Its September!

You know what that means?

Back to school! Its been fun reading FB statuses with friends commenting on getting back to school to teach, take classes or send their kiddos off to Kindergarten. Crazy dichotomy right?

Its a bittersweet start for me. I am feeling a mix of emotions. Generally, I love the start of the school year.

Why?

Well, in the past few years it has meant a mix of taking courses for my PhD. at teaching at least one course either as an instructor or a Teaching Assistant. For me, its fun to change gears from my summer research which is largely field research and is literally at the farms UNH owns in my squash and sweet potato plots. I have a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm for teaching students and getting them excited to learn about plants and agriculture.

So, I will miss the class usually teach in the fall and yet I am glad that there is a terrific person teaching in place of me so thats exciting!

Taking my own classes?

Yes, well the burn out was about to set in, I am not gonna lie and now I feel glad to be done and moving on.

So what am I doing now?

I am attempting to get all of my data together and start the analysis. I say attempting because it takes input from a very busy statistician to be able to get the ball rolling and right now I am vying for his attention ugh. So that is keeping me busy and trudging into campus when I would rather spend the entire day in bed working with the AC on...no such luck!

So, while I am waiting for baby N to arrive, its a good distraction to have work to do and to feel a little nostalgic about the start of the semester. But I am sure in a couple of weeks this will all fade away as I open a new chapter of life!