After a lot of deep soul searching, I suspended this semesters studies at Cornell. It wasn’t an easy decision. But for the last few weeks I’ve felt stretched to the maximum. The eight hours of commuting time was an absolute killer. I was also *just barely* keeping up with the reading. Add onto that trying to do a good job at RIT and being able to support Drea — well something just had to give. And Cornell was that something.

It was a difficult decision. The right decision, but difficult none the less.

I’m going to try to keep on my reading schedule. I mean, I bought the books! And I’ll be reading them next year. So I might as well get on it and start my immersion in those texts. Especially since I’m hoping to continue researching throughout this year.

The first week of classes at RIT has been a blur. In part that’s because my only day to get out of class business done is Wednesday. I teach effectively 6 straight hours Monday and Friday (its two different sections of the same class). Tuesdays and Thursdays are spent in Ithaca (today I calculated that I spend over eight hours a week driving to an from Cornell — that’s a whole business day).

What is a bit awkward is that the lab component of my course is on Mondays. The lecture is on Fridays. So students are getting the so-called “hands on experience” before we cover theory. Or at least that was what I had to work on this week. I think I’ve managed to come up with a plan that takes care of that for future weeks.

Ok, ’nuff typing, time to read anthro stuff.