Loooong hours in the classroom

Today was not the most exciting, but I really can't complain--I am in paradise, after all. I woke up early and went for a run with Julia (my roommate) and Aylesse. We ran for about 40 minutes. I definitely feel better about my performance today; yesterday I could barely make it up the hills (there are many, many hills). Retrospectively, I've decided to attribute my violent wheezing and chest pains yesterday to the higher altitude. Otherwise I would have to acknowledge just how out of shape I have become. No thank you.

Today was lectures and exercises and more lectures. We had a quiz too, but I got a 9/10 so I'm pretty happy with that. I need to get an A in this course since it's 6 credits and will serve as a fairly solid boost to my GPA. I'm at a 3.6 right now and I need to hit 3.7+ by graduation so that I can qualify for a Marshall Scholarship and get my PhD for free in the United Kingdom. It's a lofty goal, but it would be an amazing opportunity. And who knows, it might happen.

We had a lesson today about ecological footprints, a subject I find very interesting. I did two calculations and determined that my footprint in New York is much smaller than in Maryland--no surprise there. (If anyone who knows me, or knows my shoe size, is reading this, I'm sure you're thinking about how big my footprint is anywhere. Har har.) Being a vegetarian really reduces my impact on the planet; being a vegan would reduce it even further. Definitely an option I would consider, but I'd have to give up ice cream. And yogurt. And cheese. That would be rough.

The food here has continued to exceed my expectations. I've been eating yogurt, granola, and bananas for breakfast, followed by lots of vegetables (squash, beets, potatoes, zucchini, etc.) and salads for dinner. Everything smothered in hot sauce, just how I like it. And I've been drinking lots of water, tea, and coffee. I hope the water is negating the dehydrating effects of the caffeine. The only issue is that since I've been eating so many meals per day (breakfast, coffee break, lunch, coffee and cake break, dinner), I haven't been able to measure how much I've been eating. Everything is healthy and incredibly unprocessed (a welcome change from my usual diet), but I just hope that I don't get fat(ter) while I'm here.

This evening we had individual discussions with our professor and TAs to discuss our project topics. I think I'm going to scrap the idea about dogs (I just can't think of a hypothesis or experiment) and study erosion control methods instead. I'm still in the planning stages, but I'll probably spend Friday hashing out the details.

I'd like to reflect more on what I learned today, but my mind is drawing a blank. This entry seems a little vacuous, so hopefully I'll actually be able to express some thoughts tomorrow. I might go to bed soon... Julia, Kaitlyn, and I watched half of Paris, Je T'aime last night (one of my *favorite* films), so we'll probably finish it after our reading is done. The nights here have been very laid back so far, but we're having our first "social" tomorrow night, so things are bound to get a little crazy. I hope.