To the Start of Year number 2.........and being 23/ancient

And this week marked the first week of my second year here at Wake Forest.

It has been fun(ish), not nearly as hard as I was anticipating, and quite the experience. I feel as if I learned more in one year here than I did in 4 in undergrad...maybe that is because I was more focused on school rather than parties, pizza, boys, beer etc....but that's besides the point. Or maybe that is the point?

This year is all research. All the time. No classes to take...only to teach. The freshman keep looking younger and younger and I keep feeling older and older. On Wednesday I found myself telling my class of Freshies that "I am pretty cool, I'm not that much older than you all...just 6 or 7 years" like I had somehting to prove. Pathetic. Last year I would have given anything to be sitting in their desk, hungover, just having woke up, and listening to some grad student teach this required stupid class. This year I look at them and think "You are too young to be drinking. I should call your parents. Have you even hit puberty yet? I didn't look that young then, right? Oh geeze, I hope my kids aren't as bad as I was. I should call my parents right now and apologize". I'm growing up. Oh my gosh.

I propose my Thesis at the end of September. I am not nervous. yet. I also don't have a powerpoint, a committee, or a start on what I am doing, so I guess it doesn't really seem real yet. I am sure it will soon when I realize I present in a couple weeks and have nothing done. Or maybe when I am standing in front of a full room with arm pits drenched and sweating bullets and mumbling though some stuff I don't fully understand and am hoping that no one listening to me does either. I have the "whatever, we are all going to graduate" mentality...which unfortunately, I am not thinking is going to write my thesis for me. Thesis shmesis. Whats the big deal anyways...yikes.

Lets see....what else is new. I vacuumed my apartment today. Big deal right? Well...(moms, stop reading now)...it had been oh...13 months since its last vacuuming. And that was from the tenants before me. Lets just say I clogged the vacuum with blonde hair. Sanitary. Amazing to see how much I have grown up. On a positive note, it looks like I moved into a new apartment. And I stopped sneezing.

The new first year graduate students arrived. Its funny to see where we all were last year...although sometimes I fail to believe that we were that "lost" looking or clueless about anything going on. They look young, and yet again...I feel older. We had a dinner for them last week to welcome them in and answer any questions they may have....and drink beers, get them loosened up. However, as evidence by the picture below, I think 8 beers were drank among 15 people...and I am not ashamed to say that I had more than 2. It was so funny to hear all their questions and see how nervous some of them were and to think that we were in that same position last year shitting our pants. And last year, there was even less beer.

Team Occident (the second years) and the newbies...the first years. Is it just me or do the second years just exude an aged look? Like we have a year of grad school under us? Like we have been sleeping much less than a normal person for a year?

Wake Forest doesn't have any PhD students in our program...so we are on top. I am sure that is helping to this oldness I am feeling. But I mean come on, I am recently 23..I am not that old. Jerry the boo is 24...hes dragging me down. Making me feel ancient. I think I saw a wrinkle on his forehead last week...and he doubled his gray hair count. I don't want to turn 24. Scary stuff.

So, I personally am hoping for this year to be better than last. I struggled year number 1 feeling "connected" (despite how much I hate the word "connected"..sounds like I am in 3rd grade and the girl who thinks they are a cheetah so has no friends...oh wait...) and felt like a lot of my classmates thought I was a little too blunt or intense or something....but hey, I am from the midwest, I like to be on time, I like to have a schedule, I don't like doing thing I don't want to do because everyone else is too "nice" to say no, I don't like bullshit, and I don't like taking an hour to do what I could do in 15 minutes. Eh...maybe I am a little blunt. But, I also think that this summer some of them have caught onto my ways and taken me for what I am and actually thought it was funny as opposed to intense. Listen here, I never mean to be offensive or anything, not to brag, I think I am hilarious. Jerry will not agree.

Other news. My summer sweet challenge was a huge bust. Charlotte Marathon is in December. I still love Ohio. I am done with HELPS forever (bittersweet...no more 5:30 AM wake ups...but also no more getting hit on by 75 year old men*). I moved offices..I now share with a character named Shub who thinks I'm "vrallly vwierd". Jerry still is so obsessed with me. I still want to move to Ohio. I finally found a church in WS that I really love. I have a bottle of wine chilling that is now ready. I need to blog more often.


*My last day of HELPS....."Kenz, I am sad to see you go. I don't mean to be a dirty old man..but I have always thought you were very attractive"......glad to know I still look stunning after waking up at 5am and that I can attract men the age of my grandpa.

