Things I Am and Things I Am Not

I am:
1. A serious student. Wow, I have 14 credits this semester, which is a lot for grad school. In truth though, one of the classes is only 2 Saturdays and one is only the second half of the semester. It's all manageable and I love what I do at school. A lot of times when I get home at the end of the day I am absolutely electrified about what we have talked about in class during the day. A lot of my classes right now focus on planning and evaluating health programs, which is certainly key to what I will someday do in my career, but they are very information-dense courses. In the evil step-sister corner of my public health education is a second semester of biostatistics. Mathematics and I get along well, however this semester brings on SAS. Unfortunately, this is not 'sass,' as I have already mastered being sassy. This is statistical programming software that taunts me with error messages every time I try to run my program, resulting in my squinting at the screen, combing through every entry in search of the one forgotten semi-colon (out of dozens of code lines). Because without that single semi-colon, the program tailspins into mathematical destruction. Gah.

2. A Caribou Coffee Barista. Yup. I started work this last week at Caribou Coffee near Uptown. I am still learning the ways of the job, but its a job and I am very thankful to have a little income right now. I have been working early mornings twice a week and that is definitely an adjustment, but it feels very doable. I am definitely tired at the end of the day, but I can also afford to take some naps on the days that I work so early.

3. A Nanny. Well, I haven't really started but I have also been hired to nanny for about 3 hours a weekend for a Minneapolis family. The kiddos are cute and the family is so wonderfully flexible with my school and work schedule. My first job with them is actually cat-sitting while they are in DisneyWorld. I wouldn't mind a trip to DisneyWorld.

I am not:
1. A Natural-Born Swimmer. I started swimming this morning with some of the lovely ladies I go to school with and we are planning on going twice a week for the semester. I don't exactly know what I would say about what happened in that pool this morning, but I swim about as well as a one-legged stone duck. The positive side? Swimming (or thrashing in a general direction through the water) is an excellent workout, I had fun with the girls, and I can only get better. Because if I get worse, I will probably drown. Also, this training brings me that much closer to my goal of completing a triathlon this summer. Five months to go!

2. Immune to the Winter Cold. All that training from four years of living in Fargo is absolutely gone-- if the temperature dips below ten degrees I don't even want to leave my house. I have spent more time with my electric blanket than any other possession in the last week. I love that silly thing. It can warm up any time now.