It's Thursday, which means we're thisclose to having survived another week, and I know for sure I will be glad when the weekend gets here.

Work and my techie meetings:
Work is kicking my butt every which way. I feel like I write that a lot these days, but this re-org that we're going through is seriously killing me. It's all going to be better when we come out the other side, but in the meantime it means lots of long hours, lots of stress and very little sleep.



For example, Monday I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep. All I was doing was thinking about the mountain of things I had to do at work, the problems I needed to solve and the fires that need to be put out. I tossed and turned until about 4:30 a.m. and finally dozed off for another hour until my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.

I'm not sure how I functioned in the office on Tuesday, but somehow I managed to power through all my meetings. But when I got home from work I passed out at 8 p.m. Not even kidding. My plan was to take a little nap and wake up and do some more work, when I could function at a slightly higher cognitive level. Clearly that didn't happen.

All that to say, I'm not complaining about my job. In fact, I love it, perhaps now more than ever. There are some really cool projects going on that I'm excited about and new opportunities are dropping in my lap almost daily.

Like for example, this week I get to go to Google's DC HQ to work some some stuff with the folks over there, and on Tuesday, I got to meet with Tumblr's government liaison. So yea, my job is awesome, but I will be glad when my plate is a little less full and I can sleep normally again.

Working Out:
Spin class is my new workout addiction. I've been experimenting with different instructors and different class times, and I'm starting to figure out who my favorites are. My gym offers classes every morning at 5:45 a.m., which is the perfect time for me on the days I work from home. I can work out, walk back home and feel energized to dive into work.



The gym also offers evening classes that I've experimented with too. I haven't found one instructor I totally loved like I had back in York many moons ago. But the instructor yesterday played a good mix of music -- some country, some Backstreet Boys, some Katy Perry -- so he's creeping up on my favorites list.

For me, spin is all about the music. I can do anything as long as there are some good jams playing in the background for me to rock out to.

Class:
I'm teaching at the University of Maryland again this semester, and I'm really excited to be back in the classroom. We just wrapped up the second week of class, and I can already tell I have a great group of kids this year. They're interested and engaged and always come to class with good things to discuss.



The class I teach is a lot of hard work. We're in the classroom 4 hours each week, and then the kids have multiple writing assignments on top of that. It's a journalism class after all and the best way to learn how to write like a journalist is to practice writing like a journalist. Of course, that means a ton of grading for me, but it hasn't gotten too bad yet this semester.

I'm trying to keep a better handle on the work load this year. I know last year, I let myself get really overwhelmed and bogged down with assignments, and this year I'm determined to not let that happen, especially with everything else I've got going on.

All work and no play makes me a very sad girl.

So that's what's been going on with me lately. It's a lot, but I function best when I'm busy. The more I've got on my plate, the more driven I become (though inversely, the less I sleep, which is probably bad.)

One more day til the weekend, when I can kick back and do some relaxing!