Let the games begin...

Sping semester got underway this week. I had my first real graduate course (well in Women's Studies that is), on Monday night. The course is called Women's Health and Politics. The reading level is really intense (I went through all the assigned readings for this week to get a rough page count for myself...and I'm guessing the page count is between 500 and 600 hundred). Mind you, this volume of reading is out of a medical journals and dense text books. None of it is an easy read. But, alas, the subject matter is all very interesting to me and though not half way through yet, I have faith that I will finish it all by Monday night.

My first class went something like this: in a small room in the basement (yes basement!) of the Faculty Office Building on the USF Tampa campus, 16 women of varying backgrounds gathered and waited quietly for Dr. Myerson (the Director of the Women's Studies Graduate Program at USF). She came in at 6 on the dot, all smiles, with hugs for her returning students, and arms full of healthy/yummy snacks to share with everyone. She explained that she always brings food to her graduate students for she is the only one being paid to sit there and that she always starts her classes off with a 5 minute meditation to help us clear our minds and join together in the room. She dimmed the lights and led us in breathing exercises and said some nice things about washing the day away and making our minds clear. And damn if I wasn't genuinely more relaxed when she was done!

We passed the hummus and carrots and fig newtons and terra chips and talked for two hours about what a "woman" is. She felt it would give us the framework for a course in women's health.

I left the room that night excited and elated and eager to get down to reading those 500 pages so I could participate in what is bound to be riveting discussion next week. I didn't even mind the 40 mile drive home...I had so much to think about, the time hardly mattered.

I'll be 30 in a matter of months. I think I found my place in the world not a moment too soon. Every woman in her own time I suppose:)

Stay tuned for school updates, GRE drama, and Presidential primary talk.