A Very Good Week

This has been a very good week. Work's been very busy, but it's nice -- the days go by quickly, and it's a welcome change of pace to the still-only-learning mode. My project proposal has gotten approved for funding for the coming year, so work will start on that next week. That will be very exciting to get started on... writing the definitive set of standards and guidelines for Editing & Imputation for all Statistics New Zealand is such a great opportunity to be involved in, let alone leading!!!

More tangibly, however, several other events have made this week especially good. For one, humanity has once again survived SkyNet day (Aug 29... and if you get this reference, you're a nerd too!) ;-) Today, Sept 1, is officially New Zealands' first day of spring, and the weather's been incredible. Bright sunshine, a mellow, dry wind, and a balmy 15C collectively do wonders for the human spirit. You can even see, on the busy streets, people actually smiling and wearing bright colours -- the latter being especially surprising for Wellington, the official capital of black.

Another neat thing about Sept 1 is that it is now exactly 1 year until the wedding. Somehow, it seems realer now. (Naturally, that's a good thing, except for that nagging feeling that I shouldn't be procrastinating as much now!) ;-) Dave, being the romantic gentleman that he is, began the celebrations for our "-1st Wedding Anniversary" by showing up at my work with red roses. He's so great. In another hour, we're getting dolled up to continue the festivities at a fancy restaurant, Logan Brown.

And, as if that wasn't enough reasons to be happy about Sept 1, there's one more... it's the effective date of the PROMOTION I snagged!!!! ^_^ I had kept my application, endorsement procedure, interviews, etc. more or less quiet so as to avoid jinxing anything... but yesterday afternoon I was told that I got it, and with good supporting feedback to boot!

What this means for the job is that I'll be doing essentially the same job, but with more responsibility, more autonomy, and higher expectations with respect to leadership, initiative, involvement and overall job performance and quality. Apparently there's also a bump up in pay, too, but I did this mostly to stretch professionally... and something tells me I definitely will be, soon!