I was just so busy....

Studying for finals.

Running a half marathon. (1:52 due to HILLS, 33 degrees, rain, and too much wine the night before)

Having mommer visit for the weekend.

Hanging out at bars in Charlotte with Jerry.

Sitting in the airport waiting to fly home.

Planning out my future, one PhD program at a time.

Sleeping.

Stressing over "the perfect" Christmas gift....is there such a thing?

Browsing Tiffany's & Co. (www.tiffany.com) Enjoy.

Putting Jerry's face in dancing elves, and singing santas, and joyous reindeers (see most recent...or not so recent post)

Working.

EATING.

Not blogging.

I was just so busy not blogging that I had no time to blog. In fact, I was so busy studying while sitting on my couch and watching The Office re-runs and creeping on high school classmates on facebook* (and calling friends with the "guess who is engaged?") that the last thing I would be able to do is write about what I have been doing.

Well, my first semester at WFU has come and gone, I got by with all A's and a B+ in Biomechanics, my "specialty" no doubt, so I am off to a great start. I would like to say I am the smartest kid in my class but that would be a lie. But I do like to pat myself on the back (and I can tell you what muscles I have to use in order to do that). I have made a couple new friends, successfully made my apartment "home", and have succeeded, I believe, in "growing up" a little bit...as much as it pains me to admit it.

So, now I am home in the the greatest state in the US of A. Ohio. I left 60 degree weather in Charlotte and came to 2 inches of snow , and 25 degrees. I couldn't help but smile. I ran 6 miles on ice this morning, and it was the best run I have had in awhile. I had to scrape ice of the windshield this morning. I loved it. I even busted out my snow boots to run out and get the mail. More just because I wanted to believe I had to wear snow boots, but all in all, I love those Columbia Boots - and I surely will not get any use of them in Winston-Salem NC. I don't know what it is, but I love this state. I can't wait til I become super grown up and can move back to Ohio and be freezing and miserable in the winter. Something about Christmas with no snow that just doesn't seem right.




*let it be known that I spend ENTIRELY too much time on facebook per day/hour. You want to know who is engaged? Oh, I can tell you. Where, when, how, why, who.....and I may not have ever even talked to this person in high school before...but her locker was kinda by mine? Justified to creep on her life.

Must be Monday, What a Dumb Day

So I survived my Biomechanics Presentation. Downed by "um" count to 15 um's per minute. So an improvement from 30 upm ... overall, an accomplishment.

Of course, once again, its Monday. I have 2 exams this week. One tomorrow. One Wednesday. Have I prepared for them? Depends on who you ask...if you ask Jerry*, he will say "Kenz is such a dork, of course she is prepared, shes been studying for 3 weeks". However, if you ask me....its more of a "oh my gosh, Im going to fail, Im going to get kicked out of grad school, Im never going to get married, never going to get a job, live in a box, die in a street". We call this the downward spiral that I can tend to do. While I have spent close to 3 hours of my "study time" hypothesizing this downward spiral, eating, facebooking, surfing (however, I feel I am an awful surfer, more on that in a later post), I still do not feel prepared and probably will not going into tomorrow. Besides, I have a lot better things to do tonight than study.

I have a soccer game in an hour.
I have to put dishes in my dishwasher.
Jerry is online.
My bed needs made.
I should empty the trash.
Where are my clothes for the soccer game?

So, lame excuses. However, they will probably work. I also am still recovering from a weekend of Martinsville coming to visit me in Charlotte. The brain cells are somewhere scattered around uptown Charlotte, or maybe in a cab somewhere, or god forbid a McDonald's wrapper. This makes it just as difficult to go study health and all the things I need to NOT be doing in order to live healthy and disease free. So I'm a hypocrite....like you have never met a fat doctor?

Things I should share for the day....(cuz they are just too good not to)

I started counting my calories. I'm at 700 today. I decided to leave out dinner, the 3 snickers mini bars I had at lunch, the fudgesicle I just ate, as well as the 3 packs of Mike and Ike's I stole from my office neighbor E-beth. And Im lucky she didnt catch me - shes a feisty one. I don't think Ill count calories anymore. And in case you forgot, yes I am a health and exercise specialist.

This morning I saw amazing 70 year old boobs. Lady had not worn a bra since the 60s - said she was quite a "wildflower" and then asked me if I did anything to free my soul this weekend. She walked for 8 minutes on the treadmill before complaining of shortness of breath. Surprised she wore shoes.

