The state of the semester

This is my first term here at CSU, and so I will include all the details of what classes I'm taking, and what else occupies my time here.

I'm enrolled in:
Stat-511, which is basically SAS (a statistical software package) 101
Pedology, an intro into soil science
Foundations of Ecology, where we have lecture over how ecology is done and the ideas tossed around in it, and then discuss journal papers dealing with those topics on the other day of class.

In addition to this, I'm TAing two lab sections of the introductory biology class that covers plant and animal organismal biology. I've got evening labs, so they're fairly small, which is nice.

In the free time I do have, I'm attempting to get my two manuscripts from my masters sorted out and ready for publication. I also try and do little things to help my advisor when she requests assistance, such as finding articles to meet a certain topic for a talk she's going to give, or looking over a grant proposal.

I've also taken up cycling. I figure, there's a lot of open land here, and I'd rather not end up sedentary like I did during my masters, and biking for an hour or so a few times a week is pretty decent cardio. So I bought a bike two weeks ago.

It's also nice to be around graduate students again, and have that sort of culture of people who are similarly driven and interested in topics close to those that pique my curiosity. There's just something about the atmosphere of a college town that's invigorating, as well. It's especially amusing given it's an election year, and so both factions are fighting it out to get their viewpoints heard. Regardless of how it ends up, it will be nice to be voting in a state that's actually on the fence, for once.