RE: New hunter - am I normal?
Definitely normal. I'm in the same boat with you. This is my first year really hunting. I did a little bow hunting when I was 12 and only went rifle once or twice. Never took anything, though. I'm 27 now and decided to start back up this year -- bought a bow, stand, camo, the whole nine...
Anyway, yeah...work definitely took a back seat to searching this forum, practicing, etc. Now that I got the first hunt out of the way, it's a tad better, but not much. I still need to get the first deer under my belt (hopefully a buck for my team) so I'm still pretty juiced. Good luck!