While tidying the house today I came across several business cards - both mine and Tim's. I've been thinking about work quite a lot recently: it's almost a year since I moved jobs and looking back it was definitely the right decision. Yes, the commuting is a pain and I'm very tired in the evenings. Yes, I've lost a lot of free time and had to give up one choir because of it. Yes, the house is never quite as tidy as I'd like, and the weeds are taking over the garden. BUT, I'm much happier now and enjoying both my day to day work and the challenges that lie ahead. I've had fun trips abroad, worked on some challenging cases and taken on more responsibility as the year has gone on. I work with a great bunch of people and have plenty of time to indulge my reading habit on the train to/from work! This job and this lifestyle suits me at the moment, and I know I'm lucky to be able to say that.

Tim's work is also going well - there have been changes in his team so the future could be different, and he's also just been promoted so there are new challenges ahead for him as well. We're both the kind of people who like working hard and want to do good work, and we're both in jobs that enable us to do that. not bad considering neither of us knew what we wanted to do after PhD's!

Next post on something non-work/study related, I promise...

Chartered Financial Analyst

I have spent much of the time since last posting here studying for my level III CFA exam, which I took 2 weeks ago. I'm reasonably confident of the result, as I was more comfortable with the questions than in either of the previous levels, but these things can be deceptive. It'll be a couple of months before I get the results, and then that'll be that. If I pass then I only need work another year or so in a job that relates to a part of the investment process, and I'll have earned my CFA charter and the right to put 3 more letters after my name.

It's been quite a journey, from a position two years ago where I had little knowledge and less experience of how the world of finance and investment worked, to now where I have a broad base of understanding and am confident in my ability to learn more.

The only question now is whether it was worth the effort. The material I have learned is only tangentially relevant to the work I'm doing now, and I'm not sure that my future career path lies any more closely aligned with investment management. On the other hand, completion of a big professional qualification like this can only work in my favour in showing ability and eagerness to learn quickly in new environments, commercial aptitude, and discipline in fitting in around 1000 hours of study around work and play over the last two years.

Time will tell I suppose. In any case, if you hear me talking about doing any more study over the next couple of years, remind me that after a dozen years of studying for exams: GCSEs, A-levels, Degree PhD, CFA, that it's really time for a rest.

And we're back

Tim and I have been discussing recently what to do with our blog: we've not posted for rather a long time, but it would be a shame to let it go completely. We've always enjoyed posting photos and blogging our adventures, and maybe keeping up the blog will spur us on to enjoy even more adventures over the summer! So I've refreshed the look of the blog and here's a photo of us, in case you'd forgotten what we look like!

If anyone out there is still reading this blog, then do leave us a comment - and if anyone knows how to edit the template to remove the wasted space on the left hand side of the page then do let me know!