Steady As She Goes

Views from the bus stop

The first week of the semester usually always feels like a blur, a slightly anxious, rushed blur. I am not jet-lagged but not above using it as an excuse for my general lostness. Beginnings of the semester make me feel a bit fraud-like, my brain wails who let me in here, even though I know I am capable of functioning and occasionally flourishing. I have not been taking advantage of any happy hours and that has opened up vast tracts of time for activities such as cooking and reading. Copious amounts of both have happened. Roasted eggplant, pulao, curries are in the fridge while three Agatha Christie novels have been devoured in the last two days.



I am trying to keep to a routine, I find that it helps me function well. I wake up, even when I am not really awake, and forgive myself the lounging till the tea-induced caffeine kicks in. I am yet to take advantage of all the free pizza but I start going to the gym from tomorrow. Apparently metabolism does slow down as you head to closer to thirty, there are parts of me where ten pounds have settled very comfortably, a never-before occurrence.

I started as a teaching assistant, and gave myself so much anxiety before the first class that I learned about what visual snowing is. Lesson: don't worry so much, it simply isn't worth the health outcomes. I have been drinking loads of tea and a trip to the Indian store helped me find the one tea I had to offload when leaving from India due to weight constraints. I was very happy. Also, the Internet lies. Cottage cheese is not paneer. This is the semester when everything culminates. I am part of a team working on a capstone project for Human Rights Watch, which is an interesting and new learning space for me. I am in a difficult class to learn the statistical software Stata but I am excited about being able to take it before leaving school.There is a lot going on, but I am committed to balance and self-care this semester. If that means one less reading, an imperfect draft, I am going to learn to be fine with that. Life is too short to lose entire chunks of it. If you have stuck with me till the end of this draft, I am impressed. This is nothing short of a whimsical ramble, the type I hit publish on because I enjoy coming back to it a few weeks later and being like, wow, what a lot of bs I could type in my pre-bedtime haze. Here's hoping for a balanced and focused week.