(no subject)
Graduate school is ever so much crazier than I anticipated.
I don't know why I thought it would be calm or easy or whatever. Possibly/probably because when I started doing my M.Ed. back in 2006, I was somehow able to do those classes just fine and not worry about them, but the difference is that the M.Ed. classes met on a Friday/Saturday schedule on alternating weeks, so I had extra time to get things done. What's more, the M.Ed. stuff was a LOT less labor-intensive. It was a lot more reading and doing things that could be done in one night, not projects that spanned the entire semester (of which I have three currently...I know, crai moar, welcome to grad school).
It's weird because I haven't felt this driven with regards to homework and schoolwork since Oxford, and that was also a whole different ballgame. In Oxford, I was working this hard just to stay afloat, since I'd basically been thrust into graduate-level philosophy studies with nothing but freshman year Philosophy 101 (which I slept through because it was at 8 a.m. ...of course, I still got an A, easily, which tells you a lot about where I did my undergrad work). This is entirely different. I know full well that I could probably scrape by with B's if I relaxed a little and didn't put in as much effort as I am, but I don't want B's. I want a 4.0 average. I want the school to rain down scholarships upon me (because, let's face it, I could use some scholarships). I want my future practicum/employer to look at me and say, "she's someone I want to keep, not just for the duration of her summer practicum, but until she's ready to leave."
For the first time since I was in high school, I feel like how I do academically will have an impact on the future that I want for myself, which is odd to admit. For the first couple of years of college, I was basically there for the Mrs. degree...I was studying something I enjoyed because I figured, stupidly, that I would meet and marry Mr. Right straight out of college and start popping out babies nine months after the wedding bells rang, and everything would be all fine and dandy.
Yes. This is a monumentally stupid mindset to have, and I still wish I could go back in time and shake myself for it. And I could go on a whole tirade about Christian culture, expectations for women, and a person's worth being determined predominantly by whether or not she has a ring on her finger and a bun in the oven (even if it's not stated outright, it's an attitude that is an undercurrent in almost every Christian environment I've ever encountered, which makes it REALLY FRUSTRATING to be a young Christian woman with screaming ovaries facing the extreme lack of what the church deems to be "suitable Christian men"...but I'm getting sidetracked) BUT EXCEPT FOR THAT PARENTHESES I WILL NOT. It hit me around junior year that Mr. Right was probably not going to marry me and reproduce with me within a year of graduation, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so I just finished the degree and started floundering.
Now that I've actually decided to start swimming, it is absolutely the most stressful thing I have ever done, and I adore it.
I'm not even kidding. I adore this kind of stress, though I'll grant that there are some things that make me wish I was back working at AMCG and having more free time and free brain space...like that I can't do NaNo this year, that my RP and WoW time are facing the kind of cutbacks that would make the recession cry, that the words "tuition" and "student loans" cause me to feel like my entire midsection is being consumed by ulcers. But honestly, it's kind of like packing for a great vacation or planning a wedding: I know that all of the stress I'm facing right now is going to have an awesome pay-off, and if I play my cards right, I'll be seeing that pay-off in August of 2011, almost exactly ten years after I started at ENC.
And yes. I have a degree plan. It is awesome...or at least it will be, if I can, you know, get the money to pay for it -__-"
I don't know why I thought it would be calm or easy or whatever. Possibly/probably because when I started doing my M.Ed. back in 2006, I was somehow able to do those classes just fine and not worry about them, but the difference is that the M.Ed. classes met on a Friday/Saturday schedule on alternating weeks, so I had extra time to get things done. What's more, the M.Ed. stuff was a LOT less labor-intensive. It was a lot more reading and doing things that could be done in one night, not projects that spanned the entire semester (of which I have three currently...I know, crai moar, welcome to grad school).
It's weird because I haven't felt this driven with regards to homework and schoolwork since Oxford, and that was also a whole different ballgame. In Oxford, I was working this hard just to stay afloat, since I'd basically been thrust into graduate-level philosophy studies with nothing but freshman year Philosophy 101 (which I slept through because it was at 8 a.m. ...of course, I still got an A, easily, which tells you a lot about where I did my undergrad work). This is entirely different. I know full well that I could probably scrape by with B's if I relaxed a little and didn't put in as much effort as I am, but I don't want B's. I want a 4.0 average. I want the school to rain down scholarships upon me (because, let's face it, I could use some scholarships). I want my future practicum/employer to look at me and say, "she's someone I want to keep, not just for the duration of her summer practicum, but until she's ready to leave."
For the first time since I was in high school, I feel like how I do academically will have an impact on the future that I want for myself, which is odd to admit. For the first couple of years of college, I was basically there for the Mrs. degree...I was studying something I enjoyed because I figured, stupidly, that I would meet and marry Mr. Right straight out of college and start popping out babies nine months after the wedding bells rang, and everything would be all fine and dandy.
Yes. This is a monumentally stupid mindset to have, and I still wish I could go back in time and shake myself for it. And I could go on a whole tirade about Christian culture, expectations for women, and a person's worth being determined predominantly by whether or not she has a ring on her finger and a bun in the oven (even if it's not stated outright, it's an attitude that is an undercurrent in almost every Christian environment I've ever encountered, which makes it REALLY FRUSTRATING to be a young Christian woman with screaming ovaries facing the extreme lack of what the church deems to be "suitable Christian men"...but I'm getting sidetracked) BUT EXCEPT FOR THAT PARENTHESES I WILL NOT. It hit me around junior year that Mr. Right was probably not going to marry me and reproduce with me within a year of graduation, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so I just finished the degree and started floundering.
Now that I've actually decided to start swimming, it is absolutely the most stressful thing I have ever done, and I adore it.
I'm not even kidding. I adore this kind of stress, though I'll grant that there are some things that make me wish I was back working at AMCG and having more free time and free brain space...like that I can't do NaNo this year, that my RP and WoW time are facing the kind of cutbacks that would make the recession cry, that the words "tuition" and "student loans" cause me to feel like my entire midsection is being consumed by ulcers. But honestly, it's kind of like packing for a great vacation or planning a wedding: I know that all of the stress I'm facing right now is going to have an awesome pay-off, and if I play my cards right, I'll be seeing that pay-off in August of 2011, almost exactly ten years after I started at ENC.
And yes. I have a degree plan. It is awesome...or at least it will be, if I can, you know, get the money to pay for it -__-"