On hold

Do you ever feel like your real life is on hold while your work life takes over? Well, that's how life has been for us lately, only with a few little trips dotting the landscape.

September and October have turned out to be very busy months at work. I had already started working on a very exciting all-graphics video for the ADEPT program at MU. Working on this introductory video which explains why healthcare providers (and really everyone) should care about alcohol and drug abuse and what can be done about it. Adept is a grant-funded project that teaches healthcare providers oh-so-important tools for addressing substance abuse in patients. I have learned so much on this project and the passion of our clients has rubbed off tremendously. I will share it when I can, as it's not fully completed yet.

September brought another interesting project to our team. The president of the university was responding to twitter questions via a video we produced. I got to work with new software to customize a virtual set for the president. I also made graphics and did the video composite for this video:



Last week we took a quick vacation to Orlando. It was my first trip to Disney World and it was a great time! Next week we're off to Washington DC again for work. Hopefully soon after I'll find the time to finish going through my pictures from this summer's Grand Canyon/Zion vacation and be able to post more of those pictures, and then I'll be sorting through Disney World and DC. Whew, when will I ever get to complete that quilt?

National Geographic...An old goal? A new one?

So, today as I was going through old email which I seem to never bother to sift, I found a bunch of National Geographic emails. The one on great migrations caught my interest, and when I went to the site, I was hooked by this lovely extras "music" video:

If you know me, you probably know that I love butterflies. I think it's the little girl in me who for some reason always wanted to be a tomboy but could never fully shake my love for beautiful things. Though I have grown up in both the proverbial and physical sense, I do still have a deep love for beautiful things - nature fitting right in to that category. Working for National Geographic was a goal for me not so many years ago, and though I do forget about my job-related desires when living the everyday work lifestyle, I wonder if I haven't lost some of that mystery and I wonder... how do the people who work for NG keep that mystery alive? How does anyone keep that magic alive in the everyday mundane "I get up, I eat, I go to work, I come home..."?

And now I'm reminiscing upon my little-girl dreams of becoming a marine biologist, my young woman dreams of working in the peace corps or for greenpeace, and my mid-twenties desire to work for a company that cares, that inspires, and is more human than corporate. Is that dream still there or has the process of day-in/day-out sucked it away?