Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Snow Day FTW!

While I have yet to be impressed by this storm (or any that we've had so far this year), it did do one good thing for me: snow day! This couldn't have come at a better time, as I am inundated with work, a bunch of which was due today, and despite my diligent work, I didn't get it done. Once I get a bit farther into the semester I think I'll be okay because I'll figure out a good system for getting the massive amount of work done, but here in the second week it feels impossible.
To get geared up for my day of studies, I did 30 minutes of Blast Fat Boost Metabolism. I skipped over the "ab work" circuit because I don't like it and prefer to just keep my heart rate up, so I hit 30 minutes in the middle of the second-to-last circuit. Now that I've done it a bunch of times, I'm pleased to notice that some of the moves are becoming easier. Things that I couldn't do for the whole time (pliĆ© hops anyone?) I can now finish without too much trouble. And Jillian loves those jumping jacks, so I feel like I could do those forever at this point. I substitute jumping jacks for moves I still can't do (burpees! And this 360˚ jump spin that makes me really dizzy), but I'm sure I'll be able to do those things soon. The results from Jillian Michaels workouts are pretty amazing--I'm not taking about huge weight loss (I have been losing weight, but that's because of my overall lifestyle, not a miracle DVD) or inches disappearing or anything, but each time I do the DVD, I am stronger, which is really motivating and my goal at the end of the day.
This is what the rest of my day will look like:

The class that's really throwing me into a tizzy is Children's Lit. It's a 200 level English class, so of course I expected lots of reading and writing, but I didn't anticipate this much work. Especially because I had a 200-level English class with the same professor last semester and while there was a lot of work, it wasn't like this. There is a young adult book to read each week of varying length (last week was Stone Fox which only took me about 20 minutes to get through, this week is Tuck Everlasting which is taking me longer. I estimate it will take about 2.5 hours to get through) which we have to write a response paper for, plus we have to read a picture book each week and write a short response to that, PLUS some weeks (such as this coming week) we have another bigger paper due on top of those two things. On top of the reading and writing for Anthropology (3 chapters were due for today, plus we had to find 4 news articles and 4 things in popular media related to Anthropology and summarize each), the worksheets/translating/reading Spanish literature for Spanish class, and reading/quizzes in Music class, my head is spinning. Right now the only thing keeping me from hiding in bed is lists. Lots and lots of lists. For example, all of the things I need to get done this week:

and my schedule from yesterday. I have to have a schedule, otherwise I get really confused and overwhelmed:

I stuck to my schedule really well yesterday, and ended up working until about 5:30, at which point we went to run a few errands so that I could get out of the house for a bit. 
Well, I'd better dive in to take advantage of my lucky extra day to work. For lunch today I'm going to make lentil walnut loaf, which is like a vegetarian meatloaf. I realize this may sound unappetizing for the masses, but I can't wait to try it! Even Dan is excited (although, he has never not liked anything I've made, so that isn't saying much). 



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