So here I am getting ready for my first day of school. I took a year off after undergrad but always had the intention of returning and now that plan has come to fruition. Everything thus far is pretty much as expected: lots of meetings and orientations that say roughly the same thing ad infinitum, stacks of journals articles I’m supposed to find time to read, and a million little other things I’m supposed to keep track of. It’s all totally doable and I’m excited for the challenge. But what else is there?

I’ll be TA-ing too and if you listen to the show hopefully my enthusiasm and ability to communicate comes through reasonably well, so I’m not anticipating too much difficulty with the students. From what I gather the culture here is a bit different than what I was used to at Santa Cruz. I’m getting settled into my new place, getting used to all the new people and trying to comprehend the fact that this is my life now and now some weird summer camp I signed up for only to return to Santa Cruz after a spell. There are commonalities between all this and the beginning of undergrad but I feel like I have an exponentially better handle on academics, universities and just life in general. The most stressful thing I’ve had yet to endure is running late to a meeting in a confusing building only to try and stay awake in said meeting once I arrived. Not too shabby all things considered.

Coffee is already an issue. There’s not readily available coffee in the entire building where I suspect 90% of my time will be spent on campus (at least when I’m on campus for academics). The professors get coffee but the grad students are expected to fend for themselves. Probably shouldn’t bug me as much as it does but I really like coffee (and kind of require it).

Allergies haven’t been too bad, weird to be in a place that cares about sports, beer selection is better than I expected so the show shouldn’t suffer for that. I still don’t have a grasp of how busy I’m going to be which makes me a little nervous since I do have a show to run. I may actually have to start delegating tasks but it’s not like everyone else isn’t busy too, I just was the least busy for a bit so took point during that time. I wouldn’t worry, dear reader, we’ll get it sorted, but these are the things on my mind as I lie in bed (even though this is getting posted mid-day tomorrow) on the eve of a butt-load more schooling. I’m excited, ready and fully expect to wake up in a confused daze two years from now holding a Masters.

So what say you, Paleoposse; any words of wisdom from those who’ve been down this road before? I look forward to kicking this degree in the ass and will take all the help I can get!