Well, we're Texans now. We've been here two weeks (tomorrow), and life is starting to settle down. Last Monday I started work for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas as an Actuarial Technician (my lowly designation for lack of experience and exams). I spent most of the week doing orientations, trainings, and studying for the second in a long series of Actuarial Exams. I took the exam on Saturday at a national testing center down in Dallas where I had to wait an hour past my scheduled time just to sit down to take the test. It wasn't a very easy test, considering both the subject matter and the stress of graduating, moving, and starting a new job when I should be studying. Apparently candidates are encouraged to spend at least 100 hours studying for every hour the test lasts. In the case of this exam, Financial Mathematics, that would be 300 hours of study time! Whoa! Sadly, I wasn't able to spend quite that much time studying, but I am glad to announce that the preliminary unofficial results were good. I passed! I'll get the official transcript in 6-8 weeks, but I don't really care much what my score was because I passed!
We live in Plano, which is surprisingly different than we were expecting. I had only been to Texas once before, and that was just for 24 hours for the interview in February, so I didn't get to see much of anything. Suzanna had been to Texas before, but we were both expecting it to be Hickville, with dirt, dust, cowboys and cacti! We were shocked to see how green and clean it is here! We live in a great neighborhood in a fantastic community where we feel really safe. The roads are nice and the speed limits are pretty good, too. It's kind of a long drive to work for me (compared to any commutes I've had to deal with before), but it goes pretty quickly.
Our ward is great so far, and we had a lot of help moving in. We'll have to include some pictures of our apartment soon so everybody can see what life is like for us. Luke is growing like a weed still. He's got a tooth coming in, and he's not been a great sleeper lately, but hopefully he'll improve soon. We've got new couches, and we finally bought a TV as well, so things are just peachy for us! No Texas accents, yet though.
6 comments:
Yes. I vote for pictures. Glad that TX is exceeding your expectations!! Now whenever we visit Tulsa you'll just be a few hours away.
Good to hear from you! Now that you're not around any more, you'll really have to update your blog more often.
Congrats on passing the exam, Mark! i don't even want to imagine the stress of that, so i won't. i'll go to bed instead. but i'm happy for you and your awesome little family.
Yay! You're here! Yes, Texas really is beautiful, at least Central Texas, and the people generally are very nice. I'm glad you like it so far.
Don't worry...you'll be saying "ya'll" before you know it.
I just realized what great faith you had in moving there if you really thought you were going to "Hickville, with dirt, dust, cowboys and cacti!" Lucky for you it's not like that.
I like the new family picture! now you just need a new post!
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