OK I'm back

This image of Mike freezing in sandy, tropical Key West unfortunately summarizes our trip there, although we managed to have quite a bit of fun and laughs despite record low temperatures. But this blog isn't about vacationing, it's about returning to grad school, so let's get on with that ...

Rest assured, loyal readers, that I am back from vacation and ready to share all my intimate, insightful thoughts, naturally offset by a great deal of nonsensical filler. Today was the first day of classes in our third of eight quarters. I am lucky to have only one class on Mondays, "Employee," an HR-ish class about how to manage people. I expect to enjoy it thoroughly.

After looking at this quarter's syllabi and remembering that (a) I give tours, (b) I'm volunteering for Food For Thought, (c) I just volunteered to be a tutor 3-5 hours a week through LearnToBe.org, (d) I recently said I'd be on the board of CABO, (e) I'm supposed to be a journalism cluster leader for the Media & Entertainment Club, and (f) I'm trying to have a life, I thought to myself, "(g), this is probably not the best quarter to overload on classes ... perhaps I should drop one of my electives." So I did, just half an hour ago: Financial Reporting. I know it's important; I'll take it next year. This makes my load Employee, The Global Macroeconomy, The Operations Engine and my one elective, Statistical Modeling. Plus we'll be doing some academic work in preparation for our international trips; you may recall I am going to Australia.

Now that I'm well-rested and back, I am trying to get into those good habits -- being tidy, eating right, exercising, practicing good hygiene, wondering if that's really how you spell hygiene, Googling hygiene to verify its spelling, and so on. I just want it all, and I won't settle for less!

A couple other tidbits I've recently learned:

-- If you're ever out of town buying clothes at a Men's Wearhouse and they tell you they'd be happy to ship all those clothes to another location and that the receiving store will gladly press the clothes, DO NOT BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. You will not receive all the clothes, and they will not be pressed.

-- Precious had good performances and Up In The Air was cute, but if these are really best-picture contenders, 2009 sucked.

-- If given the chance to do something in Key West, do it. See the weird performers at Mallory Square, eat French food, go to the drag show, do karaoke*, go out on the glass-bottom boat. It's all worth it.

*I did karaoke, and the next day, I was walking down the street, and a guy shouted, "HEY, it's that angry guy in the white T-shirt from karaoke!" That's when you know it's been a good vacation.