Interests

Out of many distractions that life offers, a few are billed as interests and some as 'professional interests'. I have always believed that one of the best ways to pursue these interests is to get involved with a professional organization that could help one's career and professional growth. And so, the last couple years for me became the STC years. After a year of active involvement with the TTU Student Chapter, I became an officer and a member of the executive council. Being the chapter's Finance and Philanthropy Chair, I was responsible for our finances, fundraising, community, and charitable work. For over a year Aubrey, Kevin, and I ran the chapter as if it was another one of our course projects. In the final run, our hard work did pay off: soon we became the fastest growing student chapter in the nation and, at the 50th Annual Conference in Dallas, we received the Chapter of Excellence and Pacesetter awards. The picture below is from the conference, and it is the one of me  with our region's amazing Director-Sponsor Linda Oestreich, taken at the final banquet. Having parted with the Texas Tech  chapter, I will always remember that we have made a difference by making last year one of the most successful ones in its history. Yet, I have not parted with STC, and last October I have participated in another conference, this time in Austin, where I also took part in the STC leadership meeting, where we discussed how the organization can transform itself to reflect the recent developments in the field.

Another semi-professional interest I have is web design. Although the fast-paced environment does not leave much chance for  perfectionism, I do enjoy tweaking the websites I create. In the spring, this hobby got me a contract job with Lubbock Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program. And the new project I am about to start working on is a web site for Lubbock Karting Association. I also enjoy working on computers. My laptop has more software on it than one can possibly imagine and all of it works (well, mostly). I also upgraded my old PC to something capable of handling XP and other resource-hungry applications.

Where do I get energy for all this? My guess is that most of it comes from my regular workouts. I jog and do weights at least three times a week, and it seems to be working!