The Obligatory Grad School Post

I'm back in school.

I say back in school because last year I only took 1 class a semester. And they were easy. So it didn't count.

Now, I'm seriously in school. Fieldwork, tons of research, papers, projects, presentations, group work... It's a heavy, heavy workload. Seeing the syllabi for my classes has made me super nervous about handling all of it while juggling 3 different tutoring gigs as well as my role as Communications Organizer at the union one day a week (plus online a few hours during the week), cyclocross and training, finding time to work on writing and career stuff like that, and having a social life and getting to spend time with Robbie. It's a daunting task.

Still, I was born to plan. So my agenda is already labeled with due dates and reading assignments, my books are bought or ordered, and every single page of reading that was available online for my classes (and it was a lot) has all been printed, stapled, labeled with due dates, and filed away to be read at the appropriate time. I'm armed with a new desk, a pile of post its, packs of new highlighters and red pens, plans for tutoring each session to the best of my abilities- including a lesson plan outline for the class I tutor- so I should be feeling pretty prepared, right?

To some extent I do. Don't get me wrong. It's just that it's already way harder than I expected. I didn't expect this amount of work from all of my classes, so to be faced with it has been tough. More tough though has been the cost of books. Between Ironman, vacation, being away from tutoring and nannying for a month, paying a security deposit and a month's rent, buying furniture and a ton of household stuff, a frickin' cyclocross bike (the parts for it, anyway. but more on that later), registration for Skylands (the last sprint triathlon of the season), and then having to buy a TON of books, I'm pretty tapped out. I'm not worried, because tutoring starts this coming week and I'll be making more then, but it's still never fun to see money vanish like that, and in such a short period of time.

I'll survive.

On the bright side, my classes are actually pretty neat. For three of them, I'm with essentially the same exact people, so already we're becoming really well acquainted with each other. To the point, in fact, where when the teacher was demonstrating a point and used a picture of a cyclist, and asked what he was doing (a literacy lesson, don't ask), half of the students shouted out "Ironman" and looked at me. I just pointed out how poorly he was cornering. And then yelled at the people who said Tour De France instead of just bike race. Come on, people! There is more to cycling than the Tour! At least no one assumed it was Lance Armstrong in the picture...

Point being, I've made some friends. Including someone who watches the same cartoons like the Justice League and Batman, and can actually quote The Question ("the plastic on the end of shoelaces is called the aglet. It's true purpose is sinister") and actually doesn't think a Booster Gold action figure collection is lame. (He hasn't seen our essentially superhero themed apartment though, so he doesn't quite grasp the extent of our nerdiness.)

In the meantime, before everything gets insane, I've been recovering. I took last week totally off, though "off" is relative, since we were moving, and Robbie and Adam had work and class all day, so I was loading my truck, carrying heavy things, putting furniture together, putting stuff away, and generally getting the place together myself. Mom helped, and Robbie and Adam did a lot once they had time, but a lot of it was me solo. Then, Robbie and I went on a spending spree for furniture and living stuff- I'll post pictures of the place later, now that it finally looks like a real home. It's super nice! Only one of my bikes is living there at the moment, but we'll fix that soon enough.

This week, I rode the Skylands triathlon course. I was 4th female last year, and I'm hoping to do well this year, though who knows, since I'm still technically in recovery. Still, riding the course on my tri bike felt good, and since then I've been swimming and running a little too. Just an hour and a half to two hours a day, and today I'm off because of work and our first date night in I don't know how long! Regardless, I'm feeling good. I ran to the field where we have cyclocross practice on Wednesday to hang out, despite not having a bike just yet, and I can't wait for the season to get underway! After this weekend, it's CX until December, hooray!

I've also been trying to maintain a GoodReads account, though I don't know how successful that'll be with classes and work. But if anyone has it, my account name is MollyHurford, so look me up!

I'm sure posts from now on will be focused on CX and grad school, though of course triathlon is still my #1 love. Starting to plan my season for next year out though, so stay tuned for that...