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In three days, I got four photo assignments for The Indianapolis Star. That's a pretty good haul for someone who's also back in school for pre-med classes, and it's very convenient for that same person who can't easily get another job with that academic workload.

The assignments started on Thursday night with a shoot that hasn't been published yet, so that's not going up here yet, either. On Friday, the Omni Severin Hotel celebrated its 100th anniversary with a big to-do featuring period clothing, selections from the Great American Songbook, and an appearance by Jennie Ralston, the first lady of Indianapolis in 1913. She was getting on about the need to help people who were ravaged by the Great Flood of that year, showing off how well Cheryl Fesmire of the Indiana Historical Society can inhabit a 100-year-old person of history. Fantastic period costumes abounded, and with them a priceless opportunity for juxtaposition.

Saturday brought two assignments: a simple car show in Noblesville, and a music festival near Downtown in Garfield Park. The Cataracts festival, in its third year, brought together over 40 acts on four small stages, and it was yet another instance of a photo assignment bringing me to a place in my hometown I should have visited before but hadn't. If it hadn't been so hot there, I might have stayed more than the two hours that the assignment required.

IndyStar.com gallery links: Cataracts music festival, Lucky Teter Rebel Run Car Show, and Omni Severin Hotel's 100th anniversary party.

Evan Cork and Deborah Magga try to solve a problem on her iPhone while in their period clothing during the Omni Severin Hotel's 100th anniversary party on Georgia Street, Friday, August 23, 2013.

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Last night, for the first time in years, I went to the Indiana State Fair. The last time I went, I filled in for good photo friend Ryan Dorgan as an assistant on a National Geographic photo story by Vince Musi on animal domestication. This time, I went to take my own photos for the Star of the Hoosier Music Night at the Fair. The full gallery appears here, and I hope the photos express how intense the music and the passion of the band were. Jennie DeVoe, the opener, was nice and settling, but The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band played the most intense form of bluegrass I've ever heard. To give you an idea of their kind of music, my aunt discovered them when they opened for ZZ Top. That's a big deal for a band from Brown County, Indiana.

In between concerts, I got a giant breaded tenderloin sandwich, as is my duty as a Hoosier. The tenderloin was as flat as a pancake, but it did have about a nine-inch diameter, earning the adjective "giant" in that limited fashion. Much more importantly, it tasted good.

(I didn't get any exciting food this time, like deep-fried Reese's or chocolate-covered bacon or the Largest Ear Of Corn That Agriculture Can Grow slathered in butter. I got my fill last time when I got a doughnut burger. Two glazed doughnuts acted as buns around a thick burger topped with cheese, lettuce, onion, and mayo. It tasted great, but it made me want to both run a marathon to counteract the calories and lie down on a couch for the rest of the day. I was very conflicted.)

Remember when I said I might do pre-med? Well, as of this week, that is now a Thing. On Monday, I start pre-med classes in biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology, while still taking Star assignments when I can. The about section still applies to me as-is; I've just added more goals to my life! ...I s'pose I should still update that blurb.

Breezy Peyton, The Rev. J. Peyton's wife, plays the washboard during The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band's performance on Hoosier Night on the Marsh Free Stage at the Indiana State Fair, Friday, August 16, 2013.

I had an interesting series of events Saturday. I started at the American Legion Mall in Downtown Indianapolis, where I was amongst the highest per-capita concentration of yellow buckets I had ever seen. The buckets were for the Walk for Water, a 5K walk meant to replicate (inexactly, of course) the daily trip that villagers in Kager, Kenya, make to retrieve water that may or may not be fully sanitary. The organizers of the event, the Jubilee Village Project, has partnered with the 3,000-people African village to develop a safe water system that would negate the trip. To raise awareness, people walked from the Mall to the White River Canal under Ohio Street, got their buckets filled by Boy Scouts, and walked back to the Mall carrying the filled buckets on their heads. (Well, some people filled their buckets all the way, and some people put them on their head.) Except for two shortcuts, I walked the entire 5K looking for photos.

Then I took a math placement exam.

I'm taking physics at IUPUI as part of my pre-med coursework this coming year (more on than in a later post... hopefully). Because I haven't taken a college math course since spring 2009, I had to reassure people that I still know math. I needed a raw score of 46 on the test to qualify for the non-calculus physics class I have to take. In a case of not thinking things through, I scheduled the exam for immediately after the photo assignment, so I was tired, sweaty, and a little bit foggy as I began the computer-administered exam. Two hours later, I finished and promptly worried that I would need to spend money on another math course before taking physics. Fortunately, I didn't need to worry: I got an 86. Six years after my 5 on the AP Calculus exam, I've still got it.

Then I sent the 5K photos to the Star. They appear below and in the full gallery at IndyStar.com (on a special white background!).

Molly Martin and Grace Connell lead others with water buckets up the steps of the White River Canal during the Walk for Water 5K event, Saturday, July 27, 2013.