The Thick of the Moment
I officially feel like a graduate student. I can’t seem to really get ahead, but I feel like I’m treading water quite well in the program. I’ve already had my first test and round of papers and I have another coming up this week. I’ve also apparently not blogged in forever. i’m going to have to fix that. I think I’m too reliant upon twitter to relay my daily goings-on. It does a pretty good job of that, but really, I think I should write more complex things about my life.
Thursday I have my second test in the class with the hardest professor. Or at least, the tests are hard. She’s probably one of my favorite professors because she’s so interesting and I learn a whole lot but her tests are more stress than they’re worth, I think. I got a solid B on the last one and that’s a good start to the semester so I hope I do better on this one to continue that trend. I also have a paper due next Sunday night in a different class which will probably be labor intensive but not that difficult.
Meanwhile, I have a huge group project in every class and trying to stay ahead of that is sort of difficult. I think since we all have the same classes we’re pretty aware of how we need to stay on top of this so that the end of the semester isn’t hell. Also, I think all of the projects are pretty manageable, time just goes by so quickly it seems.
I’ve been handling homesickness pretty well. It helps that I’ll be home a week from Monday for a conference and get to spend a night or two with my family. And it helps that I have Kyle here and things. It was really, really bad between when I took that test and when I got the grade back mostly because Maco had to be put down back home which made me really, really sad. He was one of my favorite dogs that my parents fostered and while I knew he was really overweight and therefore in poor health, it didn’t really occur to me that the last time I said goodbye to him would actually be the last time. It made me think about how being here means missing out on a lot of moments with my family (and the dogs) and that made me question my decision to come here in the first place.
For that reason, I’m not quite sure what my ideal scenario is for post-grad school. Ugh. Hopefully in the nearish future I’ll get all of that figured out but at this point I don’t really know that I want to move somewhere to do law school or a phd right away. If things work out though in a really clear direction that would be great. I just miss my family a lot… and my friends too but I know that by the time I’m considering returning to Topeka/Kansas City they’ll mostly be spread all over the country again for a while and who knows where they’ll end up living.
I feel like I have a good group of friends here though and that’s making things a lot easier. I like a lot of the museum science students and I’m glad that we’ve finally gotten to know each other well enough to let our guards down and show our real personalities. I also have some friends through Kyle or through whoever that I like. It’s nice to finally feel like I have an assortment of people to call when Kyle is out of town or to make plans. and hopefully the more time I spend here the closer we’ll all get.
Alright. We’re attending a potluck dinner party tonight and I have to start rolling sushi so that we can go. And then it’s back to studying and hopefully finishing all of the thank yous this weekend. Man, having a wedding before grad school is absolutely ideal until you have like 200 cards to write as class really gets going. I’d recommend against that part. But marriage is awesome! So I can’t really complain.