I'm not dead!

I've been back just under 10 days, and my dogeared planner's already bursting.

This morning, I've already showered, dressed, cooked breakfast, eaten, biked to campus to shoot the sunrise, shot 36 black-and-white 400-speed film photos (it was cloudy), biked back, finished my journalism homework and read the news.


And it's only it's 7:40 a.m. 


I'm exhausted, but not even this drizzling rain can dampen my enthusiasm for this semester. It's going to be a great one, partly because last semester was not. The "Sophomore Slump" supposedly gets everyone. But it hit me particularly hard.


Some days, the world felt colorless, like I was squinting at the world through a pair of grimy sunglasses. The sunny, beautiful campus I'd loved so much as a freshman felt dreary and stressful. Days felt like months, weeks dragged on for eons and I was on the verge of tears three days out of five. 


But so far, this semester's seemed like a different beast, and I'm excited. Clean slate. 


I'm down to my last two GE's, which means my schedule this semester is finally chock full of classes I wanted to take: two reporting classes, American history, photography and the second-level sailing class. 


My print reporting class has been assigned to West Hollywood, which means we'll be going to WeHo once or twice a week to cover government, crime, features, neighborhood news, economy, you name it.  Our syllabus lists homework assignments like, "Write at least 500 words on this week's City Council meeting." I'm excited to finally be graduating from fact sheets and 1960s inauguration speech transcrips to coverage of the real world.


I'm also facing a full semester without the Daily Trojan for the first time. I'll be writing for either Annenberg Radio News or Neon Tommy to fulfill class requirements, but I have about seven hours more a day than I used to. It's an overwhelming glut of time, and I'm using it to jump into more campus organizations. 


I'm currently in the rush process for a campus-specific co-ed leadership fraternity, Delta Omicron Zeta, founded by a class taught by our University president, Steven B. Sample. I'm also applying to Society 53, the student outreach arm of the Alumni Association, and possibly the communications department of Undergraduate Student Government. 


And on top of that, I'm taking a three-day voyage on a brigantine, which will include a nighttime navigation test. While in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, our captain will spin us around in the dark until we're thoroughly disoriented and tell us to find our way home. Captain Ron says it usually takes about two hours. What an adventure!

I hope this semester also means lots of blogging material. Because I know, I know. In the amount of time I've been MIA, I could have walked (briskly) to Denver. My apologies.