Week 1 bites the dust...

Part of me wants to be like, "Where the hell did the first week of classes go?" but the truth is that I'm still trying to figure out where my last year went. Suffice it to say, Fall 2011 has started and methinks it's going to be a great semester.

I'm taking three classes, all of which are going to rock my socks. They're all going to be a lot of work (a lot!), but that's expected at this level. I have two assistantships, both with professors I really like. And both professors have asked me to spend my assistantship time working on projects for them. (Oh, darn!)

For fun, let's add this up: I'm still volunteering for the Curley Center, am working on two projects/assistantships with different professors, have my own independent study to complete, have three classes that will require individual/varying projects, still have a book chapter to complete, am an unofficial officer in a student group, am a communications officer for the AEJMC sports interest group, have two studies I need to clean up for conference submission... and that's before I add in course work. Speaking of, on top of regular article/chapter readings, I only got assigned two 200+ page books to read by Wednesday next week.

And here's the thing; I'm NOT complaining. This is freakin' badass stuff!

You probably think I'm being clever and showing you
Hurricane Irene (I am). What this really represents
is my next four months.

The other really nice thing about being back to the grind is getting to see everyone again. The new cohort is going to be lots of fun, and in general I've already been to two social outings hosted by groups in the college. I even managed to get sick in the middle of all this, but my willpower is stronger than my germs and I won this round.

Things helping me through my first week include The Joy Formidable, Pearl Jam Radio, Slatkin & Co. candles and lots of water. My weight loss kick is about to get a dropkick to the face 'cause I'm going to buy a bike. And I'm going to use it. (Crazy talk, I know.) Natural disasters abounded. First, there was the earthquake I didn't even feel. Next, there was the hurricane that completely passed me by. (I'm actually a bit disappointed. When I worked at Disney we had three hurricanes in a 5-week span and the best thing in the world was going to the parks the day after a storm. Walking directly on to rides is no joke.)

And despite all this, my favorite thing that happened this week managed to occur this morning. There I was, minding my own business, reading a book about how to build social science theories (aptly called How to Build Social Science Theories). As I get to the chapter about model-building, the last thing I expected to read was that "Models help build theory, but they do so mainly by maiming and murdering," (Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004, p. 113).

Just chew on that until you hear from me again.

Toodles,

Mel(li) :)