Perpetual Change

two weeks left - Spring Football Game Day

Here I sit...procrastinating. In my undergraduate career, I never recall forfeiting an activity I wanted to do, for one I had to do. I always had spare free time, and I fit my assignments and reading into these. Graduate school has been very different and much more work, as everyone warned me. The difference is that there are even more things that I want to be involved in, and several of them I am much more passionate about now. So, the recreation gets cut out a lot, and this is just plain no fun. But I have only two weeks left in my graduate career. I have learned and achieved a lot. I can muscle through the last couple of weeks, but I hope I can find some better balance on the other side. My life tends to pendulum in swings of focus (something I have always tried to avoid for a more stable existence, but it still happens). This has been the farthest, longest, and highest swing that I can remember. I hope it is an aberration and not the foreshadowing of a new pattern to come.

However, I do remember having to choose between two events that I wanted to participate in during my undergrad career. This came up again last week when I took a week of vacation. It was much needed as I hadn't had really any time off besides a couple of days (definitely not most weekends) since July! So I did what I do best to get away...I left the country! Colombia was amazing and beautiful. The people were so warm and friendly, the language so clear and crisp, the fruit so different and flavorful, Bogota so big (9 million) and high (almost 2 miles)!! It was a great introduction to South America and I would love to go back. I will write more about my experience, but I also had to be absent for my award of Global Citizen from the FSU student body, and the lectures of the very impactful Mark Courtney on foster care and education - two subjects close to my heart.

Regardless of the outcome of my choices, the whole trip was worthwhile because on my drive back to Tallahassee (thank you, Martin, for the car!), I got to have three meals with three different John's and their families. Breakfast with my father and mother, lunch with John Ross, Brianne, Ella Mae, Gracie, and Amelia, and dinner with John Meehan, Colette and Aislinn.

Such beautiful families. Thank you for sharing them with me.

Labels: friend visits, grad school

posted by jjs @ 1:33 PM