All posts in: grad school

14 Feb 2011

lifted

Last semester was such a mess, it’s not surprising that I’m feeling comparatively chipper lately.

But I’m still not sure why.

Still working 30 hours a week.

Still taking 2 classes.

Still sticking to the same routines.

Maybe it’s because I’m finally feeling social and mobile, dancing around Boston, visiting friends, spending too much money, staying out late and being thoroughly 25 (or 21?).

Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so peppy?

Or maybe it’s because my boyfriend is growing a beard.

Mmmm…. yeah. Gotta be the beard.

grad school

06 Feb 2011

let’s remember how to write a paper

Dear Grad Student,

You have two choices.

First choice:

Sit on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, letting the Internet fill up your head because as soon as there is a half-second of room inside, you remember how much you suck, how much you hate school, how much you would rather throw yourself from a bridge than do your work, engage in critical thinking, because you know what? Even if you try really hard, try your best, you will still be miserable-ish and get less-than-perfect grades.

Or.

You can get up, get out of the house, get a strong cup of coffee in your needy little hand, get loud music on your headphones, and do the work. Make the hard decisions, do the hard studying, analyzing, and most importantly, do the hard writing.

It’s going to get done either way.

It’s going to suck either way.

The best you can do is put yourself in the position to get in the groove, and hope the groove will follow your intention.

Sincerely yours,

Past Jessica Who Forgets Things Quickly And Needs Periodic Reminders

books

20 Jan 2011

get used to it

Four days, four books.

Ah, such is life such is life.

Semester starts in three… two… one…

grad school

17 Jan 2011

three is a magic number

1. I walked into a strange university library today, looking to exercise my borrowing rights as a part of a library consortium and obtain two YA books I need to read for class. The following conversation transpired.

Me: “I’m looking for a few children’s books. I checked the catalog from home and it said they are in, but I don’t have the call numbers or know where the children’s books are.”

Snarky Librarian Who Has No Idea Who He’s Talking To: “Well, call numbers are very important for finding books.”

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–

2. I am learning to knit!

I do not know what I am knitting It’s too wide to be a washcloth, and I don’t even know how much yarn I have left. Also, when I do run out of yarn, I think I might have to run to my new local yarn store and ask a knowledgeable employee to tell me how to… oh… stop knitting and do whatever it is you do to cast off or something.

–

3. The Grind is slowly returning. Working 29 hours this week and classes resume in 7 short days. I have a little over a bottle of wine in my fridge, and when it’s gone, I think I’ll have to stop buying/drinking so much alcohol and return to the sober world of early bedtimes and earlier alarm clocks.

Le.

Sigh.

boston

01 Jan 2011

2010 Retrospective

In January, I spent two weeks in Michigan, a weekend darting in and out of ALA Midwinter, and started my second semester of grad school with a great deal of vigor and energy. Or at least I think I had a great deal of vigor and energy. If I didn’t, I certainly should have.

In February, I wrote 50 two-page papers about 50 picturebooks.

That was about it.

I also stopped eating meat for the foreseeable future. That required considerably less energy than the first task.

In March, I became a Theater-Girlfriend, and spent a lot of nights and spring breaks alone with my kitty while Lance prepared for his directorial debut: an all 4th and 5th grade version of Seussical Jr. We entertained Lance’s mother during a massive Nor’easter – sightseeing = umbrellas, restaurants, and woohoo, a The Giant Whole Foods in Dedham! I also bit the bullet and replaced my cell phone. Woohoo, texting!

In April, things started getting more fun. I visited David Macaulay’s studio in Vermont, which was equal part childrens-lit-nerdgasm and funky-crazy-roadtrip. And then… AND THEN!! MY FAMILY CAME TO VISIT ME IN BOSTON!! Later, I celebrated 7 years of blogging, got hired for my second job, survived a week in Boston without Lance, and memorized all 151 first-generation Pokemon.

It’s like I KNEW I was boring for the first 3 months of 2010.

May began with signing the lease on a new apartment for September and conquering yet another harrowing finals week. Earlier in the year, I thought finals would bring me unemployment and a brief respite from schoolwork. However, my boss scrounged up some summer work to occupy my time, I landed a swank publishing internship for the summer, and then class! Glorious, class!

The weather also became quite nice – I started running after work with Lance, and walking to and from most places.

June was just a mess of early morning Starbucks trips, 9 to 5’s, and CSA vegetables. Literally.

So in July, we hit the road. Boston to DC. ALA Annual Conference. DC to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach to DC. Pick up passengers. DC to Boston. When I returned, there was some entertaining (Whale watching and fireworks and heat wave OH MY!), and then back to the internship/part-time job grindstone.

