I am 90 days out from submitting my grad school applications, and I’m gearing up. I found out yesterday that one of the schools I’m applying to no longer requires the GRE, which I’d planned to take in January. So I’m taking the money earmarked for that test and – what else? BUYING BOOKS.

I’ve been out of school for five years, and I know that I have a lot of work to do to be ready to go back. I do a lot of research for personal projects – but that research tends to be short-duration and intensive, or off-and-on when I feel like it. It’s the academic disciplines I need to build back up.

My plan:

– Start an intensive reading agenda, a dead minimum of an hour a day, in topics of interest to me because of: 1.) direct or indirect impact on career path topics, or 2.) direct or indirect impact on professional self-improvement.

– Writing, in some form, every day. Initially, no limits on form or quantity, but I may get to that in January.

– Work through the HTML/CSS (refresher) and JavaScript and PHP modules (new skills) on CodeCademy. Log in and do SOMETHING every day.

People, in undergrad, I read 1000-1500 pages and cranked out 30-50 pages of original writing every three weeks, like clockwork, and lately? it takes a month to get a 300-word blog post up. The wheels, they are rusty.

I may post more full-length book reviews; I may also post review shorts. I may liveblog. I’m through but have not yet reviewed Ambient Findability* and am about halfway through Quiet Influence, so look for something on those soon. Next up: Interwtingled, also by Peter Morville, and Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) by Christian Rudder. I’m going to Denver (and on to Cheyenne, Wyoming) this weekend, so I’m picking up a bunch of stuff at DPL, but it’s mostly more popular-audience stuff; their scholarly/technical information architecture collection is actually kind of dismal. It’s okay, I’m an ILL clerk.

I am unreasonably excited about the idea of being in school again, and about the work that I’ll be equipped to do when I’m done. Everything I’ve done up to now is foundational work; this is where I set out upon my life’s calling.

*(shorter review: MIND. BLOWN. Peter Morville is a freaky genius.)