The Calm Before the Storm

Two days of orientation down. Two days of classes this week to go. And today... I'm pretty sure I don't have any obligations, but I also have that feeling that I may be missing something. I looked through all the various pieces of paper I received yesterday to see if there was anything I needed to attend today and couldn't find a thing. I also don't recall any mention of "see you tomorrow" yesterday, so I'm going to assume that I have the day off today. (If you're in my department and happen to be reading this and laughing to yourself about how I'm missing something incredibly important, please let me know). But, for now, I'm going to enjoy the day off.

My first and only class tomorrow is Biostats! Wheee! And so the storm begins. We had the option of two biostats classes: Statistical Reasoning or Statistical Methods, the latter of which comes free with a lab session! Having taken my last math class 12 years ago and having never taken a statistics class ever, I decided to take Reasoning, the "less rigorous" class. I ran this by my advisor who then asked "how much are you paying to be here?" (um, too much to suffer?). She somehow convinced me that I actually should suffer, so I'm now taking Statistical Methods, the "more intense, math-heavy" class starting tomorrow. Fuck. If this hampers my blogging, you know who to blame. On the plus side, the term is only eight weeks. Like a restaurant that serves bad food, but small portions.

In case you're wondering (and even if you're not), I'm also taking Epidemiology (plus another lab!), Integrating Social and Behavioral Theory and my only elective, Entertainment Education, plus two one-hour a week classes that don't have any work. When I registered yesterday, a PhD student came by and looked at my courses "19 credits. Well, you won't have a life for the first term." Dude, they're pretty much all required. One extra class and I won't have a life? But, then I remembered, "Oh wait. I'm in Baltimore! I don't have a life to begin with!" See, it all works out.

I may not have a life anymore, but at least I used to have one, and that counts for something, right? I was reminded of said former life the other day when I was on the treadmill in my building's gym, flipping through the channels and landed on my old show. Even though it airs a gazillion times a week, I never actually see it. Anyway, there it was. A nice reminder that it's there if I want it. Sort of. Although, it's not really there anymore. I'd probably only be there for another month or so before I'd have to find another job. One of my former co-workers informed me that his next job is at Traffic Court on the Tru network. No disrespect to him, (if you're reading this, hope it's going well!), but hearing that made me appreciate where I am. If I were still in LA, I'd probably be lucky to get that job. But, I'm not there and thankfully I'm not angling for Traffic Court. It's a good feeling and a good reminder of why I wanted to leave TV in the first place, at least for a little bit, at least the reality part of it, at least the part where I'd be lucky to land Traffic Court.

Speaking of my old life, I may have made the mistake of telling my department that I used to be a comedy writer. Maybe I should have just said writer, as now I'm the "comedian" of the department. Oops. I've only been asked to tell a joke a few times so far (which I was able to worm my way out of, luckily), but now there's the pressure of being funny. Hopefully that'll wear off once people realize I'm not funny when I'm trying to learn statistics. But for now, it's a reason for people to want to talk to me, and to quote a much funnier person than me, "I've got that going for me, which is nice."