Catching up

Written last Monday (Jan 2nd)...


Dear Family and Friends,

I feel that the line, “it has been awhile since I have written” is becoming more than an occasional beginning to my letters. For that I apologize, but I hope that this letter brings you up to speed. But, since seeing as this may take a while I will give a brief outline of events and hope to write in more detail in the weeks to come.

The first semester of graduate school is considered by many to be utter hell. I have found this sentiment to be both true and completely misleading. In my entire undergraduate career at BYU I pulled only a single all nighter due to finals and course load. This past semester took that merger number and multiplied it by four in a single week. Finals week I pulled three all nighters in a row and a fourth the following week. In the process of that week I wrote three papers, took two tests, and wrote a 76 page portfolio. All in all it was rough, but I absolutely loved every minute of it!

My schedule during last semester consisted of 20 hours of research for Curtis Child, a new professor in the Sociology Department, 10 credit hours of course work, writing part of a survey to be sent out to 63 communities in Montana, preparing two papers for submission to journals, and teaching Sunday School, and being me.

As for the Winter Break I spent half of the time working and for the other half I took a tour of the East Coast with a friend from my cohort. Her little brother is going to a private school in upstate New York and her dad wanted her to take him on a little vacation. She knew that I intend on applying to a number of schools on the east coast and that I would probably not have the opportunity to visit them so she offered to pay for the trip if I bought a plan ticket out there. The trip had it’s ups and downs, but over all it was well worth it.

I played chauffer, which given the rental

cars we had (a 2011 Nissan Maxima for the first half of the trip and a 2012 Doge Charger – I put the first 600 miles on the car) it was a very enjoyable experience, not to mention the fact that I like to drive anyways.

Zoey and I arrived at JFK at 5:30 Saturday, picked up our Maxima, and started our drive to Arligton Vermont where Zoey’s brother Bruno has at a homestay the school set up for him. Once we picked up Bruno we started down to Washington D.C. In all we spent two days in D.C.,

one in Philadelphia, two days in New York City (technically our hotel was in Newark New Jersey, but the city was close enough), and two days in Boston (again our hotel was in a small town outside of Boston). We visited Georgetown University, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Boston College.

The only downside to the trip was that for the last four days Bruno was sick with a fever and the stomach flu. But, it did force me to relax and do nothing for a couple days and catch up on all the sleep I missed over finals week. So, I guess I should be thanking him for providing me with the much-needed opportunity.

Now, on the eve of the start of my second semester of graduate school I am looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead. One that will be new for this semester is another job, I am was hired for another 10 hours a week to work in the research support lab helping professors and students with papers they have close to submission or papers which have received a revise and resubmit. But, seeing as it is near 2:00 AM I am calling it a day and hope to write again soon.


Love,

David