University in the US is different from what I'm used to. I thought going back to school would be easier because, hey, I've been working for a few years! Not so. When you work, you get in around 9am and you get to leave at something like 5 or 6pm. And then, you're done. Aaahh. The evenings and the weekends are yours!
Grad school is not quite like that. During my undergrad at Oxford, there was the theory (note, theory - rarely practiced, but it was there) that if you studied between 9 and 5 or 6, you could have all of your evenings and weekends free. That didn't always happen, what was far more likely was that you'd have two days of doing nothing much and then spend the two days prior to your tutorial frantically searching through the Bodleian for something, anything to help you write your essay. This then led into a evening process known as 'the essay crisis'. The essay crisis lasted pretty well all night, while you would write, read, surf the net, get a kebab, complain to your friends about the essay crisis, drink more tea and perhaps learn a few things about metaphysics.
Not the same at Michigan. For one thing, it's a lot harder to find a kebab in the US than Oxford.
Each one of my classes is three hours long. Three hours! That cuts out a good chunk of the day when you spend three hours of it in class, and the you get out at 4pm to realise you have work to finish from that class, and yet, it's almost dinnertime. There goes the 'free' evening. I'm just in class an awful lot more. And in the periods when I'm not in class during the day, I'm usually at work.

I am fortunate to have a great internship for my course, at the Office of International Programs. We coordinate all of the UofM study abroad programs, which is just my area of enjoyment! It's a great feature of my course that we are required to hold an internship during our MA, so we gain some real-life experience of different fields in Higher Education.

I really like my work. I like my supervisor and I'm very lucky to have her! I also like my coworkers, who are all a blast to hang out with. One of the other Graduate interns (check out Dan over here) is also on my course, so we have some great time causing trouble together! I have been able to do some really cool things at work, including making a presentation to one of the campus sororities, Delta Sigma Theta. But that's another story.
It all means though, that I don't have those free evenings and weekends that were once mine through working. One of the funny parts of my job is when we are preparing students to go abroad and we warn them to expect to spend fewer hours in class and much more self-directed study. No one warned me to expect the opposite! Much more time in class altogether. Is it hard to know that I can't linger over dinner watching The West Wing for hours? Or randomly chat on AIM til the wee hours? Maybe. But it's still worth it. :-)