First Day

The last couple of days I've had the first day of the two classes I'll be in this semester- American Renaissance and Intro to Critical Theory. I'm pretty sure I'm going to thoroughly enjoy both of them! I'm a little sad that American Renaissance doesn't include any dramatic lit in the syllabus of reading material, but that doesn't mean I can't perhaps do a side project on it connecting it to either an author or novel we're reading. Critical Theory is with the rest of the first year Grad Students, and it's going to be... interesting. I'm happy to know at least two people in the class, and I got to catch up with one of them right away the first day.
Honestly, the hardest thing about the last couple of days has been the bike riding around. My legs aren't used to this hard of ride this often. It'll probably take a couple of weeks before they finally get to a point where I won't drop in bed dead tired from my ride at night. By then hopefully I won't have man-legs the size of tree-trunks. Yuck.As a last hurrah before I started school, I had the day off on Monday to do a nice long day hike on the Superior Hiking Trail with T and one special little visitor- a 5-month old puppy named Bella! She was great to play with- completely uncoordinated, limbs everywhere, falling in the water when we were hiking along the river- for once, I wasn't the only one (I'm including myself on the falling in the river bit- I may have been trying to cross and completely wiped out in the middle. Good thing I was wearing fast-drying clothes... oops...). It was a great day- beautiful for hiking, with sun and warm weather with a slight breeze to cool you off from time to time.The waterfalls on this particular hike are spectacular, and I love being able to hear them roaring as I hike right next to the river. Of course, a trip to Grand Marais after the hike included some delicious pizza and fudge before a tired and satisfied drive home again. I have to admit, I was a little surprised to see that the tops of a lot of trees were already changing colors. The beginning of school always has been the signal for fall, but this year especially it's been taken to heart. I'm excited for the leaves to change in full blast technicolor in a couple of weeks now- this is my favorite part of the year!
After my first class yesterday, I made a quick stop at Yarn Harbor before I cruised back home to grab some pretty sock yarn in celebration of becoming a Grad Student- check out this beautiful Melody superwash wool I found, in tweedy greens and purples. I need to get a plain sock on the needles to knit in class, and this yarn grabbed me right away. I was really lusting after some yarn that was called "Mini-Mochi", but at over $8 a skein and tuition payment coming up, this poor Grad Student couldn't splurge. Maybe next time. :)
Well, time to crack the books and look over my notes before I pack up for tomorrow again.I have to admit, it's a bit of a relief to be back in school.
My brain is officially happy again to be working hard.
Now time to work on making other parts of life a little happier...