Grad school Week 2: The earth moves

OK, so first week of classes is done. So far, so good. It's a lot of work, and the tech stuff seems to take me twice as long as it should, but I'm hanging in and starting to get comfortable with my schedule and workload (looks like if I give up the whole idea of a "weekend," it should be manageable. I'll start posting some of my work soon, I promise.

Meanwhile, the big news is that I survived my first earthquake! OK, so it was only like a 3.6 — not exactly The Big One. But I actually did feel it. In fact, it woke me up.

About 5 a.m. Friday I woke up to this low rumbling noise that seemed to coincide with a slight shaking of the bed. "Is that thunder?" I thought, groggily. Then it got a bit stronger. "Is that a train?" I thought, still groggy enough to not realize that all train tracks are at least a few miles from my apartment. For a moment I thought I heard some of the pictures on the wall rattle, but I couldn't be sure. Then I fell back asleep.

I woke up two hours later with my radio alarm going off and a guy telling me I'd survived an earthquake. So, there you go. Two weeks away from Minnesota and I'm already experiencing all-new natural disasters. Well, "disasters" is probably too strong. All-new natural phenomena, I guess.

Crazy.