In case anyone still remembers...

Found myself thinking of this place again recently.

I defended my PhD a little under a month ago and passed by unanimous vote of my committee. I've been working on getting all my paperwork turned in and getting all of my approvals but everything should be go for graduating in August 2015 and becoming Dr. Pittman.

Today marks 1 year since I met a wonderful young lady who I see myself staying with. It'll be one year since our first date in about a week. In the few instances where I've dragged something out to show her she's found the coins interesting even though I obviously geek out about it in an embarrassing way, even now, even though I don't think I've gotten a new coin in 5 years. Maybe that'll change soon, but she may be more than a girlfriend at that point. Although I did buy a 10 oz silver bar this weekend when I saw the prices had come down recently and I realized I had a little extra money in the budget.

I'm hoping that in the next few months I'll be getting a new job that pays better than a graduate student assistanship and I'm hoping at that time there might be time and money for a little coin collecting again. We'll see. (I know I've had these hopes before.)

5 years down. 5 years of near total job security, just with pay and going to school. Haha. Now the future is looking up. Might be doing very well very soon, but there's a lot of uncertainty.

I'm not resting my hopes on a teaching position or some other lost cause like that. I'm about to have a PhD in Chemical Engineering with a focus on loss prevention, process safety and risk analysis. I've been getting training and experience with forensic engineering and accident investigation. I'm finally in a position to go out into the industry and get the job I've been wanting for 5 years. I just have to find it.

I hope you're all happy and healthy.

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