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Friday, August 18, 2006

Fall approaches

The summer is rapidly drawing to a close. I have two more weeks at my internship, and it's been really good -- hopefully I'll get the chance to come back next year.

Not sure how I'll manage to do all of the things I've got on tap for the fall. Right now I'm signed up for six classes:

> Evaluation (required)
> Ethics (required)
> Advanced Quantitative Methods
> Juvenile Justice Seminar
> Intro to Health Policy (Public Health)
> Health and the Law (Public Health)

The Public Health ones only last for half the semester each, so I'm really only taking 5 classes. But that's still one more than a full load. I think I need to drop one, and it will probably be Juvenile Justice.

I will also be working on my thesis, which actually counts as a class. So I guess I'm technically enrolled in the equivalent of 6 courses right now.

I will also be working at the State Highway Administration again, which will be nice.

And finally, it was confirmed this week that I will be the teaching assistant for the first years' Policy Process class. I'm excited about this because it will be neat to see the first-years "in action," I like the course material, and my thesis is based on the process approach, so reabsorbing the materials will actually be helpful. Plus, it's a new professor, so it will be from a slightly different point of view. (Interestingly enough, she works at GAO, on my floor. She's on vacation now, so we haven't gotten together yet, but I think I actually met her earlier this summer.) It will also mean some extra money, which is always nice when you're tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Anyway, that adds up to a lot of stuff. The spring will presumably be calmer.

The end of summer is pretty hectic, too. I will spend all of next week in Portland, Oregon for work, and will stick around in Portland through the weekend to hang out with Reed, who is flying up from San Francisco. Never been to Portland before, so I'm looking forward to it. The following week is my last one at work, then I will visit Alex at his new place in NYC for Labor Day weekend, and classes start the following week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Portland is *awesome*. I feel like I should recommend something in particular, but I don't have anything in mind. It's just a nice feeling place in general. I did have some good cheap tacos at a place called Cha Cha Cha, there's always "the largest used and new bookstore in the world", and many many cool bars and brewpubs. And be sure to watch for Mt Hood from the airplane--the time I flew in the plane went right past it, it was very cool.

Also, you're completely batshit insane for trying to take that many classes, TA, work, and write a thesis. Seriously. You're gonna kill yourself.