Thursday, May 8, 2014

The State of Mollie: May 2014

I don't even know where/how to start. I feel like a re-introductory post is in order, as I completely dropped off the face of the internet earth about a month and a half ago. So hello! I'm Mollie. I'm a super-intense grad student, part-time baker, sometimes runner, all the times reader, and full-time all things enthusiast.



Alright now that we've handled that, I'm thrilled to report that I survived my first year of grad school and am officially half-way done! It went by so fast, but at the same time I'm amazed at how much has happened in the last nine months. I have learned many many things  about the world, about how to think (turns out we call this "analysis" when we're feeling fancy), how I think, and how to better work with others (in grad school almost all work is group work). 



I made a music video, got a job as an editor, and performed a swing dance and a silly country song. Also I've made amazing friends  it continues to blow my mind how nice and smart and motivated and awesome everyone is.



Conclusion: the state of school and friends is good. I may have had my doubts back in the fall, but turns out grad school is fun and I love nerd camp



Now on to running. Oooohhhh running. This is part of why I haven't been blogging  first not to jinx myself when things were going well, then out of sadness when they all fell apart. So I'll give you the short version and then fast-forward to the end. I started marathon training in January, with my eyes on running Boston in April. It was a very rough (i.e. cold) winter for running, but I had a friend from school to train with and all was going relatively well.


Then, out of nowhere the week I returned from Colombia, my knee started hurting. So I stopped running and went to physical therapy like the good athlete I am, hoping it was a short-term problem that could be fixed in time for me to still run the marathon (diagnosis: patellar tendonitis). One month later it was no better and maybe worse, so I went back to the doctor at school, got an MRI (holy space machines!!!), and now find myself back in PT with the diagnosis of IT Band Syndrome. Same s*%$ different day, huh? (But for reals, here's a post from 2012 about how to fix it.)

Obviously I did not run the marathon (though I did go out to cheer!), and am currently not doing much at all — just some yoga and occasional climbing. Maybe next year...

Conclusion: the state of running is non-existent. Blerg. (On the bright side it's not incurable.)

Ok to bring things back to a positive note, next up let's talk about the State of Mollie: future edition! I am currently lounging about Boston/Somerville for 10 more days, doing not a whole lot and loving every minute of it. Then I will go on a 8-day road trip to the South — Raleigh, Nashville, New Orleans, Memphis, Kansas City — with friends from school.



Then I will move back to DC for a summer internship. All the Peregrine coffee and rooftop grilling and weekend hiking and Shenandoah rock climbing will be mine!!! (Oh and some work too, but whatevs.) And then I will meet up with friends in Europe and travel in (probably) Greece and Turkey. Everything is amazing.

And that concludes this State of Mollie. Look forward to more frequent blogging in the next couple weeks!