The Side Benefits of Going to School

• What else would I do with those 2 1/2 hours that Josh is at preschool and there's no Barney, Diego, or Word World in the background. Silence is overrated anyhow. And I do enjoy taking a very cranky three year old to Walmart, so why deprive me of that joy?
• I'm showered at 8:30 am instead of 5:30 pm when Wade is about to walk through the door.
• It's easier to justify a midafternoon nap when you wake up at 8:30 instead of 11:00.
• The 10 minute walk from my car on South Temple to the math building is exercise I should be getting anyways. Bonus that it's uphill.
• I enjoy being ogled at like a freak show side exhibit. Haven't you ever seen a pregnant person before people? This is Utah!
• I clearly understand I was wrong when all this time I merely thought getting a math degree was a bad idea. Now it's become a certainty that getting a math degree was a bad idea.
• Baby is especially active during the class. I personally think it's a misguided attempt at getting the...very...slow...monotone....voice....to....quit....talking....but I can at least dream that she'll be a math whiz. Perhaps she'll turn to me one day, when she can finally grasp the ideas floating around in her head, and say: "I don't know what it is, but I really find probability interesting."
• The 10 minute walk back to my car is, again, exercise I should be getting anyways. It's nice it's downhill.
• There are many different ways of returning to my car. I like to try a different one every day and pretend I'm a paranoid spy that has hitmen after me so taking the same route would only clue them in on my normal routine. Also, I like to see if I can shave a couple minutes off every day. It's a throwback to my 5k racing days. Try to improve on my time every day.
• Since I don't have a working FM radio in my car, I get to listen to talk radio. Rush and Doug have become familiar companions on the long drive to and from campus.
• People watching is especially interesting in this arena. I've seen it all these last two weeks. Capes, leather jackets in 90 degree weather, girls teetering down the sidewalk in shoes obviously not intended for campus wear, a guy in class that wears a purple t-shirt with the arms cut off over a white t-shirt EVERY DAY--with varying colors of shorts. And these people are looking at me like I'm the freak?