About

Welcome to Murren pursues the dream.

My name is Amanda (and also call myself Murren). After wanting to blog for a long time, and I decided to dive in to a couple years ago.  I am a  Business Systems Analyst and Project Manager for a smallish international company, and a recent graduate from Capella University, and I live in the Bellingham, Washington area.

Why did I start a blog when there are already so many blogs?

Well, there were numerous reasons. I use Facebook to stay in touch with close and distant friends and family, but blogging gave my friends and family a way to get to know a different side of me.  I always wanted to write but I have an extreme fear of failure and had put it off for a long time, once I got started I found it very satisfying, even when I wrote here infrequently. And… I’d originally hoped that blogging would help open a door to my dream job.

When I started, I knew exactly what my dream job was, but I also LOVED (and still do) my current job. I get to do an amazing variety of awesome things – I help shape business processes, I translate business-speak to geek and geek to business-speak, I beta test internally developed software  (and I actually like it), I write how-to and training documentation, I get to teach people how to use systems and mentor co-workers (in a peer mentoring sort of way), I write requirements documentation, I actually get to play around in SQL code a bit, and I do a bit of project management.

And I work with great people! My boss is amazing, the development team I work with are great, as is working with my husband, and many of my co-workers are like family.

It is really an awesome job!

I do sometimes wonder if I should really want more. My job is great. People look at me like I’m insane when they see how enthusiastic I am about it. What could be better?

My dream job of course!

All of these job qualities, but in a setting where I care even more about the outcome. Where the product of my labor is something that I can enjoy, and that my friends and family can enjoy as well.  I know that I want to work in the video games industry, but I don’t yet know the role. I have ideas, but my dream evolves with me.

When I started I had a clear picture of what my dream job was.  I wanted to share the dream because everyone really needs a dream. It is important to have a goal or dream that you work toward to keep personal growth alive. For me, for a long time, it has been completing my bachelors degree and then the longer term goal of the dream job.

I do still have a dream job, but it has become less clear. I will continue to write about a variety of things here – family, work experiences, games, friends, art, the dream job (whatever it may be), and life in general.