Achievements

I told myself that I wouldn't post another post on this blog until I published Chimera, and that's exactly what has happened. To remind everyone, Chimera is the fantasy novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo back in November. A lot of comments and proofreading later, it's now available for purchase! I'm really excited about it, because I really enjoyed writing it and I hope that people will enjoy reading it. I'm already thinking about the potential for a sequel this coming November, and I have a lot of good ideas for it. The real question is if I'll have time to work on it.

The point of NaNoWriMo for me was to recover from my bone marrow transplant treatment in the most important way: to become a productive person again. Months in the hospital can really weigh on you. It disrupts your plan for your life, and if you aren't careful, all of those skills, talents, and muscles that you've spent your entire life working on can atrophy pretty quickly. I wanted to reclaim my lost productivity, and NaNoWriMo gave me a solid and fun goal to do that. The best part is that it worked.

Shortly after NaNoWriMo, I had the idea for a mobile app, a sort of modern jukebox where you can vote on the music playing at participating social venues. Then UMD announced a competition, the Mobility Contest, a joint venture between the business school and the CS department to develop a mobile app that improves campus life. With the renewed productivity that NaNoWriMo gave me, I dove in headfirst, simultaneously juggling my research responsibilities and Atmo, my mobile app. Several months of coding later, I won the second place trophy and a giant check for $2000. It was great, and exciting.

Although I have been very productive and very successful for months now, I've kind of run out of steam. I put on a bunch of weight - from my medication and eating habits, not because I've been working hard - and have been feeling a general weariness that makes it difficult to do any work outside of the time I typically reserve for research. This is becoming a problem, because Atmo is turning into a full-fledged business, I'm the only developer for it, and there's a lot of work to do for it still.

I've started waking up earlier and doing Wii Fit daily; I'm hoping that I can turn that into some momentum to get my life (and my fitness) on track again. I've started walking to and from work instead of taking the bus, now that it's warm out. I'm always taking the stairs instead of the elevator. I've only been doing all of this for a week now, but I'm already feeling the results (even if I'm not seeing them yet). I feel sharper, more focused, and I have more energy in general. The only problem that this isn't solving is my eye problems. GVHD can apparently give you chronic dry eyes, and even though I'm on Restasis now it doesn't seem to do much for me. I can stare at a computer screen for about four or five hours before everything starts getting blurry and my eyes start to ache. So even when I feel good enough to do more work, it's often very difficult to do so, and I find myself doing stupid things like coding with one eye closed. This is one of the harder changes to adapt to, but I'm working on it. I'm nothing if not adaptable.

I have to admit that part of the reason I did the Mobility Contest was for the money. Medical bills really add up over time, so I thought it would be good (and perhaps necessary) to boost my income. This was especially relevant because Ted had a lot of trouble finding a job. It took him about a year, but he finally got the job that he wanted with the Department of Defense. It pays really well, so I'm far less worried about our finances than I used to be. However, we did just get a new car (so that he could get to his new job), and that's going to be pretty expensive for a good long while. We need a bit of time to see how our finances are going to be in the long run, but in the meantime you can always help by buying that book I mentioned, or by pointing an Angel investor our way for Atmo.