Summer Classes and Adventures in Public Transportation

In my last post I mentioned that I'm taking summer classes.

For those of you who don't know, summer classes are super-condensed classes that cover an entire semester in 3-5 weeks. Mine is a 3 week class, so that means I have class from 8:30-11:20 AM EVERY DAY until June 3rd. I also had to buy an $80 book for it.

Fortunately the class is Nutrition 100. I thought this would have something to do with nutrition. It doesn't. It's basically like college P.E. We have lecture for an hour and then we go to the rec and work out. Every day. Best class ever? It is a little disheartening that I'm paying for credit hours to go work out every morning (along with my student fees that cover my rec membership).

I just realized I complain about paying for college a lot. It's a valid complaint.

So anyway, since I'm living at home this summer, class every day is fairly inconvenient. It's about a 20 minute drive to campus one way. So I'd be spending about 40 min in the car everyday and going through a crap ton of gas. Plus I'd have to buy a parking permit.

I've decided I'm not going to drive to class this summer.

That may have a lot to do with the fact that my car is completely empty and I'm avoiding buying gas as long as possible. It's more than just saving money though. It's being green and while one less car on the streets isn't going to make a huge difference, every little bit helps. (And remember Gas Boycotting (Or "An Easy Way to Change the World")? Exactly).

Day 1 of summer class I biked 8 miles each way to get to class. It worked well. Lincoln's got a pretty decent bike trail system that can get you pretty much anywhere in the city. Not so well was that my knee kind of kills from riding a bike that wasn't mine and a little small. I need to fix mine and haven't had a chance. Biking is great because, well I love biking, but it's super nice out and exercise and all that.

Day 2 was the bus. Knee=no biking today (plus I'm going to P.E. class!) This is where things get interesting. UNL students get a free bus pass that lasts for a year, so if you can navigate the confusing mess of bus routes and schedules, it works fairly well. Unfortunately, Lincoln's public transportation system is not as convenient as it's bike trail network, but it's not bad. I may have done a lot of unnecessary walking because I wasn't sure exactly where to get on or off the bus, but I made it to and from class. I'm lucky to live a couple blocks from a bus stop that goes downtown though. And it's about a 30-40 minute ride, which seems like a lot, but I worked on my homework. Nerd, I know.

It was slightly concerning because the bus driver was a very aggressive driver. He was going ridiculously fast (for a bus) and honked a lot. He even opened the bus door to cuss out a lady in her car. I made it home in 25 minutes though =)