Sunday, August 18, 2013

could have given up so easily, i was a few cheap shots away from the end of me

a couple of posts ago, i mentioned that when some things start to go well with school, other things go very, very wrong. and up until yesterday, that was very true. i had finally found an adviser slash someone to head my committee but then, after he and i (but mostly him) put together a nice list of potential classes to take for this upcoming semester, i was faced with a registration site that did little else but laugh at me for thinking that i could get into the classes that i wanted with so little time left before the start of the semester. the classes that i wanted were full with no waitlist option. the classes that i didn't really want but would take if i had to were full with a waitlist already forming. i wasn't sure if i would be getting my TA job this semester or not, and although I had received the news that i was chosen to be a mentor to international students, that job was contingent on my being a full-time student. the way things looked yesterday morning, i was starting to think that i would not be a student at all. and with me trying to spend as much time as possible with my sister and her family while they're in the states... well, i wasn't really have much luck in finding time to deal with any of this.

but last night i did. i sat down and found a couple of classes that i wanted to take and a couple of classes that i think may be helpful for my dissertation (you'd be surprised how little these overlap. i am way too interested in way too many things), and registered for all of them. i'm on the waitlist for a bunch, sure, but i do have three guaranteed classes for next semester even if i don't get into any that i am waitlisted for. three classes means full time student means mentorship is safe. then i was told that i would be continuing as a TA, but this time as a full-time one. (last semester i was part-time.) and after that i got the news that i could and probably should audit one of the classes that were on the list my adviser put together that there was no hope of getting in to.

so let's just take a look at how my student status has changed over the course of the summer. when the summer first started i was wandering around my degree with no adviser and no hope of finding one. i was basically just preparing myself and my family for the very real possibility that i would end my promising academic career by becoming a drop-out. then, an amazing man magically fell from the sky and i suddenly found myself with a head of committee and the prospect of finding the rest of a committee looked hopeful. but i had no classes and no job and no real hope of getting either. now, as the summer draws to an end, i have a head of committee and two probable committee members (they said yes before i just have to reconfirm their yeses now that my committee is a real thing) and a possible member that i will talk to next week or the week after and some plan bs. i also have four (give or take a student) mentees and a full-time TA job. also, some research projects that i have been asked to help on. i have three classes that i am taking and one class that i am auditing. basically, it looks like school things are going to take up a lot more of my time than they usually do.

and add to the school stuff pottery classes, editing my book (i had a dream where the whole thing was written in passive voice, and i know that's a nerdy dream, but i don't know if it's true and it's sort of freaking me out. changing an entire novel from passive to active will be very time intensive.), knitting the blanket, and spending time with family... i'm thinking that i might actually have to say goodbye to my days of laziness and nothingness. at least for a while. the couch potato introvert in me has been throwing a temper tantrum since all of this fell into place, screaming about how she hates me and how i'm ruining her life. i'm trying to ignore her as much as i can and think positively about the semester, you know hope and stuff. if you put good energy out in the world then good stuff comes back to you, or some other non-pessimistic thinking that i usually don't subscribe to. but i am hopeful.

*Looking Up - Paramore

4 comments:

  1. Wow!! Sounds like you're really busy!! I hope things go smoothly for you, and I'm glad that everything's coming together!

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    1. thank you so much! it feels a little overwhelming right now because it all happened at once, but hopefully it all turns out really well.

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  2. anonymous hippopotamusAugust 20, 2013 at 1:15 AM

    it's because you're awesome and good things happen to awesome people!! :D inshallah everything keeps looking up

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    1. haha thanks :). inshallah they do (and i stop feeling slightly panicky by what i took on).

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