Here I am. In the grand tradition of my blogs, in this first post I will explain the title. "Chapter Three" regards the third stage of my blogging life. Chapter one was undergrad, chapter two was the technician years, and now chapter three is grad school. Chapter three is estimated to take at least five years, so here's hoping that I enjoy it!

I am a little conflicted over the candidness level here. I don't want to hamper my future professional life, but I don't want it so sterile or sugarcoated that it's not interesting. I will walk the fence and try not to fall either way. I also feel like the last blog degenerated into life updates without any reflection or insights. I'm in an especially introspective mood tonight.

This morning I packed up the last of my things and moved them all to Ryan's apartment, so we are officially shacked up. He's asleep because he has to work in the morning, but I've been getting into the habit of staying up late and sleeping in again. It helps for working dinner shifts at Red Lobster. And you know, you stay up late by yourself and get thinking. I am going to have a lot more time to think these next few weeks. What do I think?

I think life moves too slowly for me. I was cruising people's myspace pages and at a glance, everyone's life looks so interesting. But played out, everything just takes so long. I get bored so easily. Aside from the personality mismatches and lack of recognition for work well done at the field station, the work itself was just too fantastically boring. I know it was supposed to be my "time off" between undergrad and grad, but I guess that I just can't handle having an idle mind. I need competition and challenges in order to be happy.

I also think that my new roommate (ha) Ryan is extremely patient, and that quality contributes to my opinion that he is the best. I was looking back at a calendar of the last year and it's astonishing how much couple time was lost to Red Lobster. I'm rationalizing that it will put us in a much better position to buy a house next year, but it's still time that can't be recaptured. And now even that we're living together, I'll still be working four or five nights a week until the move, so we're not really seeing each other any more than when I was working two jobs. But he remains patient, and I love him for it.