Yes, I'm still alive!!
I realized tonight that it's been nearly forever since I last posted in here. I feel like my life kind of swallowed me whole over the past year or so.
So... what's new? Hmmm.. well, where should I start?
I figure I should start from my last entry, but I don't even remember when that was. I'm STILL trudging through graduate school (part time is so long when you're only taking 2 classes max per semester!) - but there is light at the end of the tunnel... I'm scheduled to graduate with my masters degree in music therapy this coming December. I'll be working on my final project all through the summer, and into the fall (it's due in Dec, and it's an extensive research paper regarding music therapy methods, treatments, and full-length sessions in clinical practice within my current population of work). I've actually started summarizing the articles already, and written out an outline for the paper (look at me doing work ahead of time, for a change - whoopee!).
Actually, that brings me to my first example of life eating me whole. The reason that I have articles summarized already and a map of the paper is because my advisor told me only 3 weeks ago from today to do this... for ALL of the articles that I had collected so far... roughly... 25, I want to say? Now, I don't know about you, but when you're working full time, trying to run a side business to supplement income, continuing to grow and maintain a relationship, engaging in at least one weekly extra-curricular activity, and taking OTHER classes (lessons, and one other class)... then I think you'd find that reading, highlighting, summarizing, and mapping out 25 articles in exactly 3 WEEKS is simply not realistic.
So needless to say, I devoted as much of my life as I could stand to this article crap for the past 3 weeks, and, being a good little grad student, I felt the need to skip my birthday this year (for those of you who didn't know, it was this past Monday, April 30th). I didn't plan on doing this - I actually had planned to go out to my new favorite restaurant, Ruby Tuesdays (and I have a gift card, too!). But I was still frantically trying to read, summarize, and organize articles all through the day, since this was due today (this morning actually), and, about mid-way through the afternoon, when we had planned to go out, I was feeling like I was "on a roll" with the articles, finally starting to feel motivated, and had thought to myself, "well... there will be other days to go to Ruby Tuesdays, but there is only one deadline for this assignment, and that's NOW!".
I thought I was okay with that decision.
Apparently I wasn't. Just a couple short hours later, when I truly felt the impact of my decision and realized that there simply weren't any more hours in the day available for me to go out should I change my mind... my mind naturally decided to change, and I immensely regretted my decision to be a good student, this time thinking to myself, "I only get to turn 28 ONCE in my entire life, and I've just lost my opportunity to celebrate my 28th birthday forever, and I will NEVER get it back - and in the extra 2 hours that I could have spent out celebrating I only managed to get through ONE more article than I would have gotten through".
Yes, go ahead and call me overdramatic.
But as women tend to do sometimes, I became quite emotional. I know it sounds strange and completely irrational, but I felt like a part of me had died, and I was mourning for a lost piece of myself that I would never be able to recover EVER again, no matter how hard I might try, because nobody can go back in time. I had had such high hopes for this particular birthday - don't ask me why, but for some reason I felt a little drawn to the number 28 (it's even, and apparently I like even numbers?), so I had felt that this would be a great year for me. But I honestly don't remember ever feeling so distraught and upset on any other birthday that I've ever had in my whole life, more than this one. This of course only added to my frustration and and gave me more to cry about.
Finally, the next day, I was still feeling down, and I came to a place where I felt that I simply didn't care anymore. It was just another day, it had gone by, and there will be other birthdays. The next day I had one of the most productive days at work that I've ever had since I started my new job in February (I'll save that for another post, as this one is already starting to get long-winded), and early this morning I completed my assignment (I never did get through ALL of my articles, but I got through a large enough chunk of them that I was able to come up with a decent road map to satisfy my advisor).
And today I feel that I've been productive, and have had a stronger work ethic over the past 2 days. So does this mean that it was a good thing that I skipped my birthday this year? Am I a better worker now because a I made a decision to sacrifice my own needs for the need of work?
I feel different now in some way, but I can't describe exactly how, or if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I feel kind of sore, as though I've been hurt and have lost something, but I feel somewhat hardened and more disciplined as a result of it.
I also feel guilt for being both selfish throughout the past few months with my needs (which, up until now, I had focused on regularly), and for being "stand-offish" to others from my fear of not opening my mouth to speak and mingle with others (but then again, we know I've always been the "quiet one", haven't I?)
So, that sums everything up that's in my brain for this week. There is more of course... but I don't want you to be reading a book here when I'm sure that you too, have a million other things you could be doing with your time (Lord knows we all have enough chores and housework to keep us busy, along with our families, our jobs, and other obligations!).
