I am now in the format check stages and am ready to print the copies [...]]]> Ok, so perhaps some of you have noticed the MA Thesis progress bar has advanced to 100%. That effect is due to the fact that on April 8 (only 3 weeks ago!) I defended and passed. Suddenly I are an authority.

I am now in the format check stages and am ready to print the copies on bond paper. This means that I have to pull more money out of my butt. I am still not sure where the school thinks I get all this money to spend on crap like caps and gowns and 20 lb. bond paper. I also don’t understand why the school makes walking in the ceremony mandatory. I could refuse to participate, but it is actually more difficult to do that than to just go ahead and participate. Can’t I just quietly bask in my own sense of achievement instead of spending 2 1/2 hours in a smelly auditorium watching people I don’t know yammer and prance about? My family wants to come and sit through all of that just to watch me walk (and probably trip) across the stage for 5 seconds.

I only have about 2 1/2 more weeks until graduation. I am sort of wigging out because I’m one of those people who is never really prepared for these events. Also, about two weeks after I graduate, we’re moving to Austin. I am so not prepared for that, either, even though I am excited about it. I really don’t adjust well to life change. Well, actually, maybe I do, but my last major life change (relocation) involved trauma and a great deal of loss. In fact, we’re discovering lately that we may not be fully recovered from that event. I know that many people look at my life and wonder why I am “still going on” about Katrina, but the fact is, a week doesn’t go by when I am not almost physically sick over the event itself and of course, selfishly, its effects on my life. I mourn my pre-Katrina life often, even though in many ways my life is better now than it was then. Insipid, spineless, and self-pitying, I know.

My psych M.D. actually told me that between graduate school stress and leftover Katrina stress, I actually have “post-post traumatic stress disorder.” He actually said that. I doubt it’s a medical term. At the time, I kept thinking that if we didn’t live in a “post-post modern world” I wouldn’t have “post-post traumatic stress disorder.” In any case, I feel like I’m on so many mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and  tranquilizers that I should be pooping rainbows.  Weird thing is, I’m not. I take tons of crap at night that is supposed to make me drowsy, but I wake up in the middle of the night anyway. Just thinking about it gives me the urge to try and escape, but as I learned last year, I can’t escape myself. Sad, really.

I should feel accomplished and happy now, but I am traitorously feeling anxious instead. I am worried about all sorts of ridiculous things:

I worry that my friends and relations are really tired of me being anxious. I am worried that I won’t able to keep my anxiety, depression, and bizarre desire to flee under control enough to function productively over the next year before entering the PhD program. I’m also stupidly worried that I’m going to have gone through all the trouble and money to get a PhD and then not be able to function productively as a university professor. I’ll be 50 grand in debt and not be able to work… Might as well get “SAD PILE OF LOSER” tattooed on my forehead if that happens. I worry about how ridiculous my worries are. James is always admonishing me to stop worrying and let him take care of things, but he doesn’t seem to understand that he can’t take care of the decisions I am unable to make and my subjective life experiences.

I am really trying to take positive steps and think about these issues constructively. Having to battle my own internal “fight or flight” instincts is really cramping my style. I can only hope that once we get relocated I can just get active enough to channel this crap into positive energy. Or relax more so I don’t explode.

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I will also be [...]]]> So here’s my status as an MA degree candidate. My Master’s Thesis proposal was approved last week. I have two quarters to write it, with three thesis hours per quarter devoted to research and writing. Those are two of the four courses I need to complete my course requirements.

I will also be teaching English 101 this quarter. I am terrified, but I suppose it’s like meeting a big dog: I will show no fear. My main issue is trying to break down into lessons something I have done almost unconsciously for the past 10 years, perhaps longer.  I can write a simple essay very easily, as long as I have a topic. (My problem has always been coming up with a topic and an argument I’m happy with.) Now I have to decide what exactly students need to learn in bits in order to successfully combine the knowledge and be capable of writing a Freshman level essay.

I’m probably doomed.

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The other day I had prepared this clever post on the nature of test anxiety and whether anxiety is actually “necessary” for success. I discussed how I always get very anxious about my exams but usually get A’s on them anyway, resulting [...]]]> Or should that be “Anxiety, M.A.”? (clever, aren’t I? tee hee. tee. hee.)

The other day I had prepared this clever post on the nature of test anxiety and whether anxiety is actually “necessary” for success. I discussed how I always get very anxious about my exams but usually get A’s on them anyway, resulting in ridicule by dear hubby. I wondered if I would do as well on the exams if I weren’t always anxious about them.  I have to admit that sometimes I’m anxious in spite of being well-prepared for the exam, but more often I am anxious because I have not prepared very thoroughly at all.  So is the anxiety really necessary? 
I say that I had prepared a post like the above, but I didn’t post it.  More interesting than the post itself is the reason I didn’t post it.  Having failed to blog that day, I went home and went to bed.  I dreamed that I was to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of a girl who was in my Pedagogy class last quarter.  I can’t remember her name — I think it’s Melanie — but she is almost finished with her M.A. and she seemed really together and methodical.  So anyway, Melanie was supposed to be getting married and one of my friends from grade school was there.  The two of them attempted to leave me behind, and when I confronted them, Melanie told me “Oh, I don’t want you in my wedding because you are LAZY!”

So if everyone in your dreams is really just an aspect of yourself, then what does this mean?   This person who obviously represents qualities I feel that I lack and a person from my past think I’m “unworthy to participate”.  Looks like it means that I feel like I need to be more methodical in my studies…  I guess that the friend from my past is there to remind me what I was like before I killed ALL those brain cells. 

I don’t know, though, because in the dream I really wasn’t that upset about being deemed unworthy to participate. I was relieved at not having to mess with either of the two women after all.  I didn’t care that the dream Melanie thought I was lazy.  Ah, maybe it was just a brain dump.  Still I don’t think it was a coincidence that I had that dream after pondering the nature of test anxiety and whether it helped or hindered productivity.

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Is this heaven or hell?

Oh, and the ferret is busily hiding its food under the couch, with frequent pauses to stalk and kill James‘ balled up socks.

It makes me want to overeat. [...]]]> Grr. Why is it, that when I wanted so much to return to school, that when I get here, doing any of my assignments is like pulling teeth. I can’t get motivated to do the assignments, and once I get there, sticking to the work is extremely difficult.

It makes me want to overeat. I am also getting a bit disillusioned with graduate school in general. I hear that this is common. To top it off, I am taking 9 hours, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but with the faster pace of the quarter system and the higher workload, it’s actually frazzling the pants right off me.

Oh, and I will never, repeat NEVER be a librarian. Bibliography is some of the least interesting stuff in the world to me. Oh, I absolutely love the major ideas and concepts behind the whole thing, and the history of print is fun, too. Still the actual mechanics of bibliography are kind of dry. Linguistics wasn’t this bad. I actually ended up sort of enjoying linguistics. I don’t know if I’ll feel anything but relief when bibliography is over.

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