Is a Masters really Worth It?

Back in 2008 I decided that it was a good time to start working on a masters degree.  Due to the nature of my job and deployments, I decided that I would go to school online through the American Military University.  Initially, I enrolled in the Political-Military Intelligence Program...which lasted just one short year.  I managed to complete three courses in the program and decided that I wanted to study something that was more interesting and fun.  However, I deployed in the fall of 2009 and had to put my academics on hold for a year (luckily AMU lets you do that).  When I came back from deployment, I wanted to start back up, but not in my original field, so I moved into the Humanities Program.  It allows me to take fun classes like Buddhism, The Ancient World, and Hinduism!  However, it's a very slow process to take one class every semester, and that's really a stretch, I take breaks in between classes).  I have now completed three courses towards Humanities and I'm three weeks away from being done with my fourth class.  I'm still 21 credits and a comprehensive exam away from seeing anything on paper, and now I'm heading to Fort Leavenworth, KS this summer for a full year of school.  Sometimes I ask myself, is it worth it?  Do I really need a fancy piece of paper for my wall?  In the end, I think it is.  I love learning new things, and though I dread the weekly discussion board posts, I've definitely gained something from every class that I've taken...so I will press on!

The Wonders of Oceanside

I'm super excited that I have Nessie for two weeks and on Sunday I wanted to take her out on an adventure rather than dealing with dog beach and all that comes with that (crazy dogs, long drive, and a bath afterwards).  I did a quick Google search for trails in Oceanside and found a great place to check out - Lake Calavera.  Now technically, the lake and parts of the trails are in Carlsbad, but why split hairs! I packed a little day pack with two bottles of water (one for me and one for Nessie of course) and my camera (I am 50% Asian, so I cannot go anywhere without my camera).  We hopped in the Forester and hit the road.  It was a quick 15 min trip down the 78 to College Blvd and we found our way to one of the trail heads.  The weather was perfect again and Nessie was super excited to just be out of the apartment!  We ventured around the park for about an hour and explored different trails and saw the lake.  About 10 minutes into our walk we had an unfortunate run-in with a rattlesnake!  Thank goodness we heard the rattler, or we would have kept on walking.  We carefully routed a WIDE path around the snake and headed around the lake.  Unfortunately for Nessie, this little sighting meant that I kept her on the leash the entire time.  Normally I let her roam around because she will stay close by and respond to voice commands, but I didn't want her battling any snakes!  We had a great time and it definitely wore Nessie out!

Exploration in Poway

This post is late, but last weekend, my friend, Jenna, and I met up on Friday to do a quick day hike.  This is a continuation of my quest to explore as much of SoCal as possible before I have to move to Kansas in July.  I drove down to San Diego to meet up with her and then we headed out to beautiful Lake Poway to do the Mount Woodson Summit trail.  We had absolutely gorgeous weather and there were tons of people out enjoying SoCal (as always).

Beautiful Lake Poway, where people were out fishing on small boats.

This friendly little guy was nice enough to pose for a picture!

This is a military thing, but anytime a bunch of rocks are piled up, I think there must be an improvised explosive device nearby...guess I paid attention during our training!

This is called the "Potato Chip" rock and it sure makes for an amazing photo op!  This is Jenna standing on top of the world!!