running + beautiful days

It's one of the most beautiful times of the year here. I want to enjoy it but I am pretty stressed right now.

Last Friday I went to a specialty store and bought a new pair of running shoes. I had a pair of Reeboks but they were not working for me. The shin splints are killing me. I keep trying to go outside and run. Or to be honest, job. Even a little. So far I have had little luck and I end up hobbling home, cursing.

I have been doing some reading so I am going to try some strengthening exercises for my shins and ankles, and I am going to change my stride a bit. I want to be gazelle-like, I'll admit it. Gazelle! Not hobbit! But if the hobbit shuffle will work then I'll try that for a while.

I feel so good when I run. Or, shuffle. Except for the hobbling home in pain. And I'm not doing "too much", I swear I am not. The pain started last time and all I was doing was walking fast.

I am also going to try running on the lawns more and sidewalks less.

I am trying to get a book called ChiRunning, that is supposed to have some good information in it. It was checked out of the library today. After buying the shoes I am not buying the book too.

Walking just doesn't help me with the stress the way running does. Even if it is only a slow jog for 3 minutes out of a 20 minute walk, I need it. For those 3 minutes, my brain turns off, all I can feel is my heart beating and my breath. For the rest of the day I feel like I can handle the world.

Stupid shins, not cooperating.

Last semester of graduate school. I am stressed. I keep saying that. Last night I realized there is NO WAY I can keep up with one of my classes. Just... no way. There isn't enough time in the week even if that class was all I did, which it cannot be. Of course I worried about this class and this professor all summer because everyone knows it's really impossible to do everything expected in one of her classes. I wondered if i could handle it.

Now I know the truth! I cannot! What to do about this, I don't know. Last night I read just one reading, and it was 88 pages long. I am 10 readings behind. And I have to catch up because I have to write about all the readings to pass the class.

Why did I want to learn metadata again? Why? I forget but at one point it seemed important.

Enough stalling.

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Photo 1: My new running shoes. Dominican University. River Forest, IL. Taken by me. Fall 2010.

Photo 2: Lewis Hall ivy. Dominican University. River Forest, IL. Taken by me. Fall 2010.

hello, september

Today I sat outside on campus and watched the clouds scroll by in a blue, blue sky. An American flag waved and snapped in a cool breeze.

Yesterday I saw a tree with a few red tipped leaves. (That is REALLY early for here.) It was so achingly beautiful I almost cried.

This summer was possibly the worst, the hardest of my life. Everything from the weather to the household to school to money was awful in a way I usually describe with words beginning with the letter F. I'll spare you my potty mouth, Internetz.

I had thought many times about putting up one of those fun summer photo posts just like I saw on so many blogs. Photos I took of playing kickball with friends, going to the local carnival, enjoying outdoor barbecues, camping, swimming, funnel cakes. I have them. Celebrating the good things that happened this summer.

However, my capacity to be fake on the internet is just not as developed as perhaps it could be. There is being positive, and then there is plain lying. I don't want to share all my biznizz on a public blog; neither do I care to pretend my life is all so fabulous. Hey that's what Facebook is for.

This fall is not going to be any easier. In many ways it will be far more difficult than the summer. But that's ok. I am confident I will cope.

I am in my last semester of graduate school. I have moved from mid 700s classes, which I could do easily, to classes in the 890s. PhD level. They are hard classes, very challenging. I am working with the student association. I am now a committee chair. We have a lot to do and I am not sure how to do most of it, especially with just a few people. I am completely revamping the structure of the technology workshops we offer to students. I am interested in library instruction so this process is really helping me develop professionally. Of course I barely know what I am doing, but I have been figuring it out.

Everyday, it seems, something comes up that just reveals to me how surreal my life has become. I remember when I saw acronyms in articles, in job ads, on blogs, and it was like trying to decipher a foreign language. Now I read them and I understand. The other day I read a sarcastic entry on library instruction on a blog; I laughed so hard at something I would have barely understood just a few months ago. I frequently comment that I know it's time to graduate when I know most of the people I see at this school on a daily basis. Remember when you were a freshman in high school, you walked down the hall in a blur of strangers, lost in the wilderness? And remember when you were a senior, and you could not go 5 steps without saying hi to someone you knew. Then you knew it was time to move on. It's like that.

I am moving again in the next few weeks. I have been throwing away more stuff, taking more trips to Goodwill, consolidating what is left.

As I take on knowledge, I shed more and more in the physical sense. I lose more and more of what I had and who I was.

Surreal.

I wonder if someday I will scrapbook again. It feels like a part of an old life I am no longer living. I sometimes look at old scrapbook pages and it feels like I am reading the diary of a woman who died long ago.

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Photo 1: Where I was sitting. Dominican University. River Forest, IL. Take by me. Spring 2009.

Photo 2: Lewis Hall. Dominican University. River Forest, IL. Taken by me. Fall 2010.