A Master’s Degree in Pictures (Day 9:683)

A nice, peaceful Sunday after the culmination of my literature review efforts for UNC, and the last session of our D&D campaign. The sky is a calm gray, and the periodic verve of  a car moving by is the only reminder that the world isn’t resting along with us. So far today, Mary and I have tried to avoid the near 90 degree weather, and I just returned from the final work-out with my Dad at Urban Active due to our term expiring.

Now, I am going to puts on the computer for a bit after finishing this post, and perhaps read a chapter in my Statistics & Accounting books.

A lazy 1 year, 10 months, 13 days to go!

Today’s Note: I’d like to remember…

- Thich Nhat Hanh’s dialogue’s on Mindfulness.

- how lucky it is to have two well-behaved cats.

- the beauty of a nice cold bowl of ice cream on a hot summer day, and natural fruit punch, of course!

A Master’s Degree in Pictures (Day 1:691)

I have decided to follow in the example of many others before me and keep a pictorial record of my journey through a Master’s degree. Starting this Fall, August 24th, I will be entering the Master’s of Science in Public Health (MSPH) degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It will be a daring and bold trek lasting two years – including internship and dissertation – and I will be working as a part-time graduate research assistant to boot. I have a feeling that journal-worthy material will never be in short supply.

However, with that said, I don’t expect this to be a prolix project, and at the very least will be a creative work in progress with the only common theme throughout being a picture taken once per day, and a line or two of something I want to remember. At the end, you get bonus points for counting how many wrinkles and gray hairs I accumulate; I get bonus points if anyone posts a congratulatory comment once I’m finished.

The countdown begins… 1 year, 10 months, 21 days to go!

Today’s Note:  Things I’d like to remember…

- That I started this project to remember all the daily minutia that makes a life out of a lifetime.

- To enjoy a good cup of homemade fruit punch daily.

- That I am actively reducing my gas purchases at BP until the oil spill damages are normalized… not because I feel assured that other oil companies are any better prepared to handle such an event or haven’t cut corners, but because it my cathartic way of expressing grief for the years of damage left in the wake of mismanagement.

-Lunch: A local-made molasses spice cookie, a tomato, snap peas, 2 carrots, some chips, and rooibos tea.

- That “tea” refers to the white/green/oolong/black spectrum of beverages made from the tea plant, and herbal teas are considered “tisane“, meaning without tea leaves. By gum!