Lance began his first teacher’s summer vacation, and quickly took up a part-time job scouring Craigslist for free and cheap goods. When he brought home a window air conditioning unit, I cried tears of joy.

In August, there was work, packing, a weekend in Maine. A trip back to Michigan, packing, and an extended “I’m moving to Boston and I’m crashing on your couch until I find a place” houseguest.

In September, we moved.

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I am so going to have to move again in September 2011 and it makes me sick to just think about.

Anyone I know want to move into my roommate’s bedroom so we don’t have to move?

Seriously.

In October, I went out on Halloween, under duress and in costume.

November was pretty crappy.

I tried to write a novel.

I tried to not have any nervous breakdowns.

I didn’t try hard enough.

Whatevvverrr…

I did get to go to two Thanksgivings, visit my aunt and uncle and cousins, ran three times a week (before daylight savings hit…) and I’m sure some other redeeming stuff that I’ve forgotten.

And now, December has ended. This month, I wrote two 10 page papers, read 17 books, and made it home for Christmas.

Hello, 2011.

How are you?

Are you going suck a little less than 2010?

grad school

14 Dec 2010

wrapping it up

I’m not really sure what happened this semester.

Things are finally slowing down. I have done all the substantial writing and researching that needs to be done for the semester, and I even have a grade: a B+! My first B of grad school. How precious.

I still have a little catch-up work to do, but it’s manageable. About 3 reasonable days worth of work to do over the course of a week, I’d say. Nothing to panic over. And then I’m DONE done DONE with school work until the 24th of January.

But the last month or so has been rough rough ROUGH and I really can’t figure out what happened.

Option #1: This Semester Was A Failed Experiment

For whatever reason, I am capable of keeping it together while taking 3 courses and working 20 hours a week, but I am not capable of keeping it together while taking 2 courses and working 30 hours a week.

Maybe there’s just something about being out of the house those extra 7 hours of the week that throws my routine out of whack.

I know my body has been hurting: I’ve become a slave to the IcyHot patch this semester. After awkwardly helping me apply one in the restroom at CVS before hopping back in the car for a few hours, Lance asked, innocently, if there was something OTHER than an IcyHot patch that fixed my shoulder (and, therefore, my migraines) more permanently. I laughed at him, just because of the way he phrased his sentence. No, there wasn’t anything that I was aware of, otherwise, my shoulder would be permanently fixed, right?

He got a little indignant. Rightfully so. So I clarified. The only thing that really helps when I’m stuck in a cycle of pain is having some time off, a few days where I can sleep in past 7 a.m. and remain reclined for the majority of the day.

This semester, I was rarely granted two consecutive days off… and then there were the ever popular Twelve Hour Thursdays!

Anyway, so if my schedule is keeping me in a fairly consistently headached state, and those headaches are keeping me from functioning at my peak, then maybe my schedule is ultimately responsible for making me craz

But, I don’t really buy that. I’m young. I’m adaptable. 7 more hours out of the house every week is NOT that much, really.

So, there’s Option #2: This Semester Got Off To A Bad Start And Snowballed Downhill From There

I wrote about how much simultaneously starting the semester and moving into a new apartment threw me for a loop. I’m not going to blame the move in theory – especially because it’s likely that we will have to move again next year – but there was something about that perfect storm of stress, heat, and work that I never quite recovered from.

Things that I threw from cardboard box to shelf on September 3 are still laying where they fell. I unpacked our last taped box two weeks ago, but there’s still an opened box full of miscellaneous crap that needs attending to. It sits on the floor of my bedroom, taunting me.

Like I mentioned before, I’m not sure I’ve had two consecutive days off this semester, and especially not two consecutive days off without homework. Maybe I just never had the mental space to clear house after the summer ended. And it’s not like my summer was a walk in the park either… but let’s not trace my neurosis back that far if we can avoid it.

Anyway, this isn’t a bad theory, really. There’s hope for next semester – my winter break is overwhelming me with it’s Expanse of Nothing-ful Days, and even if I have to move next semester, we can learn from our mistakes and ask for a few days off work to recover from the chaos properly.

But then, when I REALLY look at what I accomplished this semester, I start to feel a little weird.

Option #3: This Semester Was A Bit Busy, But It All Turned Out Better Than Average

I did have quite a few successes this semester that I never bothered to appreciate or chronicle properly.

Academically, things weren’t the best, but they weren’t so bad.

A B+ is still a fine grade. If I get a B+ in my second class, that will be a fine grade, too.
I completed most of the reading for most of my classes.
I turned in all of my assignments on time.
I had 100% attendance.

