• Classes start in two weeks. I am officially half way done with my master’s degree. Although it often feels as if I am chugging at a snail’s pace, it makes me feel good that I only have 2.5 semesters left. This fall I am taking a class on the social history of public health in America—a topic that I have become increasingly interested in over the past two years, particularly within the context of the built environment…and specifically New York City. I am also taking an anthropology class about interpreting place. Both seem like an interesting and particularly rigorous course load, which is great, albeit a little foreboding.
• When I took my current job (which I still seem to refer to my “new” job, even though it has long surpassed that description) I knew that it was a temporary, grant-based position. It was perfect for what I needed at that point in my life—a time to learn something new professionally, a time to explore graduate work, and an escape from a job that I had been ready to leave for a while. Alexis and I agreed that this would be my exploration period and that, when the grant came to an end in 2008, I would jump back into the real world once more.

  Well, here’s the thing. This week I was offered and accepted a new, permanent position in the same place that I am now. It is a big step up. I will be much busier. It is not at all what I expected that I would be doing. But then again, in the past year or so, I have grown less and less confident in what to expect out of life.

In all, it is a good thing, this “new-new” job, as well as the half-way point for graduate school and the new spider plant I bought for the living room and the fact that I am finally able to eke some natural sleep in. I am fastening my seatbelt, however. Come September, I have a feeling that I will be gripping the sides of life with white knuckles, grasping for the opportunity to breathe.

Moving forward. I guess that is what life is. But boy, I wish that it wasn’t so fucking scary. Wheee!