The First Snow!

It is a good morning. I woke up to an email that 2 classes for the day are canceled, and the quizzes in those classes have been postponed to next week. Hooray!

It is also snowing, and today that makes me happy. It makes me thankful that seasons change, things die and also come back to life, and there is a feeling of incredible coziness being snuggled in on the couch in my PJs drinking my coffee under a blanket while the wind whips the snow around outside. I'm sure I won't feel the same when I'm actually walking across campus this afternoon in the wind, but for now it's nice.

Today, thankfully, has been a much better day. My family came up and we went out for dinner last night. Resources are much more in balance today. There's still a lot to do, but it'll happen.

Plus, there are still pretty trees like this, and it's the end of October.

I had a dream last night that I got a B on an assignment, and completely and utterly freaked out. Today it happened. I got a B, but did not freak out. However, I realize how much this should NOT matter, but it does. I know exactly how many Bs I've gotten as a graduate student, and the fact that I know that and let it get to me sucks. What's the saying-Bs get degrees? Ugh.

the overwhelmedness

I'm taking a class called Professional Issues right now, and in that class we talk about...well, professional issues...certification, licensure, burnout, stress. This past week, or maybe it was two weeks ago, the professor talked about stress in terms of resource allocation, which made a lot of sense to me.

She described stress as an imbalance between the demands you feel and the resources you have. I previously had a notion that stress was an accumulation, or something heavy, and always progressing or regressing, but I didn't see it in a sort of give and take, back and forth mode. But this makes far more sense to me experientially.

There are times when you have heavy things on you, and it's fine. You have the support, the internal resources, etc. to deal with it. There are other times when your resources are extremely limited, maybe you're sick or hurting, and there's nothing to balance the stress and someone's tone of voice can lead to tears.

I'm so there. Not tears, but overwhelmed. The demands right now are overwhelming the resources I have to deal with them. It's temporary, yes. But a very ugly feeling. I'm still trying to take care of myself, but finding that recently the things that should help mange the demands are becoming demands themselves...exercise, eating well, church, devotions, etc.

And, at the end of it all, this too shall pass. The next few weeks will be over soon, as will the semester. With the cholera epidemic raging in Haiti, I am reminded that it's a luxury to be stressed out about school work and obligations instead of food and shelter.

Making Faces

Het Weekend

It's a 4 day weekend and I couldn't be more thankful. While you all may be celebrating Columbus Day elsewhere, in SD it's Native American Day. And I love it.

My schedule has felt really busy lately, and I've found myself with just an hour here or there, with no big chunks of time to really dig into something. So this weekend I'm doing just that. I am ignoring the very strong pull to get out of town for the weekend, and instead getting some important things done, and also celebrating having some free time.

Yesterday I started the weekend out with drinks and dinner with a friend. Today was cleaning and running errands until late afternoon, when I went on a bike ride with a friend. The sky was somewhat ominous, but we went anyway. We got sprinkled on, and eventually rained on, but it was warm enough that it wasn't miserable, and we finished 22 miles on the trail, some on parts I'd never seen before. That was fun.

Tonight has been spent laboriously reading and taking quizzes on research ethics and the protection of human subjects. I totally get the importance of it, but as I was reading it through, somehow it struck me as absurd that we have a billion little rules and processes to protect human subjects in research, but we do so little to protect humans from disease, famine, etc. etc. I know, totally random, but it's where my mind went.

Tomorrow is baptism of Ang and Ryan's littlest, which I am very much looking forward to, and then starting in on a paper for my Articulation and Phonology class. I'm going to be writing it about the use of sensory feedback in articulation therapy, which I'm really interested in. What I'm not really interested in, however, is actually writing the paper. We'll see how that goes.

Monday is so far planless, other than a bike ride with another friend. My hope is to use the day to organize closets and cupboards and get rid of things I don't need anymore, but we'll see. At some point I'd like to go and see The Social Network too. Hooray for long weekends!

It is a wonderful day. Not only because it's an amazing fall afternoon, but also because...

I rode my 500th mile on my bike today!!!

I went to church this morning and then out to lunch with friends. When I got home, I was really pretty much certain I was not going on a bike ride. I had a bunch of reasons it wasn't going to be great, like it's coldlish, there was too much wind for my liking (more than none, basically) at 15 mph, etc. etc. Basically I was whining to myself about it. But, the other options were 1) workout at the gym, or 2) go for a walk outside.
Here's the problem with #1, go to the gym. This is the view out my living room window right now:

Going to the gym on a day this nice just seemed like a travesty. I am really, really enjoying fall this year, and trying to soak it in without fretting about the impending winter. So #1 was out. And #2, going for a walk, is just kinda boring after starting to ride bike...it's way too slow.

So I thought I'd get out on my bike, and if it was really awful, come back after a few miles. Thankfully, that was not the case. The portion of the bike trail south of my house has been closed most of the summer so I haven't ridden there much, but did today. What I hadn't realized is that a lot of that section is in the middle of parks with tree breaks, making it much more impervious to the wind than the wide open section by the airport.

The other great thing was that after much deliberation I seemed to have come up with a good biking outfit to suit the weather today. I was neither too hot nor too cold, which made for a really pleasant ride. That, and a new Shakira song from zumba on the iPod. A little Waka Waka is good for everyone.

This Morning's Oats

Oats, milk, plain yogurt, raisins, trail mix, & honey

My New Favorite

My new favorite, and current obsession, is overnight oats. I don't think I blogged about it, but I've been thinking about oatmeal lately. It's good for you, and though I ruled it out as a kid, I thought I might like it.

So a few weeks ago I made some hot oatmeal in my rice cooker...and it was okay. Not really any flavor though, and by the third or fourth bite the texture was making me a little gag-y.

Enter overnight oats. Ryan and Ang introduced me to them on our Okoboji weekend. And then I realized that my current favorite blog, Kath Eats Real Food, has been talking about them too (somehow I assumed she cooked them).

So the idea is simple--mix oats with yogurt and/or milk, let them sit overnight, and voila. They are a bit chewy, flavorful, cool, and ready to be topped. I am a huge fan.