Ummm... (aka - What did I get myself into...??)

Soooo....

Classes start in a few days. I woke up this morning generally pretty excited about finally starting, increased interaction with other humans, and, you know, life. I even made a Target run bright and early. AND Ikea should finally be delivering some more furniture tomorrow! #winning

Somewhere during the day, it occurred to me that I should read through this article for the assistantship since its supposed to form the basis of a call center performance evaluation report I'm going to have to fix. Ok, I can do this. It's a biostatistics article, so not my area of expertise per se, but I know things. I understand call centers. Some have even said evaluation is my thing. SAS and I are generally on good terms. It's cool, I got this. 

I had to nap about halfway through. Calculations are hard.

After said nap, I woke up ready to plow through the rest of the article (and possibly take copious notes and make a list of questions).  I will win, article, just watch. While I was drooling on the couch, I got an email from the advanced research methods instructor. 

Woo, learning!!! 

Or... umm... really? ALL of that for just the one class? <insert sad/worried face>

The title of one of the books: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. 

(pause for effect)

Now don't get me wrong, I know what all these words mean and can even guess at the general content of the book. I've even told one to two people that I like study design. But MAN, I've been out of school more than a year at this point - don't just throw things like this at me right after a nap. I wasn't ready. My biggest concerns over the past year have been where to go for happy hour and if orange really is the new black... 

So I took to the texts. A fellow starting doctoral student laughed because, well, we've all been there. Granted, we should all laugh at my freak outs, but where's my positive reinforcement??? In my sister, obvi. She's kind of magical and reminded me that I told her not so long ago that fear in the beginning is a good thing - it means you're trying something a little bigger than you think you can handle, hence you're taking on just enough. 

Hmph. Using my own words against me... 

Then again, this is why I love her and the rest of my support system. Equal parts mocking and positivity, they give me just enough nudge/shove to keep me from running and hiding under the covers (that my dog has likely snuck under at this very moment). I often say I'm really just regular, which at times makes me wonder about my ability to take on new challenges since I keep expecting to reach the limit of my capacity to learn. Maybe I'll hit the ceiling one day. Maybe they'll keep nudging me through to the end of this journey. For now, there's really nowhere to go but forward. 

Epilogue: I stand corrected. The dog had not snuck onto the bed. This time. 

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