The Amateur Side

Well, Dante is on vacation until the end of June, which leaves me at loose ends...on the horsey side of my life anyways.

In the summer, Dante and riding generally get put on the back burner because one of these days, I need to get a real career (instead of that of prolonged scholarship). In order to obtain this career, I have to do internships in the summer while I'm in school, which means working 7:30a to 5:30p Mon-Thurs, with a half day on Fridays. Now, eventually I don't foresee this being a problem, I will ride late at night. My s/o is in med school, so he won't exactly be mad at me for being super busy.

However, here in Texas, riding in the evening during the summer is unpleasant. Actually, let me rephrase that. RIDING in the summer is unpleasant. Riding is least unpleasant from the hours of 6am to 9am, when the temperature is a mere ninety degrees. Riding is incredibly unpleasant from 3 pm to 8 pm, when the temperatures hit one hundred and more.

Guess what time I'm available to ride during this internship?

However, I'm actually very excited for this internship, which will be for an international engineering company (although I am staying in Dallas) designing and building HVAC systems. Eventually I would like to work in green construction and LEED certification, and I think this is a great first step towards this.

To make matters more complicated, I am also taking a summer class. I normally wouldn't try and do this, but the class is not being offered during the school year, is taught by my favorite teacher, is a fun computer class, and satisfies an important requirement for my degree. However, this means that for five weeks, I have class on Mon-Wed from 6:30p to 9:00p. This class ends in the second week of July, so at least I only have to do this for a couple of weeks while trying also to ride Dante.

Speaking of Dante, he should start under saddle again the first weekend of July. I'll only be able to ride Thurs-Sun, but it will be fine. Then in late July, we'll get back to riding full time, in August we'll gear up and start fitness work, and at the end of August we'll head up to Richland where we'll run Intermediate.

I've been thinking a lot lately how I'm going to balance riding and work once I graduate, and I have a preliminary plan thought out in my head. It might change, it might not, but I always feel better when I have a plan.