No Pressure....

I had my first meeting with my research group today.  They all seem pretty cool, and my advisor seems even more chill than I initially thought....yup, crazy.  We cracked a few jokes, got to know one another, made fun of some summer students....the usual.  I'm pretty sure there was a rant in there too.  Either way, he's given us as much free rein as he can, which is nice. 
I do have a little understanding why we agreed that I need at least 80 in my classes.  It sure helps with scholarships, but there's a little more than that.  Although my grades have little bearing on the success of my project, they help build work ethic.  The data that I'm collecting in my project will be used to verify the actual validity of the 4 other projects in my research group.  In other words, if my project doesn't work out, or I screw up, 4 other people will have to start close to scratch, or at least take a different focus.  Yeah, no pressure.

He was one of two people that did ask me if I was starting to get overwhelmed and able to keep up.
I have 2 schools of thought (maybe 3, we'll see what kind of an argument I can make) on this matter.
The first I learned from my old boss at CNH.  He always told me that you can't finish everything in a day and there's no use getting worked up about what you can't finish.  Just do what you can, work as hard as you're able and it will all get done eventually.  Some things may not get done on time, but if it's done correctly and thoroughly that's all you can ask.  Just don't kill anyone in the process.
The second way to look at this I learned from a student friend.  He had one semester where he was taking 7 classes and in an Exec position with the SESS.  I asked him how he managed.  He said that he never let himself get behind, because if he got behind the house of cards would all fall down and they wouldn't be paper cards, they'd be concrete.  Basically, you just get so busy that you have no choice but to keep up because once you get behind, the shitstorm will get you.
Then there's the third philosophy (I guess I was able to make 3 points out of this....cool) where you purposely keep incredibly busy so you don't spend money or get into trouble. This sounds familiar.  Really familiar.  I'm not saying that I'm starting to get overwhelmed, just that unless I manage to keep busy with work and school, I'm sure I'll find some sort of other endeavor to get busy with and I'll be completely distracted.  ADD much?  Oooo, a green car!

Either way, I'm not getting overwhelmed yet.  Things are completely manageable, even within in the midst of assignments, projects, proposals and papers.

Cheers.