It's kind of like being pregnant

Only not really. But you know what I mean. When you're pregnant you can ride that excuse for a good 9 months, 12 if you play your cards right. Well, I'm going to ride grad school all the way to the finish line as far as excuses are concerned. For instance, WiFi.

I have been perfectly content to have a WiFi/cable/telephone free house. I made a work-life balance decision years ago. For me that meant no internet and no temptation to bring work home and pull 18 hour days. My blackberry was sufficient and though it was inconvenient at times to not be able to surf at home, whatever. Well...with mounds and mounds of coursework online, I have no choice at this point. I finally caved. Welcome to the 21st century, Self. I hooked me up some WiFi tonight. Word.


...and I immediately proceeded to waste my night away with hours of hulu. My WiFi did not lead me to check my course discussion boards. I did not log-on to my school email account. All I researched tonight was Dating in the Dark, More to Love, The Office, and Dr. Horrible (for the 1,382 time). I watched more 'television' tonight than I've watched all year. Oy.

The novelty of this crazy thing y'all call the internets better wear off soon; I gots major studyin to do.

Certainly seems easier...

Yes. I'm THAT nerd.

I went to my first graduate class last night, MBA 605 Executive Development. In a roundabout way I've expressed my [mild] reservations about the whole interdisciplinary factor of my program; essentially my reservations about MBA culture and what I can expect from my course work and interactions with classmates. It's a foreign world to me - and not because I don't know anything about it, but rather, because I do. The foreign-to-me factor is entirely by choice.

I'm completely willing to approach it with an open mind, and to be honest, I'm most excited about the MBA piece of my program. I'm most excited because I have reservations. Having reservations means it's a challenge. I typically excel under pressure and why would I pay buckets of money to learn stuff I already know?

Well, I can now report that I love it. I so love it. I'm not dry cleaning my power suits just yet, but there's a certain latent acumen that is thanking me for finally doing this. I wasn't horribly creeped out by anyone in my class. I wasn't intimidated by the course material (though I was caught flat footed by the timeline of assignments for the first night of class*). I just loved every minute of it. The class is intense. The discussions are challenging. I love it.

In case you're wondering what I'm doing in class on a Wednesday night, when I've told you that night has been set aside for SYTYCD and GLEE: oopsie. Long story short there was a miscommunication with my schedule and up until my Monday night orientation, I thought I was in the Monday night section of the Executive Development course. Surprise! I started school sooner than I thought, but it's all good. That's what hulu is for, right? Anyone know how to get full SYTYCD episodes online? I don't have the patience to piece together YouTube clips.

* MACL students were not given our online log-in information (ANGEL) until orientation Monday night. Professors had been posting syllabi and assignments since mid-August. They expect you to come to class the first night fully prepared with, in the case of my MBA course, 100-ish pages of reading completed and three short essays posted to the online discussion board. So here I am Monday night logging onto ANGEL, my stomach dropping to my knees as I realize what I have to pull off in a day's time. I was at a Jackson Browne concert Tuesday night and Wednesday was the first day of classes at my institution as well. Needless to say, my office was hopping...and I was reading fast and furious. I'm proud to say that I read all 100+ pages and posted all three essays by 3:30pm Wednesday. From now on, I'm going to be done with Wednesday's homework by Sunday night. What a rough way to kick off the experience. It's all a cakewalk from here (famous last words).

Hello, baby.

...and speaking of all that time I'm going to be spending on the computer...

I'm now the proud mama of a new 15" MacBook Pro. I'm working on the Leopard OS, with Snow Leopard coming in a week or so. She purrs along with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of memory. I can finally store my photos and music on the same machine (novel concept) with an enormous 500 GB hard drive.

Also, I'm most excited about the gorgeous NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card. I've outgrown iPhoto and I'm currently playing around in Aperture 2. I want to freak out with glee every time I see my photos displayed on this computer. Dude. Seriously.

It's a professional system, Aperture is, so I'm just trying to get my bearings. I know I'm going to love it! This is just a quick sample of something I played with last night. I took this photo @ Thanksgiving Point Gardens.

this post sponsored by nelnet, the lender of my graduate student loans...

loans which made this sexy new set-up possible.

Today.

Today is the day. The orientation for my MA Community Leadership program is tonight. Classes start next week. Here goes nothing...

I feel relatively prepared. With me it's all about decreasing the intensity of the unknown. It's amazing how calming it is for me to put pen to paper and highlight a routine...and then highlight it again and again via two paper planners, iCal on my MacBook, then syncing it all to my blackberry. (Yes, I know there are medications for that. No, I'm not interested). I'm going to be outrageously busy, but at least it's consistent. I figure if I can survive three years of non-stop travel, I can survive a complete absence of leisure time and loads of interesting homework. Yes, I said interesting. I'm sincerely excited about my courses and I can't wait to dig into the curriculum.

This first semester includes three courses. Exploring Communities is my first MACL cohort course. For the first time ever I'll be on the other side of the service-learning equation. Now I get to be the student who stresses about negotiating an additional volunteer commitment on top of a full-time job, full-time school, and life in general. Ah yes, it all comes full circle. I'm also taking two MBA courses: Executive Development, and The Nonprofit Organization. I'm intrigued to see how I handle MBA courses. I'm not worried about the courses being difficult, necessarily, just different. Completely out of my comfort zone. I have a degree in English and Philosophy, and have been working with social justice issues in public higher-ed for the past seven years. In other words: I've spent my entire adult life avoiding all-things MBA. Or I should say, avoiding all things I assign to my biased stereotype of MBA culture. Should be interesting. I hope I'm proven wrong.

With reference to my schedule, I'm being very intentional about planning for balance. I know my limits. I know how I burn out. I know what makes me happy and what centers me. I'm doing my best to take all of that into account. For instance, color-coded in green I've blocked out Wednesday night for the gym, So You Think You Can Dance, and GLEE. I plan to be as loyal to that silly television schedule as I will be to my coursework. I am booking all sorts of gym time, alone, with friends, and with a trainer (all yellow, in case you're curious). I'm keeping my volunteer commitment with Tabesha's ESL lessons, though only every other week now (blue, because I know you care). I've planned a vacation to white sand beaches in October and I'm going to enjoy it guilt-free (purple, just move on). The blogger/picasa photo issue completely derailed my plans to blog about my travel, but I plan to forge ahead regardless. It may take me months and months to pull it off, but I will document my travel. In the meantime, however, I plan to blog in realtime. What a novel concept. Who knew it was possible? I need the outlet and I know I'll be spending more than enough time on the computer studying, I might as well balance that out with something creative.

So that's that. If you made it this far in reading this post, you deserve a medal. This was definitely one of those posts that was for my benefit, because I needed to hear myself say it (er...watch myself type it). As I keep myself in check over the next four months, I'm sure I'll read and re-read my well laid plans...