I’m Baackk…

Southern Illinois…hmmm, I always knew there was a chance I’d be back, but still, it’s a bit surreal to be back in Carbondale. It’s been seven months but feels like a year. At least.

People, friends and many, many familiar faces. And a fair number of new connections. I’ve made a fast friend with the French volunteer on the project, who’s become a cohort and a partner in crime for many a practical joke. If I hadn’t been painfully shy as a kid, I think I might have discovered the prankster in me a little earlier in life. So, I’m making up for loss time, while I have time to indulge.

The first week-and-a-half has gone remarkably well. We had about six days of furious landowner contacts to fix us up for January (session #9), in our third and final season of the study. And of course, many sardines cans have been spray painted, hair snares made and clipped, cameras inventoried, etc. There’s a still a fair amount of prep to do, but a whole week to spare before the field season officially kicks off, January 4th.

While work is going better than hoped, everything else is teetering on mildly stressful to incredibly so. My housing situation fixed itself up. I’ll be moving in with two undergrads, which I keep reminding myself is no different than any other field season I’ve had. I’ve lived in much closer quarters to undergrads, recent graduates and folks of varying backgrounds. And yet, this feels like a regression back to my college days.

And then there’s the seven-pound dead weight of textbooks I picked up the other day (oh yes, I did weigh it!) I even dutifully checked out my classrooms so I won’t be blindly trying to find them my first day of class, January 19, which I anticipate being late to, as I’ll be struggling all semester to try and finish work and get to class on time. Walking the corridors, I felt, well, a little old. A little out of my league. And more than a little afraid. Part of it is knowing that I’m not going back to school to fail, or for that matter, to be a mediocre student.

Not all is woe though. Now when I think about that third week in January, when a full-time job and night classes 4x a week will inevitably and painfully meet, my heart palpitates for just a minute or two and then, I shrug it off.

I’ll adjust. I always do.