On that note, I just had another downward spiral that someday I may not have a job cuz I fail my tests this week, so then I cant afford a bra, and then I wont be able to walk on a treadmill for 8 minutes. Cardio notes, here I come.





*Jerry - not the real name, but the pseudo-inside joke-made up name that never fails to make me smile

Biomechanics Presentations

So tomorrow lies the biggest day of graduate school thus far.

It is my Biomechanics Presentation.

I have been rehearsing it over and over and over, so much that I do it in my sleep, and yet, I have no idea what Im talking about. Allow me to give a run through of what this presentation is all about....

Imagine you have this professor who is "the shit" and when I say this, I don't mean he is super cool - I mean he is the head in his field and could almost be considered a celebrity research. He is all that and more. He does this annual "Biomechanics Symposium" where all us 8 grad students choose a topic, and topic, and then have 10 minutes to talk it - and 5 minutes to answer questions. Questions that will come from and one of these 200 people we will be standing in front of presenting data we don't even fully understand. Needless to say, I'm a little nervous. Let me also stress that this presentation is worth 30% of our final grade in the class - so it is kind of a big deal.

The grade is divided into content and style. So, obviously, Ill be pulling out that Banana Republic Suit and pray he doesn't know it is last years line. That should get me my style points. As far as content.....well lets just hope that he doesn't know anything about "Soldier Load Carriage" - the genius topic I have picked based on my internship where I worked for the army and thought it would be easy based on my first hand experience. Stress on the the word thought.

I videotaped my self an hour ago giving the speech.

I said "um" 46 times. In 10 minutes. That's close to 5 um's a minute. Is it because I don't know what I'm talking about. Yup. That is pretty much why.

Oh but wait - it gets better.

The symposium goes for 2.5 hours (there is a small refreshment break in the middle - unfortunately I will be so near vomiting that refreshments will not be looking appealing). There are 8 of us presenting. And, oh, lucky me....spot number 8. The grand finale. The Last Hurrah. The end of all ends. Im going to have pit stains as large as basketballs in my BR suit by the time I'm up there. The only thing that will get me through this will be the cold beer I know that is waiting in my fridge as soon as I get home. And maybe the Wendy's conveniently placed on my ride home (after all, nothing says "you've had a hard day" quite like a spicy chicken sandwich and a frosty - especially if it is complimentary).

So, I have probably put off reviewing this presentation again too long. I've reached the end of stalling and I probably should now look into ironing my suit. And looking for some extra strength antiperspirant.

Graduate School.

As of 2 weeks ago I was beginning to think Graduate School was a little bit of a joke.

I have succeeded in getting A's and one B on all my quizzes and exams (not to brag) and have not in any means suffered in the weekend excursions to bars, clubs, and house parties. I have gotten my daily sweat in and have succeeded in keeping my own apartment somewhat respectable. Just as I was beginning to feel a little cocky and thinking Wake Forest didn't have shit on me, this terrible thing happened.

I now find myself contemplating not driving down to Charlotte for the Halloween weekend activities, in which I have been planning my costume only since last November 1st. I'm considering skipping it so I can sit at home and work on the 50% of my grade Biomechanics project talking about how the load a soldier wears increases his/her potential for injury. Awesome. Just when I was thinking Wake Forest was just a less cool University of Dayton it has taken the plunge from less cool to "no fun".

Sure, I am getting an awesome education - and I'm sure I'll be able to fulfill all my dreams and go on to getting an awesome job...when I'm 30 and finally done with all this schooling. However, I still find myself in that "I'm a college student and Saturdays and Sundays are days of recovery, not days of catching up" mentality. How to rid myself of that one...hmm, I'm still not too sure I'm ready to let go of it. Don't get me wrong...I would be lying if I said I didn't love school, and I didn't look forward to coming every day and learning new things about health and fitness. I love health and fitness. I would even go so far to say its my passion. But, I also have this other passion for fun. I just love fun. I look forward to my weekends away from work and from thinking. Conclusion: I am willing to stick with my "work hard, play hard" attitude and I'll just hope my looks, these wonderful brains I have genetically gained from my mother, my passion, and my oh-so charming personality get me through.

With that being said, Charlotte, I would like you to know, you will see me this weekend in full penguin outfit. As far as you, Biomechanics Presentation, I'll see you on Monday.