Two Tramps in Mud Time- In Class 4/8/13

To start this post off, I want to tell a funny story to anyone who didn't witness it.  I was greeted by my WISE teacher this morning by, "Hi Molly! Oh, Molly, I have a confession to make....Your portfolio is one of two not completed." Naturally, I had a heart attack on the inside.  What part could I possibly have forgotten?  I thought I checked it over at least 4 times!  We worked on most of it in class, you would have thought someone working near me would have realized had I not? We went for a little walk in the hallway so she could explain what was up, and after a long explanation (that seemed to carry on forever as I was still thinking I was missing a piece of my project- she was up grading till 1 AM, then she got to mine, she started reading it and had to stop... (you can see where this is going)) I figured out she meant it wasn't graded yet.  She apologized profusely, yet I could not be more relieved that I do not mind a bit, and I'm happy Ms. G was able to save her sanity and get some sleep last night rather than read my portfolio.  :)

Anyway, class today.  We read a poem by Robert Frost "Two Tramps in Mud Time" as indicated in my title.  This, and the discussion after, made me really think about embracing myself in the work I am doing.

"My object in living is to unite

My avocation and my vocation

As my two eyes make one in sight."

Though I wouldn't necessarily consider running my vocation yet, I picked the project so it has to be something I at least can enjoy doing, right?  We discussed whether or not we had reached the point in our projects where we are loving the hard work that we are doing.  The first thing that came to mind was my run yesterday, how despite the fact that my feet hurt and I had never run so far before, there was something blissful about that run.  It may not have been my best, maybe my form slacked, maybe I should have kept a better pace, etc etc etc, but I really did use it as a way to blow off steam.  I had a huge take home calculus test to be working on and I decided to take an hour and a half to run before working on it.  I will admit running wasn't the first on my list to do to relax before embarking on such a hard task, but once I did it, I was really glad I did.  Actually, while I was running, I thought about hmm, an hour and a half run is about how long it would take me to watch two episodes of Gossip Girl, and I am very glad I made the decision to be productive.  I can imagine myself laying in bed watching two episodes in this amount of time, and this is so much better!  It would be a stretch to say I am loving it.  I still hesitate to run, I put it off, and I worry about the hard work.  I worry that it will interfere too much with rowing, I worry that I will be discouraged during the run or that I'll have to stop and walk.  But I think keeping going through this is what will get me to my goal- to really enjoy running.  I have said that since the beginning of my project, I wrote in my proposal that I (at the time) disliked running and wanted to learn to enjoy it.  

I think I'm getting there.  

During class today, I also made a running list of things that came to mind and things I'd like to complete by the end of this week, along with some reminders for the project in general: (this is separate from the lists I make at my mentor meetings, but we didn't make one at the last so here goes!)

• 24 minimum entries, 8 mentor meetings by now
• Last mentor meeting blog reflection?-- check if I did that
• What are you learning? post
• Continual log of research
• Interview Sydney
• Read resources from Ms. Bullard
• Blog about "interview facts" and those resources
• Sign up for Buffalo!
• Consult resources from bibliography
• Do a long blog post- What have I actually done?  What have I said I'd do but haven't done yet? How much of this is okay because plans have had to shift?
• Backward planning from ~June 5th ( I hope to present around then, enough time to reflect on the actual race because I do want to have that "finished product" so to speak to present on )
• Blog about journal review form feedback (which I need to get before I can complete this)

Well, if that wasn't a long enough post I'm not sure what is! Sorry for all the info and scramble of thoughts at once!