On Wednesday I attended my first class.

And I got my ass swiftly kicked.

First, I went in knowing that I missed two readings. One I thought was in the text book only to realize I needed to read the original source. The second I just couldn’t get my hands on. I tried to get my hands on the book so I could photocopy only to find that while the library said it was on the shelf, it was not. I finally decided to ante up and buy the whole book since I looked at the syllabus and saw we’d be reading other chapters. So I get to class and we start discussing the readings and I mention that I had trouble finding the readings. They were on Blackboard! I dunno if I missed an email, a line in the email or everyone else just had time to poke around Blackboard (kinda a Facebook for classes) and found the articles. Either way, I was the idiot. She even posted all the journal articles so we don’t waste time looking them up! Fab.

While it hurt at the time, I understand why our professor spent a lot of time talking about how each and every class is preparation for our comps. Because well it’s true. Thus there will be a lot of reading and writing in this course. And that also applies to our weekly “reading journal.”When I was writing my journal it was a journal of my notes. WRONG. It needs to be a 1-2 page response paper of the readings in a cohesive manner.

On the bright side, I like my professor. Her areas of research are similar to my interests (science policy, mentoring) so I hope that I will get a chance to work with her outside of class. She also planned the class so we each have to teach the others one theory or aspect of public administration that is related to what we think our dissertation will be on. I volunteered to do feminist theory. Obvious right? Thus I also outed myself as the feminist in the class. We’ll see how that goes.

Going in, I knew this program was going to be hard. That’s why I’m only taking one class right now. But the plan was to go up to two in the spring or the latest next fall. But as I sit here looking at the pile of papers and book chapters I have to read this weekend, I can’t help but think, “WTF did I get myself into?!”

It didn’t help that for the last three weeks I’ve been working 5-hour days and squeezing in the other three here and there due to my daughter’s summer camp schedule being 10 am - 3 pm. Add in a meeting or two in any of those days and I can barely find time to pee much less get a lot of substantial work done. Thankfully that period is over and my daughter goes back to school in a week. I’ve never been more happy at the thought of being in my office at 9 am on Monday.

Until then, back to homework.