The past few months

Ever since I finished my last exam I’ve been meaning to blog. My last test was right before Halloween and was correspondingly scary. One guy who took it with me attempted a problem, crumpled up his written answer, tried again, and ended up submitting his crumpled sheet of paper.  The whole thing was tough and much different than our practice exams but I do think I gave the whole thing my best shot and I think I have a shot at passing. Anyway, the results don’t get released until mid January so I have a little while to enjoy not studying. If I do pass it would have been my last actuarial exam! I really really really want to pass.

Since the exam, Lauren and I have been watching Star Wars movies we got from the library (she hadn’t seen any of them), using our sous vide machine (it’s nice to just plop in the meat and forget about it for awhile), hosting a couple game nights with coworkers (where I learned how to use the sous vide machine), and doing everything but studying. It’s really nice. Marriage has been … well, I feel very pampered. Not in all the things she does for me. It’s just feels really nice to spend all this time with someone that really wants to be with you.

For Thanksgiving, we went up to the Bay Area and spent time with Lauren’s family and got to see some of our friends.

Before we went up I went around the house to take some photos of the place.  Here’s one of the kitchen, where we spend most of our time.

I should probably try using my wide angle lens more often.

Over this past weekend, Lauren and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary. We went to Naples, which is a city in Italy!  OK, we actually went to Naples Island in Long Beach, California, close to where we got married. I was still a little sick but we managed to walk around the area for the Christmas light boat show. The houses were all opened up for parties and family get-togethers that you could see right into them. They all looked like super nice, like something you’d see in a Pottery Barn catalog. We spent the night down there, visited the place where we got married, went to a neighborhood farmer’s market which was at a school, and ducked into the school’s basketball game (the purple team got crushed). I guess we were thinking what it’d be like to have kids in school and all. We went to this resort afterwards to hang around the area, play Carcassonne, and have dinner before coming back home. I think Lauren really wanted to take a trip somewhere over the holidays but our one night, half-anniversary excursion may have been it for this year.

Last Sunday, I was also on the radio!  You can listen to the broadcast here.  Lauren and I have been regularly trying to submit answers for NPR’s weekly puzzle and mine was selected! I got to play the Sunday puzzle with the hosts. It tried to prepare and wrote down all my responses word for word to the questions they normally ask guests (“How did you solve the puzzle?” “How long have you been playing the puzzle?”) so I wouldn’t stumble on my answers.  It ended out turning out ok but I was really nervous.  Maybe I thought it was like an exam all over again…