And so it begins.

Heading to Baltimore for my first cyclocross race of the season, and I'm pretty stoked. Also actually went to cyclocross practice on Wednesday night (with my CX bike, as opposed to the week before when I ran to it and didn't ride at all). I'm sure by the end of the weekend I'll have tons of pictures, whacky stories, and of course, plenty of bruises. I'm really looking forward to seeing a lot of friends from last season again, and talking to one of the women of the ECCC about doing Ironman.

In the meantime though, it's been a long week. We finally went grocery shopping, bought the last of the furniture and stuff that we really needed, and basically finished moving into our new place. I've gotten my tutoring assignments, my field placement, and all of my class books and assignments. Starting next week, my life pretty much belongs to Rutgers (not that it already didn't, but with the addition of tutoring and fieldwork, it's going to be insane.) I'm still recovering from a combination of Ironman, the frenetic moving (and all the heavy lifting that went with it) and shopping, the classes and riding to and from them, racing this past weekend, and getting back into training. Sometimes it's hard to tell myself to back off, since I'm used to never wanting to skip a workout. I have a training plan that runs about 15-17 hours per week if I do it all, but for the next couple weeks while I finish recovering and get used to my routine, I'm trying to just do what I feel like doing, and when I feel tired, taking a rest. It's hard to do! I know it's for the best though, especially since I don't want to be burned out for racing every weekend.

My classes are pretty neat. I definitely feel like thinking critically about teaching has already started making me a better tutor, especially now with the student athletes. It's cool when I catch myself teaching and thinking about something I read about literacy. I'm also really starting to get along with people in my class, and man, we are total nerds. Seriously. We had a 25 minute argument about comic books between classes yesterday, and it was amazing. Then, during class, there was a huge thunderstorm and the lights blinked, and one kid suggested we all tell ghost stories. We cracked up. I mean, hysterical laughter. Why? Because one of our readings talks about a teacher learning to relate to her students during a storm when the power went out and she did just that. I'm also finding myself getting excited about lesson planning.

It's funny, I always assumed I wanted to teach high school English, once I made the decision to be a teacher, but more and more, I'm intrigued by the prospect of teaching 6-8th grade classes instead. I'm doing fieldwork in a high school this semester though, so I'll get a taste of that, and maybe in the Spring I'll try for a middle school so I can see what it's like. There are obvious pros and cons to both levels, but I have time to make that kind of decision, and in all honesty, though I may prefer one over the other, I wouldn't be too picky about the grade level, as long as it was sixth through twelfth.

Right now, athletics-wise, I'm trying to get through 'cross season and have a blast, totally recover and recharge, and I need to put a lot of thought into what I'm doing next summer (there might be something travel-wise happening that will impact my tri life, but we'll see), plus I need to figure out the whole college thing, since next year is student teaching and I have to figure out how I'm supposed to manage to teach full time for free and still manage to make rent and eat... I have a couple thoughts but I need to meet with an adviser about it. The long and short of my triathlon plans though, is that I'm planning on really buckling down and focusing on short course next year. I think with the right training and the right race, I can go sub 2:05 on an Olympic, and that's what I plan on attempting to do. I know it's a super-lofty goal, but gotta aim high!

In any event, back to the piles and piles of homework and reading I have to do... I admit, I do love college!