Job-wise, I held it up.

I remembered to be in the places I needed to be at the times I needed to be in them.
I was able to answer a majority of my Reference questions promptly and accurately.
I completed a number of tasks at both jobs.

I was social-enough, by my standards.

I attended two school-friends parties.
I frequented a handful of bars.
I chatted with my friends and family via phone with regularity.
I went to two Christmas parties.

Personally, things felt bad, but objectively, they looked okay.

I ran 3 times a week between October 1 and Thanksgiving.
I spent quite a bit of time petting and cuddling my newly-affectionate kitty.
Our budget turned out okay, even though Lance had a smaller paycheck this school year.
I cooked a lot of yummy, healthy meals and only had to eat lunch at the salad bar a few times.
I read a few books for fun, listened to some good music, and kept up with a few decent television shows.
Most of the time, I got 8 hours of sleep.

So maybe things were fine. But they didn’t FEEL fine.

Option #4: There Is Something Wrong With You Because You Felt Miserable This Semester

I don’t like that option either.

But I’m assuming they are all true.

And I’m hoping that with

1) Organization and Strategy

2) Some Time Off

3) Limiting the Busy-ness and Focusing on Being Freaking Positive Already

and

4) Pretending I’m Somewhat of a Mental Patient Who Needs All The Help She Can Get,

that nobody will have to scrape me up from the floor of

Spring Semester.

grad school

10 Dec 2010

NaNoWriMo Diaries – Day 40

Date: December 10, 2010

Day: 40

Goal Word Count: 50,000 (and then some)

Current Word Count: 25,016

Progress Report:

NaNoWriMo, you have bested me yet again.

Last time I checked in, I was crawling out of the cave of paper-writing – I was behind on my wordcount, fatigued, and oh guess what: there were MORE papers waiting for me!

Sometime during that week, I decided that spending a few hours a day with a novel that sucked pretty bad was just taking my time away from doing other more important things, like homework, like reading, like regaining my sanity.

So I gave it up.

And I’m totally cool with that.

Thinking:

I’m thinking that even though I have given up, again, I will still champion you, NaNoWriMo. You have a lot of detractors out there, but screw ’em all. I still remember the first time – the adrenaline, the words flying off my fingers, the stories unrolling at my finger tips, and I think that can happen again for me. And yes, I could decide that next month is the month for me, but there’s also something great about being part of a novel-writing team, about updating your little wordcount thingamawhatsies and seeing, quantitatively, where you’ve been and where you need to be.

That magic can happen. It will happen again, for me, and it will happen in November.

I just couldn’t see it out this time.

I gave up on you this time, but I won’t give up on you forever.

Feeling: Satisfied

Moody Author Photo:

Until we meet again…

grad school

05 Dec 2010

i am thinking about what is worth thinking about

Things are quieting down, just like I’d hoped they would. I shouldn’t have to get up at 6:00 a.m. any more to pay Starbucks $4.15 for the honor of studying at her tables before work. I shouldn’t have to stay up past my bedtime. I shouldn’t have to skip showers or meals. I don’t think so, anyway.

This week feels like such a different life than last week, just because I have the divine luxury of DOING ONE ASSIGNMENT AT A TIME, and the right to READ WHATEVER I DAMN WELL PLEASE, WRITTEN DURING WHATEVER CENTURY I PREFER.

Heaven help me when, in sixteen short days,

I have seventy-two hours of NOTHING TO DO.

…

what does that feel like again?

I’m enjoying this One Paper At A Time lifestyle enough as it is.

Family, I might not make it home for Christmas because it’s possible that on December 22nd, I will go into a coma.

And until then,

I’ll be laying low,

dreaming coma dreams.

grad school

21 Nov 2010

which begs the question

My life is more like a roller-coaster ride than a life, and I spend a lot of time trying to decide if I like it like this or if it is killing me.

I could go off on a string of roller-coaster-related analogies – climbing the tracks in anticipation, exhilarating terror at the fall off, the fact that I am about as lapsed religious as they come but whenever I’m standing in line at Cedar Point, I always say a little prayer for myself and for my sister, Betsy, who actually hasn’t been on a roller coaster with me in years, and my GOD what does THAT mean?

But I won’t. There are too many to choose from. You get the idea.

I don’t really remember the last time I had a day off without homework or certain-responsibility looming over my head, but I think that day was probably in August, and I was probably at my parents’ house. Although, visiting home comes with a startling long list of responsibilities of its own: people to see, teeth to be cleaned, hair to be cut. We spent a little over a week in the great state of Michigan, and I saw 2 friends and their families, spent 2 days in Lapeer, had 2 appointments, junked my car, got my cat spayed, went to a cross-country meet, and spent 2 days in Mansfield, Ohio.

