I start graduate school tomorrow. Whenever I say that to someone they smile and get excited for me. It must be unnerving when I respond with a less than enthusiastic facial expression, that or I've gotten good at faking it.
Lots of things are happening because of this momentous occasion. It means that now I'm locked in to school for the next three years. It may be like school I know, or it could be completely different or a hybrid of old and new experiences. It's not that I don't like change, it's just that I was becoming pretty comfortable ya know...having a social life, having time to pursue my artistic pursuits, having the house clean most of the time. School basically means that my regular life stops and school life begins, and while the information (I have even found the textbook to be a great read!) is something I can totally geek out on, I'm just not really fucking looking forward to being a student again. This makes me feel like a jerk since I know people that are desparate to be in the situation I'm in, back in school, already accepted. I mean the grad school application process is torturous. It's like selling yourself to a masked man unsure of what that might mean for your future. Let's be real though, without graduate school and going into even more debt (BA, House, Graduate School, Wedding, Kids, who's not in debt these days?) there just isn't any possible way to make decent money, and even talking to people with PhDs, lemme tell ya, there just is no guarantee on that American Dream anymore, no amount of hardwork and education means you'll survive this recession shitstorm.
It's been hard enough balancing writing, photography, cleaning, wedding planning (I got engaged in June), golf, band practice with two jobs, somewhat of a social life, volunteering and hey maybe my fiance might wanna see me sometime. Did I mention the three bulldogs I love? Now I'm adding in school, and I imagine this won't be the 'show up randomly, the tests will be easy if I read the book' school I managed to skate through to earn my BA. Now that doesn't mean I didn't work my assets off to get my BA, but it was easy for me. The classes that were hard I put more effort into, but the easier classes I could kinda skip to focus my energy on the harder ones (this only bit me in the ass once).
It's been a year and half since I got done with undergrad. It was a ten year ordeal I tell ya to finish. I dropped out a ton of times because I just couldn't afford not to work. Finally after a wall of dog food almost crushed me and a friend of mine I quit my job at Petco and begged my then girlfriend (now fiance) to let me go to school full time and just get the goddamn thing done, to my surprise and great gratitude she agreed. So in just over a year I powered through 12-16 units a quarter and worked harder than I've ever worked. I got done, and didn't get into grad school and didn't find work for three months. Man I wish that version of myself would show up and kick me in the balls so I could appreciate tomorrow more. lol...
So during those three months of no work I finished a novel that had been rattling in my brains for years. So you see the real issue here right? Tomorrow means I didn't get published, and I ran out of time to self publish and get started on that publishing company. I mean this is really mostly my own fault. I should have just done it, but I got scared and tried to involve equally crazy busy other people to my plan and then I couldn't spearhead it anymore, so it fell through.
Tomorrow doesn't mean I can't complete my plans, it just means I didn't get them done before undertaking this new endeavor, and I'm disappointed in myself. It also means some things are going to have to go from my life. I will have to start putting social events into the lotto machine to see which one I can attend while reading 100+ pages a week and writing papers. I hope friends understand that my appearances will be random now. I hope that relationships I've worked really hard to attain and maintain (thank god for facebook really) will still be there in three years when I'm done and can finally (if the gods allow it) have a full time decent paying (I've never made anything over 15k a year so ya know my expectations are way low) full time job with benefits towards my licensure.
My wise mind says that I may lose some friends and then gain new ones, but I really don't want new friends, or at least my emotion mind says that.
I have so much to be thankful for. So I feel like an ass for even being depressed or feeling stressed out about this. But ya know I figured blogging about it was better than just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.
I'm looking forward to meeting new people, learning new things and applying the things I've learned in my previous schooling/work/volunteer ventures. I'm also lucky enough to have a friend from my undergrad in my classes with me, which knowing someone on the first day totally makes life a lot easier. So it appears I've just therapied myself, I feel a ton better.
