In 2000 I moved to Zilina, Slovakia and started studying Informatics at the University of Zilina (Zilinska Univerzita). The idea of my major was great – to “produce” a Software developer that is well-familiar with all business processes, business analysis, accounting, hardware concepts, etc. However, in real life it appeared to be yet another difficult program with lots of memorization. Many of my classes were taught by professors that were also the authors of the textbooks used. The exams were oral, in the professors office with just you and the professor. The grade from the exam was your final grade – the work you did throughout the whole semester was just so that you’d be allowed to take the exam.

At the end of my third semester I was having a hard time passing a preliminary exam (the pass/fail one that if you pass, you will be allowed to take the real exam). After my third attempt, the professor told me that I’d have to retake the whole class the following year (which meant retake the whole year) – she said, “I’ll see you next year.” In my mind I immediately knew, “no, you won’t.” There were two of us that day with similar fate. We sat in my car for quite sometime in silence and asked each other, “what just happened to us?” That was my last day at the university with the exception of when I went to pickup my paperwork six months later.

The next year I studied at TCK (Training Center Kompas) in a one-year youth leadership program. I enjoyed this year a lot and was able to learn a lot about God and about people. At the end of that year, Jessica and I got married. I also applied to three different colleges in the States in order to finish my college education. I was accepted at Cornerstone University into their Computer Science program.

We arrived to South Carolina in August 2003, and about two weeks into the stay we moved to Michigan. We took out student loans believing it was the right thing to do and I started school. I have never studied so diligently until then (student loans will do that to you). I was hired as a student technician in the TechSupport department at the school and enjoyed working there. At first, my admissions counselor told me that none of the credits I acquired at the University of Zilina would transfer and I had to start from scratch. So I became a transfer student with 0 credits. After the first semester, my academic advisor expressed doubts that no credits would transfer internationally and started looking for an organization that would be able to evaluate my Slovak credits and be able to “translate” them into American equivalents. After a few months of waiting and hunderds of dollars in evaluation fees, I got the reports showing that I would receive 31 transfer credits. I was excited.

About 5-6 weeks into my second semester, a full-time position opened up in the TechSupport department, I applied for it and have been working there ever since (so far 2+ years). I also transferred to an accelerated evening program at the school – the closest degree to my field of study was Business Management so that’s what I chose. From March 2004 until September 2005 I had classes every Thursday 6pm-10pm, and study group meetings almost every Monday for a couple of hours.

After I was done with the program in September, I was still about 17 credits short of graduating. I was missing Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Science credits. I looked into CLEP tests and here’s what I got: 12 credit test in German, 6 Credit test in Fine Arts and Humanities, 3 Credit test in Personal Finance, 3 Credit test in Software Applications, 3 Credit test in Software and Hardware Concepts, 2 Credits for A+ Core certification, 2 Credits for A+ Operating Systems certification.

I also almost graduated with honors – I had a very good GPA, just not enough in-house credits – most of them transferred in. So that’s a loooooooong story long.

We just got back from a Chinese restaurant where, together with friends, we got to celebrate my successful passing of the Humanities 6-credit CLEP test. I thank all of you who were praying and encouraging me before the test. I still can’t believe I passed it.

Other events? I cleaned up our basement and now I have huge a pile that needs to go to trash and a big pile that needs to be taken to CompRenew. Anyone in need of an older 21 inch or 15 inch monitor? Or Pentium III computers?

Height (usually thought of as length at this level of mobility): 27 & 3/4 inches = 70.5 cm = 97th percentile
Weight: 18 pounds 8.5 ounces. = 8.305 kg = 90th percentile
Number of shots: 3
Severity of crying: medium-high
Length of crying: 5 seconds (wow)
Is asleep right now: yes
Are we happy: yes

Other updates:
I was scheduled to take a 6-credit Humanities and Fine Arts test for tomorrow (Wednesday 2/1) but I rescheduled it to Saturday morning. Last night after taking the sample test at the end of the text book I realized that only about 60% of the test questions were covered in the text book. And that’s exactly what my test score was on the sample test. So please pray for me. I better pass this test on the first time – it costs money and if you fail, you can’t take it again for the next 3 or 6 months.

So I’m done with classes! For the last 18 months just about every Thursday I had class from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. I don’t even know how it is going to feel tomorrow night when I won’t go to class :) But enough about me…

Kaiya is growing so fast that sometimes when I come home from work I can notice how much she’s grown since I saw her in the morning. Diapers size 1 no longer fit even though they are supposed to fit for a few more weeks. We’re having so much fun though. Kaiya started making these “bird noises” so we say that she has imaginary bird friends that she talks to. I’ve been trying to capture those noises with my camera, but every time I turn it on, Kaiya miraculously stops any kind of performance and with a blank look on her face just follows the camera. I will make sure that if I get a video of Kaiya making the noises, I will upload it to our website.

Speaking of our website… I finally added “Go to first” and “Go to last” picture links so that you don’t have to scroll through all the pictures you have already seen in order to get to the newest ones at the very end.

A few of you have asked why I haven’t posted anything for a long time. The answer is: I’m finishing up school. My friend Ryan said, “well that’s what you should write about.” OK Ryan. This is it. :)

My last day of school is this Thursday (9/15) when I have to turn in and present my final project of the final (capstone) class. After that, I’m still missing a few credits so I will take some CLEP and DANTE tests to cover those but I can do those at my own schedule. So this Thursday is a really big day for our family as I will finally have the time I’ve (we’ve) been longing for.

But now, I’m gonna get my coffee and continue working on my paper. :)