I'm at work, it's 4:22, I have nothing to do. I am leaving for London on Monday and this will give me 11 (!) consecutive days off of work. I am excited; I just wish I could get out of here and meet up with my friend on the slopes. But I can't, I'm stuck here, so I figured I would rant about my year in chess.

Around today one year ago I had just finished school and bought my car and I had accepted a job in Vegas. I was pretty excited to start my job, meet some new people, and of course play the North American Open. I went to school in Chicago and one of my friends lived just West of Denver which is on the way to Vegas and he was driving home too so we had tentative plans to drive together. I left and got to Omaha (I have friends there, too) and he got there a little bit after me. Then, one of the worst snowstorms I've been a part of hit Colorado and Nebraska, literally every highway in Colorado was closed. Anyways so my trip got delayed and I got to Vegas a little bit late and then I told my boss I wanted to play the North American Open and I took two days off. That was the last time I got to study chess for over 4 months.

I was working for an adult cabaret that opened January 13 in Vegas. It was an extension of a club in Reno and I had done some work with them in Summer 2006. I did all the accounting for the club in Vegas. I mean everything, created and implemented procedures; tracked cash; tracked bank accounts; dealt with vendors; dealt with payroll issues; trained cashiers to work in the cage; financial projections; financial statements; capital rationing; etc. My boss was the kind of guy who wakes up at 6-7 in the morning and goes to bed between 9-11 at night and 'works' the whole day. Now by 'work' of course I mean he spends all day on the phone but he can definitely make things happen. Since him and my father were close, I lived with him the first 3 months I was in Vegas, big mistake. I took two days off for the North American Open right when I first got to Vegas, then I worked over 10 hours a day for the next 25 days straight and if I ever complained I got reminded that I had taken days off and that most people aren't getting days off. It was fair because I had much more work than I could possibly finish (working 100+ hours in a week and still falling behind is extremely stressful). So I probably got 4 days off in the first three months I was there.

Then there was the Reno club, which had a momentary lapse in good accounting when I first went back to school, but since then was supposedly fine. Then I find out in mid-February that actually they have been messing around in Reno and I have to go up there (come up here?) and fire the people in the office and train a new girl to help. And then I had to hire someone else and oversee the Reno office too. I was on salary this whole time at a rate that was less than we had agreed upon (it worked out to about $10/hr with the hours I was working) in November before I came out and I was given a promise that after 90 days I would have a review. So 90 days came finally and I asked for the review and it was denied so I quit.

I made a resignation letter, made copies for the other managers and went into my GMs office to tell him I was leaving. The owner wasn't there but by now I had moved out of his house at least. I gave it to my GM and he gave it back and said I can't leave right now he'll make sure it gets worked out. So finally after I quit a few more times in the next couple weeks finally I issued an ultimatum and got a raise but things weren't ever really the same. I was never really happy with that job again.

Around the time I was trying to get a raise, I came up to Reno for my birthday and to play the Far West Open. The reason I started working for that club in the first place was because my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer in April 2006 (we found out the day before my birthday) and he couldn't work in the office anymore so I stepped in to help. One year later when I came home for my birthday he was extremely weak, I didn't know what to do I felt so helpless. I lost my first three games of the tournament, got a bye (very rare) on the night of the 7th, my birthday is the 8th. So I went to the bar and drank about two-thirds of a bottle of Patron and lost my fourth consecutive game the next day hungover. I won my last game but this is a small consolation.

So after this miserable performance, combined with some troubles with a girl I had been seeing at the time, I started playing and studying again. Intensely. My dad died on June 23 and I moved back to Reno (the club was failing anyway which was more stress) to be with my mom. I ended up quitting my job at the end of July (more study time). By the time I got a job at the end of August I was back in a good routine and I was playing good chess. I have lost only 4 games since July (three of them were absurd blunders where the game lasted less than 20 moves) and I broke through 1900 for the first time and I am now about 1990. I earned 130 points in the second half of this year.

To close out the year I won last night to guarantee at least a tie for first in the 1800+ section of the club tournament (I'm taking a bye in the last round). I put up 2.5/3 against three experts with a performance of over 2340. Next year the long anticipated climb to master from expert begins...