Peterson Family Update, #782

Whelp, SOMEHOW, life has this weird way of continuing onward.  I had about a half-dozen different ideas of what I was going to write this week and with all of my course readings, each of them has decidedly fallen out of my brain.

**Time to Deploy the Bulleted List of Random Thoughts!**

• I am still doing all of my class readings.  It's interesting to me to see some folks in the group assert that they don't, as though it were a point of pride.  Simultaneously, I don't think that I'm morally superior for having done the reading (particularly around Sunday evening when there was a lot more skimming happening than when I started).  I do it because I know how I study and have specific goals for what I want out of the program.  Again, no moral judgement, but it strikes me as interesting how doing no readings and doing all readings can be very odd bragging points.  
• Black lives still matter, folks, even when it's not trending on Twitter anymore.  
• Even though we would like to ignore COVID-19, it is, in point of fact, indifferent to our boredom and spreading remarkably fast.  Pretending something doesn't exist does not magically make it not exist.  
• I have had the good fortune of good groups in all of my group projects thus far.  I know that I have jinxed myself terribly for all subsequent terms, but I also needed to express that gratitude.  
• We are in week eight of the term, over the halfway point.  ...and cue the mad laughter.  I feel as though time has flown in the same breath that I feel as though I have slogged through some components impossibly slow.  And then some other moments where I've run fast as I can just to stay in the same place.  
• There was a lot of pressure at the beginning of the program, where professors and other leaders would remark repeatedly on how close-knit these groups tend to be, leaving me in a particular state of "GAH!  Must force friendship now!" in the back of my mind, while the rational part kicked in with a "dude, chill out, and let it develop."  Well, I have definitely found some folks in the program by this point.  I haven't worked with all members of our 38 person cohort yet since we're not all in every class together, but there are some people I've had the chance to actually get to know.  
• I have had some Ah-ha! moments in the material we're learning, places where things connect in a satisfying and applicable way.  In many other places, I simply don't know what I don't know.  It ebbs and flows.  
• Andy is still working from home, on the other side of my wall.  We've been in close quarters for almost four months, and he's still one of my favorite things in this world.  He, Mike, and I have all been doing well together as good roommates.  
• My older brother is staying with us for a week while my folks are working on the initial moving into the new house.  This naturally involves reshuffling of space and the like, but we are doing well with it.
• Andy's gotten a couple of housing projects under his skin:  the deck is about half painted so far, and the light fixture in the dining room is down, the new ceiling fan waiting on some additional consulting since the box was a weird size.  We still have a lot of ideas for that downstairs basement and might be ready to start compiling quotes soon, to at least get a fence around what resources we need yet.  
• I drove down to see my parents' new house this weekend--it was emphatically good to spend some time with them and get some pictures up on the walls.  I also enjoyed the quiet freedom of an hour drive down the highway and country roads, feeling my world start to expand ever so slightly.
• Realizing that I need to balance in some fun reading with my class reading--the tricky part is finding a book that is good enough that I want to keep picking it back up but also not so good that I get too absorbed and I read nothing else, which is where I've found myself a few times in the attempt.  It's partly why I've leaned more toward a movie or a video game as a nightly ritual instead of late.  
• Fall is not officially sorted out with ISU yet--there are a lot of questions that remain, but the sincerest hope of the group seems to be that we'll be in person as much as possible.  The world is evolving too quickly right now to have the answers so readily available.  I have my own suspicions and places where I would quietly place my bets, but it is speculation only.  In any case, the pace of my courses should slow a bit, and I'm looking forward to that if nothing else. I do hope to meet my peers in person sooner rather than later, though (provided we can do so safely, of course).  
• ...and I have a few tests to study for so that's about what I've got today.