It Begins

Yesterday I had my first day of class. During the morning at home, before I left for campus, I apparently was sighing a lot. I came into the kitchen while Kevin was making lunch and let out a big sigh, and didn't even know it until he pointed it out. I felt a little like Pooh Bear, "Oh Bother." But once I got to campus, I started to feel a little better, knowing that this had to happen. I have finally found a best way to get to and through campus on my bike, and I'm really happy about it. After two years of slightly tweaking my route, I have found the one with the straightest path, and the least amount of possible mis-haps with phone staring students and drivers. So, that's a big plus about going to campus now.

My books this semester, aawwww yeah.

First on my agenda yesterday was a meeting with my supervisor. This year I started a new assistantship with the Assistant Dean in the College of Education. For the last year I was working in the Institutional Studies (IS) department on campus. It is in the administration building, and is basically like a big information data hub. I had the opportunity to move my assistantship back to the College of Education and I jumped at the chance. Not because my assistantship with IS was particularly bad (although there were some spells when I wondered, "what the heck?!?") but because I really missed being around my own college. I felt disengaged from people, and knowing that I will soon be finished with coursework, I want to have a way to stay connected. Physically being back is great. I'll go more into my work with the Assistant Dean, but for now, I'm happy to be back.

Second on my agenda for the day was my first class. I'm taking a course called Case Study Research. It is a methods class, one that will teach me a particular way to gather data, organize, it, and prepare research. I'm excited about this course because it will help me get close to completing a research study from this summer. Best of all, the professor is amazing. I've had her before, and am so glad to be back in class with her.

Last on my list for the day was doing some reading for my independent study. I am taking two courses this semester, the Case Study Research course, and also an independent study. For this one, I developed a syllabus where I will read through sociological theory. I need to have a good grounding in theory because, well, I'm super interested in it, but I also want to have knowledge about it to know which will be the best for my dissertation. So when I got home, I curled up with Karl Marx.

It's going to be a packed semester. I'm also a teaching assistant in a master's level class with my advisor, although the class is online so it's rather interesting. But in terms of my course work, even though I'm only taking two courses, I have a lot to write, and a lot to finish, and then a lot to prepare for if I am to begin writing my dissertation proposal in the spring. For now, I'll focus on reading and writing for assignments.