang's back in New Orleans, which is good. We've spoken once since he left, not sure if we'll talk again. He wasn't that great of a conversationalist. We had fun while he was here, but I'm kind of glad the whole charade is over.

I'll try to post again soon. Hopefully I'll find a house within the next few weeks, and I can post pictures. How exciting!

That is my new license plate number! My TEXAS license plate number. And I have two of them. Yep, one for the front and one for the back. This may not be that exciting to you native-born Texans, but I'm pretty stoked. That's all for now. Oh, and I got to hang out with Lang tonight for the first time in a while, which was nice. He's a nice guy. Goodnight!

Happy New Year, everyone! Let me forewarn you that this is a picture-intensive post. A lot has happened since my last post -- including graduation! So, I am now a TCU alum, and I have a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting. I go to work next Monday at Lockheed. I have this whole week to take care of stuff (becoming a Texan with a Texas driver's license, title, tags, registration, insurance, etc etc) and screw around. My last week of freedom.

Graduation went really well. My parents, brothers, and grandparents came down to support me. And several friends endured the ceremony as well -- thanks guys! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend:


Me and my bros at dinner.


Rachel, me, Toni, and Michelle at graduation.


Me receiving my diploma from Chancellor Boschini.

In other news, I had my last day of work at XTO Energy the Wednesday before graduation. So I will have had a full three weeks off before I start my new job. The week after graduation, my dad and I went to Key Largo, FL to scuba dive. From there, we came back to Fort Worth to watch the Jayhawks beat Houston in the Fort Worth Bowl. That was great! I also got to show Dad my brick in front of the TCU library. Then I went up to Lawrence to spend Christmas with the family. Now I'm ready to re-focus and start a new chapter of my life. Pics from all these exciting events:


Me, Toni, Michelle, and Rachel out at Pete's Piano Bar.


Me on a wreck dive in Key Largo.


My brick!


Me at the Kansas vs Houston game in Fort Worth. Look how close we were!


The annual family pic before Christmas mass.

A new goal for this spring: find a house to buy. Our lease is up in May, and I've decided to buy a house rather than continue to rent. Real estate in Fort Worth is so reasonable compared to what I'm used to seeing in Lawrence. It makes a lot of sense to buy a house right now. I plan to be here for the next few years at least, and since I can afford to buy, why waste money on rent? I'm excited! Meghan, my good friend from high school, will be coming down to live with me for a year or so before she goes on to grad school. We should have a lot of fun. I'll let you know when I've found the perfect house. I'm sure pictures will be involved.

Enough updating for now. I'm looking forward to beginning this new part of my life. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's celebration, and I hope 2006 finds everyone happy and well. I think this year holds some big and exciting changes. Bring it on.

I will graduate one week from today. Graduate from college. I will have a degree. That's so weird to think about. It doesn't seem like a big deal because I knew it would happen, but not everybody does that. It's amazing how life unfolds.

I was brought to tears this week at the thought of no more Tuesday/Thursday classes. These were of course tears of joy! Of my five classes I took this semester, four of them were on Tuesday/Thursday. Yes, this gave me tons of time to prepare for my Tuesday classes (although, I usually waited until Monday night to do so), but I could never do anything on Wednesday nights because I had to prepare for my Thursday classes. The reason I was moved to tears was Project Runway. Seem odd? Allow me to explain.

We were so fortunate as to have campus shut down Wednesday and Thursday due to ice here in the lovely city of Fort Worth. XTO also closed on Wednesday afternoon. So, I left the office at 1 on Wednesday and did not have my afternoon class. You would assume, with finals coming up, I would take advantage of this "magic time" and hit the books. But no. I sat down in our blue recliner at 2 PM, turned on the television, and didn't get up again until 11 PM. Our apartment turned into the shelter for wandering TCU students. I was accompanied in my slothliness by my wonderful roommates, Toni and Michelle, and Jeff and Kourtney decided to brave the slippery roads and camp out here. The Project Runway marathon led to Martha Stewart Apprentice led to the Project Runway season premiere. Way too much TV. We also killed off an entire pan of scotcheroos.

Anyway, I made the comment that now we have another show to watch on Wednesday nights in addition to Martha -- Project Runway. I started to say how this was bad for me because of my heavy load on Tuesday/Thursdays. I then realized that I would never have to worry about putting off homework for TV -- or anything -- again! Granted, I will probably seek my MBA at some point. But at that moment, the thought moved me tears. I am so ready to go to work, come home, and not feel guilty for doing anything besides study. Take now, for example. I should be studying for my final on Monday. But here I am procrastinating on Blogger.

Wish me luck on my last final as an undergraduate. It is all that stands between me and graduation next Saturday. Party at my place Saturday night. Be there.

Oh, and my Jayhawks won today. I was getting slightly worried. Those close losses were disheartening. I think that we'll be a very strong team by the end of the year, though. Very talented freshmen. Keep it up, boys.

I officially have a job; the beginning of my professional career. I accepted the offer from Lockheed Martin Aeonautics on Thursday. I will be a Cost Schedule Analyst in their Advanced Development Planning group. I am very excited... it sounds exactly like what I want to do. The offer was less money than the public accounting position, but I really couldn't see myself auditing and filing tax returns. Plus, I think this was the highest offer I would have gotten in an industry accounting position. So I'm happy with the money. Plus, I start with three weeks vacation, which is nice. And! we get every other Friday off. All year. How cool is that? So, I went and peed in a cup and had a physical, and as long as I'm not about to die and not a druggie, I'm good to go. It's nice to just have it decided. Now I can enjoy the holidays and really focus on these last few weeks of school. So many projects! I just want to get out!

Lockheed recruited me pretty hard for this leadership program they have for college new hires. I imagine I will be participating in it. The program allows you to rotate positions every year for three years, and you go on various conferences around the nation and meet lots of people, so good networking opportunities. And, they pay for you to get your MBA. I'm actually fairly excited about that. As long as I can wait to go back to school at least a semester, which I think I will, I'll be ok. Then I'll probably be eligible to sit for the CPA. I could be Laura King, MBA, CPA. Crazy.

I'm still dating Jerry, the Navy man. I think it's a pretty good situation, actually. His squadron is going back to New Orleans probably in January, so neither of us can get too attached. Which is what I want. Sounds kind of heartless, but I'm not really looking for a full blown relationship right now -- getting ready to start my career, graduate, enter a new part of my life. I don't want to complicate that with a boyfriend. And I don't really have time for a boyfriend right now anyway. Or maybe I'm doing this to trick myself. That's probably the real answer, but I like ignoring it. I'll get it figured out someday.

And speaking of graduation, party at my place Saturday night, Dec 17. Be there. I will have probably partied the entire week before since my last final is Monday at the latest. Hurray for being a graduating senior.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!