Day 6

Caitlin H.

April 3, 2010 - 7:00 AM

The following takes place between 7:00 and 8:00am:

This term, I decided to reinvest in some of my passions. And after a TV show reminded me how strongly I feel about creating opportunities for youth, I'm proud I've gotten involved in the Eugene community as a soccer coach. I have two teams; a U12 coed team through AYSO and a second grade girls team through Kidsports. This means I'm booked for soccer practice four nights a week and pull double duty on weekends for games. Today is game one of the season with my U12 team and I'm excited! And up a little earlier than I'm used to on a Saturday morning...

Before I get too focused on soccer for the day, I need to take some time to be a student. Chapter two of my urban geography textbook is demanding my attention (I decided to take the urban geography class over the environment and development course). Even in front of a warm fire in the living room, one page seems to turn more slowly than the next early on a Saturday morning, but the material is interesting. So far in lecture we have covered a bit history of urban geography and dissected the framework for understanding the field. I will admit a tinge of excitement came over me when Michigan State was mentioned as one of the Universities an important scholar spent time at during their research. As I'm reading now I'm digging deep for more of that excitement.

Chapter 2 is titled "The Origins and Development and Cities." I never was that excited about history. I mean it is interesting and it has value, but some history books seem written to be intentionally dull. History should be exciting! Its like somewhere in their youth the author decided all history must be dry and dense to be accurate and therefore all future history texts must be dry and dense. Luckily this book isn't so bad. I'm hoping in lecture we can discuss our opinions on the emergence of early cities as a class. I know the student demographic includes geography, environmental studies, landscape architecture students and more, so I assume a robust conversation could ensue. My head snaps back up as I start to drift off focusing on Monday's lecture instead of the textbook before me.

Once chapter two is out of my way I'll need to spend some time scrutinizing my starting lineup for today's soccer game one last time. This afternoon I'm looking forward to watching Michigan State play in the Final Four as a future Spartan. Saturday's are going to be busy for me this spring. But I have a hunch I'm really going to enjoy them.