Courtenay Brown

Inspired by the undergrad sitting in front of me browsing Forever 21, Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, etc. online throughout the entire lecture this morning (does she know I'll be grading her midterm and paper?), I just did some online shopping of my own (at home, btw). K-Swiss has some cute new hoodies and sneakers, which obviously I need more of. Winter is coming, today it's only getting up to 75 degrees!! On Tuesday my mom called me: "SWEETIE! Guess where I am?!" I have no idea. "The DENVER AIRPORT! I have a layover en route to Wyoming!" Ma, you know that Boulder is like 45 minutes from ...

On Wednesday I went to office hours (no I did not call her "dude") to discuss my complete lack of a paper topic with my professor. Now I might have a topic. During the conversation she asked how everything was going in general, and we talked about one of my other classes, Scopes & Methods in Political Science (a standard course in poli sci graduate departments). It's one of those classes where, in the reading, after I finish rolling my eyes over all the "intellectual masturbation", I feel like I understand the concepts. But then I show up to class and after two and a half hours of multi-syllabic complicated-sentence-structure discussion, I'm kind of like wow, I don't think I ...

My latest, penetrating, very REAL-POSSIBILITY fear is that I will accidentally call one of my professors "dude". This would be particularly disrespectful and bad if directed towards one of the two who are younger than I. Two-pronged approach: 1. no going to office hours and 2. learn to speak like an adult. Anyhow the past week was crazy, school and training and my car STILL in the shop (a million dollars later) and the Fourmile Fire, le sigh of exhaustion. But the weekend has been amazing, the whole house shifted up the mountain to Fraser (next door to Winter Park, lots of hardened winter-type folk here) for clean air and peaceful training! Six of us in a 2 bedroom condo, ...

Today was my birthday! I turned 32, which is how old my mom was when I was born, which she reminded me via suspiciously not-Sal-like text message: "OMG you're half my age!!" Hmm. My day went like this: I had Environmental Policy class from 8 to 9:15 a.m. This is the class I T.A., I go to lectures on Tuesdays and Thursdays and hold office hours by appointment. Office hours start tomorrow, today was my first signup day, and four whole students made appointments to see me! I was pleasantly floored. Then I went outside and hacked up two lungs, Boulder is burning, FYI. I called Felicia about the fires, she said to NOT TRAIN OUTSIDE, which made complete sense. However... ...

Temporary Tattoo (I hope) This week, I am particularly grateful for the time I spend training. It makes me feel like I am competent at something! Especially when my day is constructed in increased-aptitude order, i.e. School-Swim-Bike-Run ;) . I know that it's supposed to be this way, that the first few days/weeks, and perhaps beyond, of a graduate program kind of make you wonder why on earth they accepted you. My class notes from yesterday have in giant letters "i will not raise my hand again i will not raise my hand again" but five minutes after typing it, ...