First day of classes

Today started off with a bang- literally. Thunderstorms rolled in last night and a deluge ensued stopping right around the time I was walking into Temple Hall. Classes started bright and early at 8am. I had all three of them today and they seem to be mostly undergraduate courses with extra projects for graduates. Linear regression is probably going to be the toughest and most intellectually demanding as the other two classes involve a lot of map making theory and implementation, most of which I’ve done before in some form or fashion. In short, this year is looking like it should be good with time open for both work and study (theoretically).

This end of last week was pretty uneventful. I received 24 professional papers to read in the next couple of weeks and was tasked to find some more recently published papers. Yuck. Anyway, I’ll be looking at the stratigraphy and concentrations of metals in the floodplains of the James River. It’s not exactly the project I wanted to work on, but I suppose I’m sort of in this for the job opportunities afterwards. Although, the more papers I read, the more I realize how applicable it might be to environmental reclamation and a future job.

I’ve been busy settling in a bit more this weekend- assembling some much needed shelving, moving furniture around, attempting to find things that a certain oldest sister hid, putting some privacy film up in the bathroom, fixing the towel rod, and arranging some rocks around the apartment to make me feel more at home. The futon didn’t look right in the front room, so I moved it into the fireplace room, where it seems to fit better. We do need some area rugs or, more specifically, money to buy them (hint for b-day coming up). The population of the area exploded over the weekend due to the students moving in. Traffic has been terrible; silly parents not knowing where to go.

Well, it's back to reading for me...