Grad School...Day 1

Whew! What. A. Day!

I pulled myself out of bed at the (dark and) early hour of 6:30am so that I would have ample time to get ready for my FIRST DAY OF CLASSES! My first class was at 8:45am, so I wanted to make sure I had time to do everything around the house and still get to campus with time to drop my lunch and laptop off at the lab and stroll on over to class with at least a few min to spare. Success!

I cuddled with BigBoy for a few, made my bed, took Jake out for a good 15min, had my quiet time, made fresh coffee and a simple breakfast, packed my lunch, picked up a few odds and ends around the house, and got myself ready to face the day, complete with Texas A&M hoodie, WHOOP! It was a chilly 53 degrees when I walked out my door this morning circa 8am. Aaaand, the wind was blowing at about 24mph, with gusts up to 36mph or so. Made me walk a little more briskly, that's for sure.

I really enjoyed being one of the first people in the lab today - that was always one of my favorite things at Wharton's lab, too. It's just nice to start the day in the quiet of your "home" away from home. I dropped off my lunch and my laptop in my little cubbie, along with a few of my lep books and lit print-outs...it's always nice to lighten the backpack load before setting out on another hike. Fortunately, other than the 0.5mi trek I make from where I am currently parking ($1.50/day!! It's pretty much perfect, as long as I can get there early enough to get a spot - that right there, my friends, is incentive to get a move-on every day. I still need to look into paying monthly, instead of daily...if that secures me a spot, then my life will be so much easier - NO BUS!!) to the lab, and then back again come the close of the day, all of my classes are way close to the lab. Fantastic!

8:45am. First class: Insect Ecology.
- No books. WIN!
- No exams. WIN!
- Familiar faces from the Incoming Grad Student Weekend in March. WIN!
- Lots of readings for each class. Not so much of a win.
- Rude reminder that I absolutely hate the mathematics that goes along with studying ecology. Super not so much of a win.

10:00am. Close of class.

Immediately have awesome convo time with another 1st year grad student - we are officially friends. WIN! She's a Quaker...I don't know that I have ever known a Quaker before. I need to do some research on their beliefs. She's awesome, though. We hit it off back in March, too.

10:30am. We both decided it was time to hit the labs and get some work done.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent reading lit and continuing the data transfer from Yoshi to my desktop in the lab...I need to come up with a good name for the gigantor thing with the tiniest hard drive ever. Suggestions?? (It's a Dell...be nice, y'all - I didn't choose it.)

Got in some chatting on gmail chat and Skype...sadly, no actual Skyping was had. This will take some getting used to, for sure. I rather enjoyed the life of simply doing things around the house (Yes, I know I live in an apartment...but it's my home, so it's a house. Don't worry about it, it doesn't have to make sense.) and being able to answer calls on Skype at my leisure. Now planning (dun-dun-dun-duuuuunnnnnn) and scheduling will need to take place, I'm thinking. We can do this. We can survive this, right? Right? Sigh...

So, get a load of this, y'all: 3:55pm, I leave Hodson and make the 0.5mi trek to my car; I then drive 2.5mi to the bank; I spend about 20min there getting quarters for laundry (lame); I then drive the 2.5mi back to the lot and park my car; I make the 0.5mi trek back to Hodson; once inside I encounter the tiniest little Chinese girl I think I have ever seen and she is beyond lost trying to find her classroom, I walk her to the correct side of the building and put her on the elevator that will put her just outside her classroom; I walk back to my side of the building and take the stairs up to the lab; I sit down in my cubbie at, get this, 4:39pm. I did all that in under 45min!!! Awesome. Just sayin'.

That left me just enough time to down my peanut butter and jelly sandwich before my next class.

5:10pm. Second class, Scientific Illustration of Insects. This class is going to rock. I'm so excited about it! We are starting our training out in the world of old school: INKING! Yuh, like for serious - bottle of ink, crowquill pen, fancy paper that I can't remember the name of and EvErYTHING! After mastering that and learning a few other techniques we are moving to using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator - SO legit.

7:00pm. Left lab and headed home to take care of Jake and do some laundry. We had a rather productive evening, actually! I threw a load in the washer down the hall, then took Jakers out. We went on a very brisk 1mi walk to get back in time to take the wash out and put it in the dryer. We made it, and I had quite the tuckered pup upon our return. I made some dinner, had some ice cream, swept and mopped the kitchen, folded the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, and here I sit blogging and enjoying some Criminal Minds.

And with that, I'm off to get ready for bed.

Loves!

Shalom!
~MW