In over my head?

Two days and 4.5 hours into my second semester and I'm already feeling overwhelmed. I wonder if there are enough hours in the day to do as much reading as required.

We spent the first 30 minutes of today's class going around the room introducing ourselves and in addition to providing our name, we had to say our degrees, where we work and what sort of work we do at said job. I was quick to learn that I am the only person that is not currently involved in survey design or research in any shape or form. I am one of the most under qualified and any other words with negative connotation to describe how inferior I feel in comparison to the rest of the class. I feel like I have such a long, hard uphill battle to just familiarize myself with terms and methods in both of my classes. I'm sure I'll have to bust out my old statistics books to relearn statistical formulas.

Up shit creek without a paddle.. or a boat.. or a lifejacket..wadersders!

I'm not big on participation and group discussions and we'll be doing a lot of it in my Thursday class. He wants to teach it seminar style, so each class we need to read a couple chapters in the 3 books that are required for the class ($150 total.. with one of those a used book), as well as online publications. Of these publications, there will be 2 or 3 for each class and we are to lead a discussion sometime during the semester. It's first come first serve of the 23 articles and there are 18 people in the class. Here's a sample of what we have to chose from..

"The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Advance Mailings in a Telephone Survey"
"To Mix or Not to Mix Data Collection Modes in Surveys"
"Results from Chinese Cognitive Interviews on the Census 2000 Long Form: Language, Literacy, and Cultural Issues"
"Changes in Telephone Survey Nonresponse over the Past Quarter Century"

I chose the last one because I figured it was the easiest. It's also on the schedule to be discussed Feb 2nd, so I'm one of the first to present. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. For one, I'll get it out of the way, and for two.. I don't know.. I can't seem to find any good in it.

Am I worried? Sure. But I know my grade depends on how much effort I put into the class and participation. The good thing is there are no tests, but we have to do a few exercises that we'll be graded on. And we won't have class on March 17th because of Spring Break.. wahoo! So that just leaves me with a free day for studying.. yaaa..

I hit the gym and lifted right after class, then came home and had chocolate for dinner. Decompressed in front of the boob tube for a bit and now I'm about to hit the sack.

A lot on the horizon, but it'll only clear up if I keep moving toward it.