Things Grad School Doesn't Teach You

Hello out there! Welcome back to this blog of mine. I apologize for the lack of updates, but it has been a pretty busy semester. It is finally spring break though so since I don't have to commute to campus, I can spend some of that time writing to you :)

This past week my department hosted a group of students from a university located in England. We are in the process of establishing a partnership with them and one component is having students visit each other's campuses. I was put in charge of planning their week here, so along with a couple of my colleagues we put together a range of events for them. During their visit, I played both hostess and facilitator. It was definitely exhausting but I learned a lot. I figured I would share some of those lessons with you that grad school didn't prepare me for.

• How to drive a 12 passenger van. Yeah, that was fun. Especially in the rain. On a highway filled with construction. And students with awesome accents asking you to turn on the radio and if people really own cows to mow their grass (yes, that really happened).
• Herding cats (uh, I mean students) and making everyone happy. Nobody is going to be happy all the time and unfortunately some students wanted to protest doing certain activities. Thankfully that's what their faculty sponsors are for.
• Managing disappointment when things get rained out. It rained most of last week up here in north Texas so that prevented us from doing a lot of activities like SWAT demos. The students were pretty bummed about that but there wasn't much we could do.
• Instructing students how to eat fajitas. Welcome to Texas, y'all!
• Instructing students that pico de gallo is not salad. Let's just say their tacos weren't so tasty.
• Shooting an AR-15 with a local sheriff's department. I hadn't shot in a few years so I was a pretty rusty. But it was awesome and a great way to end the week!

Oh yes, nothing like shooting a rifle while wearing a dress :)