over 900 eyes all lookin' at me!

i apologize for the delay in blogging. i haven't had a coherent thought in my head lately (grad school is supposed to make you smarter, but i'm beginning to feel like a half-baked carrot. not that i've ever actually been half-baked, and we won't talk about being a carrot...;-)).

So the second week of grad school: i've managed to avert a complete breakdown. it was a super close call. i wanted to call bob (the grad director) and explain to him that i just don't have what it takes. apparently that feeling was remedied with 6 hours of sleep. good to know.

other than that, reading is kicking my butt. i've never read this much in my life. it's incredible. and obscure sometimes too. there were a few moment when i was reading an article i thought, "what?!" (with a slightly confused look - you'll have to imagine it...). yeah, it was great. i had to re-read the same paragraph 15x (ok, a little hyperbole my friends, but not much) to understand what the heck the author was saying. seriously, if you can't write clearly, don't write. just give presentations at conferences and use lots of pictures. some people are meant to write, some people are meant to read. it's your lot in life and there's nothing wrong with that...

so janice (the prof i TA for) allowed me to speak to our class (of 450+ students!) on my research on hurricanes andrew and mitch and relate that to katrina. it didn't go perfectly, but it went well enough. janice was very kind about it too. in fact, she offered that if i want to do something else during the semester, she would allow me to do so! exciting huh? yeah, especially as a first-year. it was a lot of work to pull together (even for only 20 minutes...) but being up there really reminded me why i'm here. i love to teach. and that's what will help me get through those miserable, i want to quit moments. ;-)

until next week, friends....:-)