Back To Reality

Christmas vacation from classes has been a blast, but tomorrow morning it ends.  Oddly enough, up until yesterday I was super-excited to dive into the semester.  Now I'm having the beginning-of-the-semester doubts about being able to conquer everything that's laid out in front of me for the next few months.  I have my fingers crossed that this feeling will pass and it will be a regular school day tomorrow.

This weekend had a moment of grim reality - one of the soldiers in my boyfriend's battalion was killed by a roadside IED.  An official message was sent through the FRG listserv and a memorial service is scheduled on post in a few weeks.  I would really like to go to pay my respects to the soldier, but the service is on a weekday morning so I'd have to skip class and drive 30min to post.  I may still do it, we'll see.  I spoke with DB briefly on Sunday; he sounded very grim and didn't want to talk about what was going on around him.  I think it was a combination of him trying to deal with the sadness and also not scare me too much.  I just hope that the battalion's morale continues on strong after this blow.  I'll definitely be saying extra prayers for the fallen soldier's family.

In unrelated news, a group of my running friends have pressured me into running a 10 mile race in 3 weeks.  I consider myself a mediocre runner.  I can do three miles ok, and 5 miles is a bit tough.  But 10 miles?  I am absolutely terrified, yet I am still going to do it.  The competitor in me doesn't want to walk at all during the race, but I'm afraid that may just be how it goes.  I will be quite pleased if I can finish the race and not throw up.  Luckily my running friends are great motivators, esp Mary who is really good about encouraging to overcome what I 'think' I can do and just do it.  The story on my running group is a fun, but long one - I think I'll save that for another post.

And I'm off to get some beauty sleep before the first day of school!