Signs of Life!

It's a week into the New Year and this is my first post in quite some time, but I won't waste time with a summary of 2009. Or perhaps I will, but it will be short and sweet: study, homework, coding and exams, repeated endlessly in any order. I worked my tail off but it's been more than worth it; finding a career that I love this much is it's own reward. Apparently I'm good at it, too, at least academically. Despite the trials of the last semester, during which I had my doubts if I could make it through intact and sane, I pulled off a high A average and managed my third consecutive semester on the Dean's List. I dream now of graduating with honours...

2010 brings two co-op terms and my final semester of college in Sept. I'm in my first week of my first coop right now, in a slick, shiny, sexy Federal agency in the heart of downtown. (I am in no way being facetious when I say "sexy" and Federal gov't in the same sentence... this place is super-hip.) I have been hired in the capacity of a UNIX system administrator; something that no doubt would cause my UNIX prof to double over in glee... while I did very well in his class, I bitch and moaned continuously through it and failed to see how it was relevant to the Real World. It appears my education is about to begin.

One thing that delights me about the vocation I have chosen is how everything is interconnected. In school, the classes are distinct... Perl, UNIX, Java, SQL, System Design. They seemed in school like separate disciplines that really didn't have many connections. Here, I am learning that I was very wrong. Everything is connected. I may administer UNIX systems but I use PHP and Perl whilst doing so, and am supporting Java development and Oracle databases in the process. The system design principles underlay the continuous upgrades and migrations of the entire IT department. It's a thing of beauty and I expect to receive practical experience in so much more than just UNIX admin in my time here.

My only complaint at this point in time is time itself... from my relaxed student hours and a period of utter hedonism over the Xmas holidays, getting up at oh-dark-thirty is an extremely painful jolt to the system. I get home, have a quick nap and am still utterly exhausted and dream of bedtime. I expect I will acclimatize shortly but right now it's all exhaustion, all the time.