life lately

Once again I have neglected my blog. As always, I could come up with a bunch of excuses, but none of them are really valid. It’s not like I don’t have the time to write, and I often think of things to write about, I just never get around to actually sitting down and doing it.

Anyway, I suppose it is time for an update on my life, since my last post was over a month ago, and my last many posts haven’t really been about me as much as they have been about news and goings-on around the world. So, in no particular order, I present the stuff that has been on my mind, the things that I have been doing and what is coming up for me in the near future:

• School and Projects: The biggest thing on my mind, school-wise, has been getting started on a large project on employee communication at IKEA Odense. It took us a while to get everything set up and ready, but we have finally completed interviews with several IKEA employees and now we are heading into the fun stuff: transcribing interviews, analyzing our data, reviewing (more) literature, and finally writing our 60-75 page report (we’re a three person group). Not that anyone from IKEA will read this, but the people we spoke with and who helped us out were all super, super friendly and helpful. We are so thankful and grateful for the effort they put into helping us out.

• I never thought I would say this, but I actually joined a gym. A big old, evil, corporate gym. As an old swimmer and runner, I never thought I would be a gym person. I was the type of person who said “I’d rather just go run outside.” The problem was, I didn’t actually do that, and so I let myself get into absolutely horrible shape. Christine from 5 years ago would have been very ashamed of Christine from 2 months ago. I also have regular gym buddy, which makes it a lot more fun. Even though she is a faster runner than me (for now…) it is nice to go there together and run on treadmills next to each other, and feel like we went running together. Outside, she would have been a mile ahead of me, but inside, we can keep each other going. The gym also offers a variety of “free” (included in the price of membership) classes, such as yoga, Pilates, spinning, boxing, thai-boe, etc. that I have been trying out for variety.

• First race in 5 + years: I’m a goal-oriented person, so I’ve signed up for my first 5k race since October 2004 and my first race of any kind since Track and Field in (May?) 2005. My goal is pretty modest: I’d like to run it in 30 minutes or less. Hopefully, I’ll stay motivated, keep running, be able to do more races through the summer and fall, and hopefully my times will get faster with time. The race will take place May 13th. I hope I’ll be ready by then!

• Volleyball tournament: I’m pretty sure I haven’t played any real volleyball since 9th grade, but I signed up for my kitchen’s team for the volleyball tournament that happens every April/May. Our first game is Thursday!

• Finals: Projects are due at the end of May and then I have three finals between June 14th and June 25th.

• Internship: I’m searching and applying for internships for the fall. It’s an exciting and tedious process. I’ll update more once I have something set up =)

• Summer: I’m hoping to make it home for a few weeks in July. A lot depends on where I will be interning and when I will be starting (see above). Most likely, the internship will start around August 1st, so that kind of limits the amount of time I have for travelling.