All About Mike

I realize that Mike doesn't get enough attention on this blog.  He really is apart of our lives; we just don't get to see much of him lately as he's in the home stretch of grad school. 

Right now Mike is finishing up his fifth year of graduate school.  He's getting prepared to graduate with his PhD in May, which makes this semester a busy one.  He is set to defend his dissertation on March 6th.  His research has focused on developing a model to improve the profitability of state lottery games.  Professors in his department are impressed with his work, and he's enjoyed the project.  Not everyone gets to write their dissertation on their own original idea, or on an idea that is particularly interesting to them, but Mike has been lucky in that he came up with the idea and has actually enjoyed his research. 

He has spent much of January interviewing for jobs.  He's been traveling a lot - Chicago, Washington DC, and Canada in January alone.  As for now, we are just playing the waiting game, but will keep you posted as we hear back from jobs.  No news yet.

On top of this, Mike is also teaching this semester.  The class is Agricultural Economics 330, which is a Financial Management class.  There are 150 students in the class, so he is busy helping students, planning lectures and creating slides for each lecture.  He's enjoying it, but it keeps him busier than he expected. 

Mike is also teaching a few piano students this semester, although I'm glad that he finally decided to cut back on students in order to focus on schoolwork and job hunting.  We don't see any more of him as a result, but I'm glad he isn't stretched so thin.  He recently got called to play the piano in the primary at church (again!).  He loves it and is good with the kids.  He's also the 11-yr old Scout leader, which he's really excited about too.

Grad school hasn't been a cake walk for any of us, but I'm glad we're doing it.  As things start to wind down, I just feel grateful for the role that each of us play in our family and how everything fits together to make our family function.  Mike is really good at balancing school and family life, and has worked really hard to achieve this goal to provide a future for our family.  I can't wait for the next phase of that future to begin! :)