March 2013

Lots and lots of fun things happened in March: a sorority sister got married, a musician-friend who has a standing gig at an Irish Pub played St. Patrick's Day (awesome!), went to the Renaissance Festival with J-Dawg and Sir, etc. But the event that started the ball rolling (hello foreshadowing!) was the sorority alumnae reunion.

I graduated from UF almost 9 years ago, and my sorority sisters are still some of the most important people in my life. There are ladies I see on a regular basis and there are friendships that can be reignited instantly. When I received my invite, I immediately called Sandy to see if she was going. She has two little girls at home, so she had not made up her mind. I decided (bravely!) that I was going to go even if she wasn't (although Sandy WOULD increase the fun level. Spoiler alert, she didn't make it to the reunion).

Cutting to the good stuff.

There were lots of sorority sisters there that I knew and many more alumnae from earlier and later pledge classes were also there. We played ice-breakers and then went on scavenger hunt around campus (so much fun!). We had an hour off from planned activities so J-Dawg and I went to check into our hotel and stopped in the hotel bar for a little break. May I just say (of course I may, this is my blog) how much I enjoy beer and mozzarella sticks? Yum! 

(Me and "My Big Sister" J-Dawg)

(Btw, this photo made the sorority newsletter! We're so adorable!)

The evening activity was a movie on the lawn and dinner. J-Dawg and I decided we would rather go to a bar than do the evening activity and a few other sisters had the same idea. 
We ended up at a smokey dive bar that one of the sisters worked at in college and still frequented. 

I got to hear about the many wonderful things the women were doing with their lives. One was working on her charity and raising her 4 children, another was taking flying lessons with her husband (They have since bought a plane. How cool is that?!), another is working on her PhD. You know, basically truly amazing women who know what they want and are working towards attaining it.

(My "date" for the Christmas party at Disney, and she is getting her PhD while working full time.)

Speaking of amazing women... One of the sisters told me that night about one of our sisters who couldn't make it to the reunion who had moved home before finishing her degree but was now a Pharmacist after earning her PharmD. Apparently, a bachelor's degree is not necessary to apply to pharmacy school, just the required prerequisites and a good score on the admission's test. 

That planted the idea in my head. I had been planning my end game to leave my current situation for a while: I was bored at work (The people were awesome, both coworkers and clients, but there was just not enough to stay busy. I asked for permission to work from an alternate location and it was denied. If I had been able to be somewhere else and doing my job, it would have improved the situation. But they wanted to see a warm body in the office.), I hated the city I was living in, my house, my neighbors, my neighborhood, my mortgage company, you get the point. Most of my friends were in Orlando (and Disney, duh!) and that is where I wanted to be. I had been applying for jobs and looking for apartments for months. I had a roommate and an apartment all ready to go, but had not been hired anywhere, yet. 

(Two things: 1. At this point in my life, I think it is pretty obvious that I won't be getting married [if not EVER, then at least for a very long time] so I need to make enough money to support myself and live comfortably and 2. Just in case I do get around to having children, I want to be able to set a good example. I was always told a college education is important, which is not necessarily true. An education in a field that you could not get a job in otherwise, for example engineering or accounting or science, is important. I did not bother challenging myself the first time at University, because it was the piece of paper that mattered, not the subject.)

The story of our sorority sister's PharmD stuck in my head and I decided to research it when I got to work on Monday.

The rest of the weekend was great. We had a meeting on Sunday where they announced the possibility of getting a new house in 2014 or 2015. This is a big deal because we had the first sorority house on campus and it is soooo old, and we have too many sisters at this point for them to eat dinner together on a nightly basis. The plans looked great and the sisters and alumnae were really excited. 

When I got to work on Monday, I did not research the PharmD program. I did not research it on Tuesday, either. By Wednesday, it had slipped my mind completely. More of that in the "April 2013" post.