Yes, one of those days was my last day off.

My life reached fervor pitch last June, when I found myself working 20 hours a week, taking a rigorous course taught my two of the smartest women who teach at my school, and hauling out to Somerville two days a week to a swanky internship.

And I survived, I really did. I picked up a lot of great survivalist habits, like camping out at Starbucks at 6 a.m. with my homework before launching into a 9-hour work/school day. And I learned lots of handy migraine fighting techniques along the way.

But somehow the overextended sprint turned into an overextended marathon. With two major assignments due last week, I found myself really questioning my ability to keep this up. What little time I wasn’t doing homework or reading or trying to write a g.d. novel, I was most likely weeping. All of the justifications I made for my choices started to dissolve. I had clearly packed my schedule to the brim not so I could be successful, but so I could be miserable. Maybe it was time to say “no.”

I thought about this all last week while I recovered from the previous week’s academic horror. I brainstormed ways that I could do more than survive next semester: I wanted to survive and also spend a little time not feeling like I would rather fall off the face of the earth than wake up in the morning.

And then, on Friday night, the roller coaster throws me another g.d. loop. Of course.

So I return to where I was last May, quietly contemplating the decision before me. That first internship, the one that hastily rejected me, has come a-calling.

And for those of you who question my capacity for idealism, I give you this: I still want to get in line for the stupid roller coaster. I’m saying a prayer for Betsy. I’m imagining that, somehow, with ingenuity and a schedule so carefully stacked it might crumble with a slight shift in the wind, I think I can do it and I think I can be happy doing it.

Which begs the question…

Weekly?

Daily?

It’s probably a bad sign if I want both, right?

grad school

16 Nov 2010

NaNoWriMo Diaries: Day 16

Date: November 16, 2010

Day: 16

Goal Word Count: 26,667

Current Word Count: 19,650

Progress Report:

Holy crap. I am behind. So during my last report, things were already flagging. This past week, I kept coming up short – 300, 600 words short – and the next day always felt worse. I was happy to be at least LESS behind than I was the day before, but never quite caught up.

Then, I had that paper due Friday that needed major rethinking/reworking.

Then, I had an 8 page paper to write for my literature class.

I had a limited amount of time and an unlimited amount of stress, and I made the executive decision to abandon novel writing until today, 11/16/2010. And I’m also trying to toss back 150 pages of Louisa May Alcott and a critical article before 3:30 today… so yeah.

Thinking:

Turning in my paper yesterday afternoon felt like crawling out of a cave. I don’t even want to get into the details of how I wrote this paper, but let’s just say it was a brief, excruciating process that involved installing LeechBlock onto my browser. At any rate, I hit the “send email” button and immediately suited up for a run. The sky was completely gray, I was the only one running, I was really sweaty even though it was kind of cold, and I couldn’t tell if my stomach was empty or full and I generally felt weird. I felt like crap. The feeling continued on into the night, like I didn’t want to even deal with all the shit in my life I’d been putting off in order to complete my schoolwork.

This morning felt better, but I’m still a little hazy. So I’m thinking about two things:

1) Daily habits are really important, even if they don’t seem particularly effective. If you wake up and sit down with your writing every day, first thing in the morning, then your mind is moving in the right direction, even if the words come slowly or you feel crappy or your mind just goes numb – at least you are going through the motions. My mind ~~should~~ must be ready to start writing today, now that I am out of the cave, but because I let go of “the motions,” it’s like my body and my habits have to readjust. It’s exactly like trying to exercise again after taking a few weeks off – you had good reasons for skipping the gym, and you were okay with your choice, but as soon as you start up again, it’s like your body and lungs didn’t get the memo that it was “okay” to take a break. They still hurt and it’s still harder than it would have been if you’d kept up the motions.

2) Going into a cave is not something I knew I could do, really. I’m a consummate multi-tasker. I juggle a lot of baskets, and not just since grad school. I’ve always been a basket juggler. And I thought that it made me happy, in a Renaissance Woman kind of way, but there was something elementally satisfying about turning off the world to write that stupid paper. I shut off other priorities, one by one. Class reading? Gone. NaNo? Sorry. Cooking? Take out. Laundry? I can pick through piles of clothes for a week. Socializing? No. No. No.

And I got it done. I’m not going to make any guesses about my grade, but the work did get done.

This seems like a useful skill to develop. It’s kind of fun juggling baskets, but I worry that it’s not great if you want to get SIGNIFICANTLY better at something. And I would like to get significantly better at writing fiction.

Feeling: Out of sorts

Moody Author Photo: