I'm stttlarting to get excited.

I've decided to spent the next 5 months going back to school for a graduate certificate program. It will be my first graduate schooling, and I've been out of the environment for a few years and am a bit nervous.

I got a last minute call about a week ago letting me know the program had space (they were previously full) and that I had been invited to participate in a field season and the associated classwork. The organizers also assured me that they could find some part-time work for me. This all came down the pipe just two weeks after I found out that my much anticipated 6-month contract for the fall had been cancelled because of damage to a facility.

I battled back and forth on participating (ack! paying for school vs. being paid) but the opportunity and the serindipitous nature seemed like too much, and I agreed to take it! Since then I've been fighting all kinds of little details to get everything finalized, but after a week and a half of that it seems to be falling into place.

I'm hoping that the additional skills from this hands-on program will help put me over the top on job aps and for the future applying to more graduate school.

I will try to do my best to be around, but my fall clothing budget ended up in the "tuition" pot instead, so shopping will have to wait for December, January, and February. The wardrobe for fall was already sad (even the SO mentioned I needed some new things), but since I will spend a lot of time wearing these (picture below) this fall, it should work out!