Hey Man...
So, I am 5, count 'em, 5 classes away from getting my Master's in Recreation, effectively becoming Liz Doughty, Master of Recreation. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have gone into Human Performance, aka Kinesiology, aka PE or gym class. But I didn't and now I have those 5 classes left to taunt me. It's now or never and even though I don't really know why I'm bothering, except for the fact that there are only 5 classes between me having a Master's degree in anything or having nothing, only the wasted carcass of the last two years of my life and being out a bunch of cash, time and effort.

But really, what am I going to do with this? I have no idea. There was a time, not that long ago, when I thought I would eventually become a Recreation Professional, leading others to enjoy their leisure time, guiding them toward more fulfilling lives. Even though imparting my particular belief system on anyone isn't really my style, it still seemed.

This semester, I'm taking the Research Methods class that I've been dreading. I'm thrilled to find that it's not that bad, that my most excellent (and now retired) advisor had adequately prepared me, that I actually have a fair portion of the work already done. Woo for that.

I'm also taking this course in evaluating recreation programs. While I question the relevance to my particular thesis (A continuation of Shaw's 2003 and 1986 studies on the impacts of primary relationships on women's ability to get out of the house and experience their own leisure time despite having the demands of relationships and families) of this course, it's required and it's also too late for me to switch to HUP so there I am on Monday nights learning how to evalute programming that I'll most likely never do.

But it was okay, because my second favorite teacher ever was teaching it. She was bound to make at least part of it relevant for me, or at least interesting. But last night, when I arrived, I was totally bummed to see my newly-appointed graduate advisor there to announce that he was taking over the class because nobody had signed up for his class. Budgets being what they are, the terrific part-time teacher gets cut while the full-time faculty guy with expertise in a different part of the field teaches our class.

And did I mention that I'm really not that fond of his teaching style? We ended up spending almost 3 hours listening to him talk, about his PhD, about how he knew every author of every article we read, all of the things that grated my nerves about certain other full-time tenured professors I once took classes from.

But I'm stuck. This course is required, though I'll always question it's relevance (harder so, since I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to finish this degree), so I have to take it. But now instead of having relevant discussions about the literature, I'll be listening to him tell us all about who he knows (e.g. an author named Sandra becomes Sandy, implying a relationship) and counting the minutes until I'm done.

I'll also be counting the number of times he says 'hey man'. Last night it was 9.