So I'm done for now. Just felt like taking some time for myself to write what I was feeling and thinking about, because I haven't done that in such a long time. Goodnight!
So... what's new? Hmmm.. well, where should I start?
I figure I should start from my last entry, but I don't even remember when that was. I'm STILL trudging through graduate school (part time is so long when you're only taking 2 classes max per semester!) - but there is light at the end of the tunnel... I'm scheduled to graduate with my masters degree in music therapy this coming December. I'll be working on my final project all through the summer, and into the fall (it's due in Dec, and it's an extensive research paper regarding music therapy methods, treatments, and full-length sessions in clinical practice within my current population of work). I've actually started summarizing the articles already, and written out an outline for the paper (look at me doing work ahead of time, for a change - whoopee!).
Actually, that brings me to my first example of life eating me whole. The reason that I have articles summarized already and a map of the paper is because my advisor told me only 3 weeks ago from today to do this... for ALL of the articles that I had collected so far... roughly... 25, I want to say? Now, I don't know about you, but when you're working full time, trying to run a side business to supplement income, continuing to grow and maintain a relationship, engaging in at least one weekly extra-curricular activity, and taking OTHER classes (lessons, and one other class)... then I think you'd find that reading, highlighting, summarizing, and mapping out 25 articles in exactly 3 WEEKS is simply not realistic.
So needless to say, I devoted as much of my life as I could stand to this article crap for the past 3 weeks, and, being a good little grad student, I felt the need to skip my birthday this year (for those of you who didn't know, it was this past Monday, April 30th). I didn't plan on doing this - I actually had planned to go out to my new favorite restaurant, Ruby Tuesdays (and I have a gift card, too!). But I was still frantically trying to read, summarize, and organize articles all through the day, since this was due today (this morning actually), and, about mid-way through the afternoon, when we had planned to go out, I was feeling like I was "on a roll" with the articles, finally starting to feel motivated, and had thought to myself, "well... there will be other days to go to Ruby Tuesdays, but there is only one deadline for this assignment, and that's NOW!".
I thought I was okay with that decision.
Apparently I wasn't. Just a couple short hours later, when I truly felt the impact of my decision and realized that there simply weren't any more hours in the day available for me to go out should I change my mind... my mind naturally decided to change, and I immensely regretted my decision to be a good student, this time thinking to myself, "I only get to turn 28 ONCE in my entire life, and I've just lost my opportunity to celebrate my 28th birthday forever, and I will NEVER get it back - and in the extra 2 hours that I could have spent out celebrating I only managed to get through ONE more article than I would have gotten through".
Yes, go ahead and call me overdramatic.
But as women tend to do sometimes, I became quite emotional. I know it sounds strange and completely irrational, but I felt like a part of me had died, and I was mourning for a lost piece of myself that I would never be able to recover EVER again, no matter how hard I might try, because nobody can go back in time. I had had such high hopes for this particular birthday - don't ask me why, but for some reason I felt a little drawn to the number 28 (it's even, and apparently I like even numbers?), so I had felt that this would be a great year for me. But I honestly don't remember ever feeling so distraught and upset on any other birthday that I've ever had in my whole life, more than this one. This of course only added to my frustration and and gave me more to cry about.
Finally, the next day, I was still feeling down, and I came to a place where I felt that I simply didn't care anymore. It was just another day, it had gone by, and there will be other birthdays. The next day I had one of the most productive days at work that I've ever had since I started my new job in February (I'll save that for another post, as this one is already starting to get long-winded), and early this morning I completed my assignment (I never did get through ALL of my articles, but I got through a large enough chunk of them that I was able to come up with a decent road map to satisfy my advisor).
And today I feel that I've been productive, and have had a stronger work ethic over the past 2 days. So does this mean that it was a good thing that I skipped my birthday this year? Am I a better worker now because a I made a decision to sacrifice my own needs for the need of work?
I feel different now in some way, but I can't describe exactly how, or if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I feel kind of sore, as though I've been hurt and have lost something, but I feel somewhat hardened and more disciplined as a result of it.
I also feel guilt for being both selfish throughout the past few months with my needs (which, up until now, I had focused on regularly), and for being "stand-offish" to others from my fear of not opening my mouth to speak and mingle with others (but then again, we know I've always been the "quiet one", haven't I?)
So, that sums everything up that's in my brain for this week. There is more of course... but I don't want you to be reading a book here when I'm sure that you too, have a million other things you could be doing with your time (Lord knows we all have enough chores and housework to keep us busy, along with our families, our jobs, and other obligations!).
So I'm done for now. Just felt like taking some time for myself to write what I was feeling and thinking about, because I haven't done that in such a long time. Goodnight!