What I Plan to Do

So, now we know what I will read during the break. But what will I do? First, I plan to spend more time on my bicycle. The refreshing wind does not feel the same sitting behind my computer as it does on a bicycle the first thing in the morning. Second, I will actually spend more evenings with my family. I might even take my wife to dinner a couple of times. The Saturday after I return from the f2f class is my daughter’s birthday party. So I will be at a skating rink trying to manage 10 middle school girls. That will be a lot more fun than reading about data collection methods for qualitative research. Third, I plan to look around me and wonder … what should I do with my time? Because we spend so much time studying (10-20 hours per week), we tend to forget what it is that normal people do after work every day. I do not recover from that immediately. It takes so time before I stop sitting at my computer wondering why it is not ordering me to read or write.

Actually, one of the reasons I am in this program is that I enjoy learning new material more than most of the other things I could be doing (“most”, not “all”). So these breaks remind me that I really do get a lot out of what we are doing in the DM program and that it is a better choice than watching terrible TV (nearly all of it), cleaning the house, working the yard, mindless shopping, etc.

So I do not have a huge plan for what to DO over the break.