I recently took my first MCTS exam (for Configuring Windows Vista) and passed it with relatively little headache. Four hours were allotted and it took me about an hour to plow through scenarios such as “Terry cannot share files on the network. Help Terry fix file sharing.” Today, I got my certification card and Microsoft “diploma”. I’m not sure if this will ever be good for anything other than bragging rights, but it’s useful to have options should I need them in the future. Certification is something that employers in the IT industry look for… but I’m not going to do IT. Hopefully. If Obama’s plan to force everyone into socialized medicine goes through, I may not be practicing medicine as a clinician.
My graduation gift to myself was a Dell 2408WFP monitor. I’ve had my Dell 20″ since 2004, when I came to OU, and it seemed fitting that I upgrade after it saw me through five years of college. The new one… is massive. It really puts a smile on my face just to see how much screen real estate the thing really has. I also convinced my parents to upgrade from their tiny 19″ screen, because they do a lot of video watching on the computer.
Caitlin came to visit me this week before she started summer school. It’s so weird to be apart after seeing her pretty much every single day since we started dating ten and a half months ago. I miss her terribly, but I’m grateful for technology like webcams, Bluetooth headsets, and AIM, so I’m not stuck writing forlorn love letters as my only means of communication 
It’s a hard thing to be apart, but it’s worth it to know you’ve found your soulmate.