Where Did A Month Go?

Or more than a month?  I've started many posts and then realized they are pointless dribble.  And that I had too many other things to do before I had time to organize dribble into something interesting and maybe even slightly humorous.  Like finish this masters in international relations.  A masters that, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have started.  But when you're 4-5 credits and a comprehensive exam away from being done, you might as well keep going right?

When I had to withdraw from a class a couple months ago (due to an eye injury that is still ongoing) I revamped my course schedule and took two classes back to back (which means in December I will be 100% done with my coursework for this degree I don't even want!!!).  I started the first class at the same time as I was starting my fellowship at the State of Hawai's Healthcare Transformation Office.  And the next week I started the second class at the same time I was starting a job at the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Which until just now I thought was the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. I really almost threw in the towel then.  But instead I threw away the training schedule and decided that short 30 minute runs at 4:30 AM were better than nothing or spending all morning trying to figure out how to get to the pool, and then realizing it was impossible and stressing over a missed workout (or eight).  Not that I could really do much but run in the dark anyway.  Thanks to the eye injury. Then I finished the classes, completed the final paper for one class and got really excited about the final papers for the other class.

I spent over 12 hours at either the ER, the ophthalmologist, allergist, and pharmacy in the last 36 hours. I spent a lot of time mentally putting together three different five page papers.  And then I got all excited because I could tie all three papers together into one paper. WARNING: THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IS ALL GEEKY ECONOMICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MUMBO JUMBO. I'd write a 15 page paper explaining how the black market was the second largest economy in the world and how that was caused by globalization and how globalization caused the global financial crisis and how the global financial crisis caused the world's black market to grow.  And how protectionist policies played into all that.  It was going to be genius of a paper.  I decided to sit down and outline it tonight.

Then I thought about how much work it would be.  For a grade that is so small in the grand scheme of things.  That if I spent 15-20 hours writing this paper, instead of the five hours it would take me to write three separate five page papers, I would ultimately end up with the exact same grade in the course.  And I wouldn't be one bit smarter (because most of  my excitement was that I could write it all from what I've learned from either my masters in economics or IR and no more research was needed).  So I wrote this blog instead.

And then I will write two more pages on China's black market and submit the first of my five page papers.  Without proofreading or editing.  And I will still graduate next semester.  And probably with the exact same GPA if I spent all my free time in the next week writing this amazing 15 page paper.  Not that anyone will ever see my transcript from University of Oklahoma anyway.  But I might get more than 20 miles of running in this week.  Or more playing with this guy.  Who apparently doesn't like University of Oklahoma anyway.

And for those of you who think this blog is becoming a blog about Moose, here's a video of Springer. Playing with Moose. 

I promise I'll be back soon with better stories of how I'm spending my time.  And that more than a month won't have passed before I am.  Unless this eye injury doesn't go away soon.  But even if it doesn't, I got these really cool shades that I can wear to hide my extremely light sensitive eyes from the sun so at least I can run in the daylight now.  I might even try to bike in them.