There is really no way to sugar coat the commuting thing. You will miss flights you will get bumped you will get left behind on a weight restricted flight and most importantly you will lose some valuable time off whether on reserve of a line holder. I commuted from Seattle to Newark for a year (granted that was ridiculous to begin with) and it was miserable. I mover to Rochester to be closer and the commute took hours because of the pax loads. If you can suck it up and move to the base at least till you can hold a decent line your life will be much less stressful.
It seems easy at first but then you have to start thinking about your commute the day before and checking flight loads (which also eats into your time off) to give yourself 3 options etc. It gets VERY annoying after the newness of the job wears off, im sure every commuter on here can agree with that. Most of the commuters I fly with now do it because its easier than moving the family or leaving a business. Good luck with class, I hope things get ironed soon with the oil or we might not have any planes to commute on
