No, I didn't get lost and end up on the wrong blog.

But, as you know, I was recently blessed with two weeks off from all that is the workplace -- and it was fabulous. (The vacay is soon-to-be over, though...as in, I'll be sitting at my desk in 11 hours.)

I...

- attended the Minnesota State Fair. Twice. And ate deep fried pickles-n-cream cheese. They were delicious.

- hosted some fabulous friends from Boston, who had much to learn about Minnesota culture and quirks.

- took many a great yoga class. Conquered crow pose. Sweated. A lot.

- ran 17 miles without stopping (and spent the rest of the day in shock).

- managed to totally avoid preparing for school in any way, shape or form.

- and did a lot of errands, lounging, dog-snuggling and bad-TV watching.

And it was lovely.

Now I'm headed back to school for one helluva semester (as usual), complete with 14 credits and starting a thesis. Courses on tap:

- Applied Research Methods

- Public Health Policy as a Prevention Strategy

- Ethics: Public Health Practice and Policy

- Community Building and Health

- Refugee Health: Trauma, Stress and Coping

- Online Media Creation and Design

- Population-Focused Assessment and Intervention (maybe! maybe not)

Sooo, there's a bit of a difference between those two lists, huh? A difference that's definitely feeding my regularly scheduled pre-semester meltdown, as I like to call it. A difference that made me wonder why I even bothered taking a couple weeks to chill out -- would it have been better to just power through? To not taste relaxation at all?

And then I think of those deep-fried pickles and realize I needed that calm before the storm. Bad.

I'll be back soon with more tales from the office...