Almost there

I’m only a matter of hours from Thanksgiving break, which honestly isn’t much of a break in the global perspective, but I’ll take it. We’re two weeks out from the end of the semester and I’m incredibly grateful for the ability to have 5 whole days to just crank out some end of semester projects, grading, and hopefully some cleaning. (Fingers crossed).

As we are getting down to the crunch time here, I am more and more often reminded that a PhD is a degree of persistence. To some extent being here is about how “smart” you are and how well you can produce evidence of your knowledge. However, what I’m learning is that the level of intelligence you have really just plays into how low it takes you to get the work done. It’s a persistence game.  If you’re intelligent enough to be here, you’re intelligent enough to finish. So I’m focusing on finishing (or at this point just really starting).

So, I’m working on just persevering through to the end of the semester. 3 major papers/projects, 1 exam, and alot of reading and grading to go. Here’s to hoping the turkey doesn’t kill my academic inertia.

Oops!

Ok, so admittedly i don’t update this near as often as I should. Realistically, I have plenty of interludes between grading, reading, writing, discussing, etc that could be dedicated to publishing the mundane  day to day of doc school, but I don’t, because I have no discipline, or something like that.

We’re just back from AORE this week, and I think I’m ready to not be in the car anymore for a while. As awesome as South Dakota and Wyoming are to drive through, I’m ready to just be a Utah girl for a while.

There are about 6 weeks left in the semester, and every day of them is going to be packed with work. Time to get cracking!

 

Farmers Market

There are always alot of really great things about exploring a new city, new places to fall in love with, to hide, to run wild etc. Even thought I was in the SLC valley last year, I didn’t really feel like I had a chance to fully explore all the area had to offer.

We’ve been exploring new places with Sig: Mill Creek Canyon and Dog Lake, Tanners Park and Parleys Canyon. These have been great times for him to get to run and play with other four legged fur balls, and generally exhaust himself.

Now that Duane and I have life mostly in control in our house and for me at work, we ventured out to the SLC Farmers Market today. This market is huge. I guess there is a part of me that is still expecting the Mankato Farmers Market, where I would show up, grab some fabulous veggies from the single row of farmers, chat with whatever ExEd crew was around and head home.  The SLC Farmers Market blew my mind.

SLC’s Saturday Market is at a park that fills a full city block, and the market fills this park to the gills. There is everything at this place, from the predcitable fruits and veggies, to honey farmers, and ranchers who are selling grass fed meats. And that only covers half the market. Then there is a whole set of vendors that are selling homemade clothing (including chainmail….. uh….), jewley, lawn art, home art, pottery, you name it. I did my best to take it all in, but realistically, I think it is going to take until mid-October when the market closes for me to really get a grasp on what all is contained and what glorious things I can glean from wandering through Pioneer Park at 8:00a on a Saturday.

Tomorrow’s Adventure: Deer Creek, American Fork Canyon!

The PhD World

So most of you know, I’m changing venues. I used to blog elsewhere about living in Alaska, and all the adventures to be had among whales and bears in the land of ice and snow. It was wonderful. But now I have moved on from Alaska to Utah to pursue a PhD in Recreation, Parks and Tourism.

In the interest in keeping people in the loop who would like to be kept in said loop, I present this medium. Check back soon for updates from life as a PhD.