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I have so much to do and I'm so bad at doing it.

Thoughts and Updates

1) I'm not used to being in school.  Thus, it's been hard to balance readings and writings.  Plus, the classes are all so different.

A) Managing Financial Resources in Nonprofit Organizations
GREAT Prof.  I realized he has to be great.  Because how am I staying awake for 1.5 hours listening to him talk about cash and accrual accounts and auditing and all that jazz?  Also, I realized that EVERYTHING I had been doing as a work-study student as an Accounting/Admin Assistant has to do with ... drum roll.............  CHART OF ACCOUNTS!!!!!!!!
So basically, things have been making sense, so I'm glad.
BUUUt I'm worried.  I have now .. accumulated around 250 pages of reading that I haven't done yet.  But... if I understand what's going on in class, do I need to do the reading?

B) Introduction to (Quantitative) Education Research
EASY prof.  Who basically said we'll all get A's.  Just learning basic stats.  I've started to check my email in class... and stuff...... but he's really interesting, and I think I want to do an independent research project instead of the class assignments.  Should I?  It's semi-over-achieve-y ...... meh.

C) Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning
AMAZING prof.  She used to teach at HBS and came over to the Ed School.  Case-based class and it's interesting.  It's interesting not having a lot of reading, but studying a case and meeting with people outside of class on my own time to discuss it.  I never thought I'd do things like that.

If you can't tell, classes A-C are electives.

D)  Reading Development and Instruction.
AWESOME PROF!  She's also the Program Director.  She's DONE it all and knows it all. lol.  About Reading, that is.  And I'm having a great time LEARNING, but I'm behind on the reading, and a little intimidated by all these people who seem to KNOW everything about reading.  I wish I'd taken my psych / ed classes..... oh well.  Anyway, I have my first paper due, and I'm worried since it has to be about how I learned how to read... and I HAVE NO CLUE HOW I LEARNED HOW TO READ!

E) Adolescent Literature (module)
I was going to also take the Children's Literature module, but I think once this is over, I'll welcome the extra time.  Love the instructor - she works in publishing and she's great.  LOVE the reading..... i love reading.... i love it.. i love it.....  Read some awesome YA books so far.  Dang it,  I want to take Children's Literature.  I think I should continue.  But that means I'm taking 20 units. o_O.

2) My job and internship are both pretty sweet.


A) The Harvard Bridge Program - Really cool concept.  Harvard offers classes for workers at Harvard to take literacy, ESL, citizenship, computer, and other classes along with tutoring opportunities and stuff to help them out in terms of job mobility.  The people I work with are great.  I'll be mainly doing admin stuff, tutoring, and social media development.  (8 hours, close to my place and the gym)

B) reDesign - a private, for-profit, small, education consulting company.  Again. Great people. Cool ideas.  Trying to get my feet wet in this whole "consulting biz" to see if I see myself there.  I'll be working mainly with social media platforms here too.  (7 hours, go to office 1x a week, and the rest from home)

3) I'm excited for church tomorrow!!!!

A) I visited Hope Fellowship yesterday and it was aiight.  Really liked the sermon.  But I don't know... I'll explain more later in person, if you want to know.

B) Excited to go back to Redeemer Fellowship tomorrow.  Because I just loved it.  And you know, I'd always be the girl telling people that when they're church shopping, they should try it out for 2-3 weeks at a time, really engage, and get to know a church.  But I think I'm at a point where I know what I want and the rest is kind of non-essentials.  It's the chem.  and so yeah.  I don't have too much time (I think.. i mean, who knows..) soooo I want to jump in asap. So yeah!  and I think, yeah, just being happy about going back tomorrow, makes me happy.  I love going to a church where people there love being there.  Yaddamean?

4) So much to do here, so little time.


A) I really need to learn how to balance school work.  I can't figure it out

B) I'm worried about my liver.  All people do here is go out for drinks.  I mean, the pubs and stuff here are REALLY cool.... historical, artsy, cultural, musical, etc.  But my wallet, liver, and gut probably can't handle this if it becomes regular... which I think it is.  Last night I tried just going to our cohort's happy hour and not ordering anything.  No calories, no negative dollar(ies), hooray!

C) Today I could have gone to a concert, a classmate's birthday party, and a live band swing dance thing with my dorm mates.  Instead, I worked out, helped out a friend by letting him do an assessment on me, and researched for my class.  I wish I were able to do more things in a day.   But today I have to work.. since tomorrow I'm going to Maine.

5) Interesting stuff up ahead!


A) I think I'm joining the HGSE for Haiti club and it's cool.  I like meeting the people there, and yeah.  I'll be treasurer, so that also adds to time commitments, but I've worked with grant writing before and it will be interesting learning this sort of money-managing thing.

B) This also means, this Winter, I may be in Haiti!

6) Little regrets


A) When I talk with people about classes they're taking, I wish I were taking it too.  I wish I were taking Catherine Snow's class (From Language to Literacy) since she's literally a pioneer in that field AND even though I ran away from the whole idea of linguistics, I wish I didn't chicken out.  Also I wish I were taking Chinese Comparative Education with Fong.  I had cool ideas for the research proposals in that class.

B) I wish I had taught more before I came to HGSE.  But then I couldn't get a job... so then I had to jump into grad school right away... it was kind of catch-22.  But still.  I miss teaching... but then, also, when I think about teaching, I think about Mrs. Chow.  I think about CCS.  I think about mean parents and apathetic kids.  I already start feeling tired.  One person said that she thought that maybe I'm a bit traumatized from my GCA experience.  Maybe she's right.  Anyway, I get anxious sometimes thinking about what I'm going to do for my job.  Is it a given that I should expect to work 50-60 hours a week?  Is it not possible to separate my job life from my work life?  I feel like to do anything interesting, I have to put in 150%.  To do anything tolerable and still have time for me to pursue my other interests, I'd be .. like.. a boring desk job at a university or something like that.  God doesn't want me to be anxious.  and I think about that a lot.

B) I'm eating too much and gaining the chubs :(

7)  I miss calling my mom whenever I want to.

A) I think that was hard.  Not just being able to call people on the spur of the moment to tell them about my day or tell them something cool.

B) I ended up calling Christy Pak a lot.
This is how I start my phone conversation, "Are you still unemployed?  How's the job search?  Okay, well anyway, let me tell you about ME!"

C) Anyway, I miss people. and it sucks that all my CLOSE FRIENDS have YET to email me ON THEIR OWN.  They're all either replying BACK or ASKING ME FOR A FAVOR.   (Do you feel guilty yet?)

8)  I need a haircut


9) Food is better in California


10) I feel like such a hippie dippie here


A) I feel overly dressed up whenever I go to class

B) I am a bit frustrated that there's no compost bins at restaurants and people don't recycle properly