Strength-training and the Entrepreneurial Spirit

After a crazy busy week, I got a much better idea of what my work load will be like this semester. Heavy. But I have to do things like observe middle schoolers and high schoolers in their natural environment (the Oberlin streets!), read Modernist literature, research positive risk-taking, and write an elevator speech. So at least my homework is either fun, or feels useful.

In realms outside the academic classroom, my women's strength-training class has been absolutely amazing! I loathe exercising in gyms unless they have TVs, which the gym at Oberlin doesn't. What can I say, running or biking in place is just plain boring. I like to go on running adventures or do pilates in my room, so I can huff and puff in the privacy of my own home, or at least be taking in some pretty scenery. But I love the weight room. There's something about feeling your muscles engaging, noticing how you can use your breathing to help you lift, and the weakness and soreness afterwards that I find really appealing, and believe it or not, relaxing. It's a workout where speed doesn't help you at all, and you can really take the time to feel how your body works. Not to mention the fact that I am slowly getting ripped, and I imagine that it will be much easier to move out of my apartment than it was to move in. I love being a strong woman mentally and emotionally, and now I'm looking forward to being one physically.

After speaking with an amazing professor at Oberlin college who won the Watson and Fulbright fellowships, has received grant money up the wazoo, and has been on the board of many fellowship committees in my grant-writing class on Friday, I am feeling so inspired to figure out how to get money to do something I've wanted to do for a couple of years: go to India. There are so many fellowships out there and it would be foolish for me not to apply for at least one of them before I get tied down with doing whatever it is I'll be doing, work, research, grad school, starting a business. I've been feeling the entrepreneurial spirit lately, and since I go to a school that has a program that can give you start-up money, I feel like I should take advantage of it. The real question is: what exactly do I want to do? This summer will be filled with lots of plotting and planning and writing out all my crazy business schemes like inventing the ultimate sunscreen, creating the Night Before Pill, opening a used bookstore, an instrument repair shop, a Subaru moving service, a school of knitting, etc. and see which ones are actually feasible (i.e. the Night Before Pill is not). It's all very exciting and hard to think about when I'm busy with school all the time.

Somehow through all the scheming and dreaming and reading and writing I've managed to have a social life. I've cooked some really excellent food for folks, had some fun lunch dates with good friends, friend homework nights, and even *gasp* gone out dancing on a Wednesday night (after all of my homework was done, of course). Anyway, long story short, it's been fun, and I've still been getting all of my work done and showing up for class on time. I met with 4 professors on Friday, kind of a dumb idea in retrospect, because my poor little brain was overwhelmed, but it made me feel much better about my classes. I think the general verdict of this semester thus far, has been, I am smarter than I think I am. After 4 semesters of self-doubt and feeling like an ignoramus, I'm finally starting to get it and starting to remember that I'm smart. And it feels so good. So I'm going to do the smart thing, and finish Part 2 of The Good Soldier, then see what I can find about National Survey research on adolescents. Have a great weekend!