As of today I've officially been in classes for 1 week. It's a weird feeling. Well, the weird feeling could be all down to sleep deprivation, but the school bit is odd too. My stats class assigned a total of 4 chapters in a textbook, plus a 24-page pdf and 2 handouts (something like 10 pages each). That's for one class.

My lofty goal of getting all my work done from 8am-5pm may not be attainable if that's the pattern. I did feel better after struggling to get it all done in time (class is about 50 minutes away and I'm just now wrapping up). Better still when one of my classmates confided in me that he was feeling similarly overwhelmed.

All of this isn't helped by my experience in class this morning. Public Economics. I have a pretty solid background in Econ, even if it is all 10+ years old. Econ hasn't changed much at a basic level. We're studying some basic microeconomics now, and my prof asks me why demand curves are downward sloping. We've already covered it, but I repeat that it slopes downward because as price rises, quantity demanded falls. Not what he's looking for. He actually berates me for just repeating what he said, and then goes onto someone else before I can tell him any of the real root causes he might be looking for. It was frustrating. I sit there and stew, sure that I can explain marginal utility or substitutability as well as anyone in the class, but as of now I've been shut out because I didn't understand his question right off. Grr...

I've spent much time the last few days thinking about where to live and what to do outside of school this year. There was a hope that I'd get a fellowship in the local planning department worth about $3500 a semester for the next 2 years. I made it to the last round of interviews, but didn't get picked, even though I was complemented for my enthusiasm and experience. It's hard to tell what the successful candidate had going for him/her, but I feel like it must have been an awful lot. I've lived here for 26+ years, so I know the city like the back of my hand. The position was to help out with planning projects, with a focus on bike and ped issues, so it seemed like my experience from this summer, as well as me being a bike commuter in bloomington would have been in my favor. Plus, they needed someone with database experience and GIS familiarity, and I've worked as a database manager in an environment where we were interfacing with GIS. It seemed like such a natural fit to me. I was pretty disappointed when it didn't work out.

But there will be other opportunities. For now, I've got to concentrate as much as I can on classes and finding some place for us to live. That's plenty to keep me busy.

I miss Melissa too. She's not expected back till at least this weekend, giving us about 2 weeks apart. I think that's the longest stretch since we started dating. It's been refreshing in a way, but I do miss her. I'll be happy when she gets back.