UPdates :-)

Hi all,

The first hurdle is taken. I passed the first part of the course that will give me a new lease on a career. The second half is a bearcat (the family friendly version of what I think of it) Really, it is an extension of the quagmire of the first half, but it has more of an impact on studying. Imagine this: You sign up for a a course of 6 months, with a minimum of 20 hours of homework per week, it gets scrunched into 4 months, you get an "online learning part" that only gives instructions on what to read, textbooks that refer to chapters that aren't provided in the material, a teacher that will not respond and instructions within the textbooks that are wrong.... and all this, with subjectmatter you're trying to learn. Needless to say, I don't sleep much these days, and google search is my bestest buddy!

I'm thankful for Mike, he's putting up with cooking when he gets home, most days, because I haven't come up for air since sitting down to study when he left that morning, my family and friends that stick to "no contact" between the hours of 6AM and 8PM, and fellow students that DO respond to questions, and actively try to help eachother, because, except for the guy that has been doing this for a  living, we're all in the same boat. July 9th is the last exam, the 10th I will return to doing tours at the castle and July 11, I will spend some quality time at the zoo. In front of the gate when they open up at 10AM, and leaving when they close (Or a little after, to enjoy the peace and quiet around the wolverine paddock, and barring being recognized as "that one that always stretches leaving" and being herded out with the rest of the visitors. LOL)

After which time, I will start setting up my business as a webdesigner, and practice as if my livelyhood depended on it...... :-0

Last Sunday, I took the day off, and we went to Waalwijk, to the Dutch KA group meet. There were severe thunderstorms in the forcast, and we drove up there in a deluge. We couldn't see more than about 2 carlengths ahead at some point, and were seriously questioning our sanity but it was fun. When we got there a total of 21 KA's were in the lot, and we were the only red one. Both older models like ours, and the newer ones were there. People were friendly to us "newcomers" but you could tell, they'd been getting together for a good while, by the conversations you'd catch here and there. Hopefully, we can go next year as well, and do the pokerrun as well. About 20 minutes before we got there, it dried up, and stayed dry the rest of the day, so that was cool.  I stole a couple of pictures of the KA groups facebookpage, but this is my favorite :-)
Our little rucksack at it's first meet........ AWWWW!  LOL.

Picture by Annemarie Kuijt from facebook

Well, you're caught up with what's been going on here....... obviously, not much :-) but I thought I'd let you know that I'm still around and kicking (and occasionally headbutting the walls) and doing fine.

Talk soon, and in the meantime.... Don't forget to hug a loved one?

Hugs,
Pauli