Holding my breath before I dive in
I will admit that I was given fair warning that grad school is a lot of work. I was told that the classes were significantly more difficult than undergraduate classes. Of course, I thought, "That's nice, I'm used to 17 credits. 9? That's not a problem." For roughly half the number of credits, I'm getting twice the work. I spent about half an hour last night sorting out how on earth I'm going to assemble a syllabus for one of my classes. Once I broke everything down into sub tasks and looked at the schedule, it finally made sense. So, the warnings that I received about grad school were true. It is a lot of work. There are going to be moments where I will have to probably lock myself in my room or run off to haunt the fourth floor of the library. At the same time, it's all do-able.
I've also gone through the feelings of being inadequate or not at the level of my classmates. Quite a few are older than me, having taught for a number of years. Some are roughly my age, but are either teaching or subbing somewhere. I've come to realize that for what I've done so far academically, I've done well. If I had gone straight to teaching, I would be like them. I'm just doing things in a different order.
For the first time, I am working and taking classes at the same time. I've never, ever done that before. I'll have to see how it goes. One of my jobs is tutoring on campus. I did that last semester, so it's pretty much "next verse, same as the first." I just had to fill out some more forms and ID. My second job will be giving tours of South Campus. I will try to refrain from making use of my satirical documentary voice ("As we enter the dining hall, please keep your hands and all other appendages to yourselves at all times; the students have not been fed yet and might become hostile if approached").
That's my semester so far. If I can live through the next three, I'll be done with school...for the time being.