And We'll All Float On, Ok...

My last few days have been a little discontented and disoriented, like I've realized that I no longer have any idea which way is up.  A couple of days where I am forced to remain in place give a girl a lot of time to think.  Is this a good thing?  I don't know.

I am travelling in a country where men and women have very different relationships and social rules compared to where I come from, and that is stressing me out.  People (i.e. men) are friendly, but they are often friendly with follow-up - please find someone to pay for surgery for my sick niece; please take my mother to Canada with you, she can cook and clean for you and you can just pay her a dollar a day and give her room and board; please let me come with you to Canada and live there; here, please accept these 15 text messages of love poems because I love you and will die without you even though we only talked once a week ago my heart is changed forever... the last couple of days it's been wearing on me a bit, so I'm hiding away from it all until tomorrow when I get back on the road, where I will endeavor to bring my patience.

The other day I opened my alternate email account, which I haven't checked in over a month (I never use it anymore.  I don't use it because pretty much the only messages I get are from the university, newsletters and on campus student stuff (which I am not part of) and I'm not in classes right now so I didn't think there would be any big news coming through those channels that I wouldn't get in the general group mails that go to my main account.

Well, that assumption was made in error.  My inbox had a note from the university that was sent a few weeks ago telling me that my presence is requested at a practicum back home on campus for 2 months beginning the first week of July in my hometown. 

The tone of the email/letter is friendly and informational, but it seemed to me that the "requested" part was actually more of a "required, or we will terminate your position in the program" kind of request.  I sent an email to find out exactly what it was they were asking me, and I await the answer.  I am meant to be traveling through the end of July, but I will not lose my position in the program over my gallivanting.

I am a little miffed about another "thing" being tossed into the air in front of me, but overall I'm happy I read the email before it was too late to do anything about it.  At least now I have time to find out the real deal and make plans accordingly, if anything indeed does need to be done.

I have intentionally not been thinking about home; not been thinking about plans, about returning home after a year and a half, about not having a job, about not having any idea what I'll do with myself when I get there, about school, about any of it - purposeful avoidance in order to maintain some kind of equilibrium in my own mind.  

I am feeling like a feather blown about in the wind, spiralling and floating and not sure where I'll land when the breezes stop. 

I don't enjoy it, this being unsure part, so I'm going back to ignoring it and not thinking about it for now... I need some time to just float on...

Float On (Modest Mouse)

It's Official

I’m 31

& I’m

Officially

A Quitter

_________

Enough! I have decided that the Master’s program, despite my violent swings of opinion about its’ usefulness and practicality for use in the real world, is a necessity that I will not permit myself to abandon. I started it, it is a big deal, and I need to finish it. I know right down to my bones that I will forever regret it if I drop out of the program. If for no other reason, I do my best to avoid the situations that I am certain will end up in the Pile of Regrets. I have, however, for the sake of my sanity and that of the lovely S, decided to drop my awful health psychology option. I have hated it since the moment it started mid-January, and regretted not dropping it while there was no financial consequence. However, now, to make a long story short, I’m done with it. On the bright side, I did manage to get out of it before they assigned me a grade for the course, which means it won’t affect my GPA.

Hard to explain the sense of relief I feel at not having to deal with the course anymore. 2 more months of it would have been the death of me (or at least my enthusiasm for school!). I hated the chat board, I hated the way the assignments were weighted and assigned, and I hated that there was no assigned meeting time. I also hated the crazy workload for a course that didn’t even have an assigned meeting time! I won’t do another asynchronous (i.e. no lecture, no discussion, all chat boards, ugh) course option, and will I ever ward anyone who asks off of them as well! I will have to figure out what to take in its place as an elective, but those diploma level courses that I originally scoffed at are looking better and better.

I don’t always finish everything I started. I try not to quit just because it’s hard, but if a book is boring – I put it down! If a movie makes me want to poke my eyes out – I turn it off! If my food tastes bad, I stop eating it! I want to enjoy the things in life I choose to have and do. Now sometimes you do have to suck it up and get through the yuck, all for the better in the end. Sometimes I end up on the wrong path and my choices don’t lead to the best outcomes, so I change direction and see where things go. Sometimes those wrong turns end up leading to places where I have made the biggest changes, the coolest discoveries about myself and the world. So screwin’ up or packin’ it in doesn’t have to be the worst thing that happens, so long as we all just keep on movin’.

Love and Satisfaction

In my flurry of inactivity last night I turned on the television and watched an episode of House. I was scribbling away in my journal at the time, winding down for bed while S was already off to work a night shift. In my journal I was continuing my attempts to unravel the roots of my educational crisis. In the middle of the episode, the conversation between a terminally ill patient and his young female doctor went something like this:

Patient: Do you like your job?
Doctor: Yes, I do. I love my job.
Patient: Really? You seem more of an, "I find it extremely satisfying," kind of person.
Doctor: It is satisfying, very satisfying.
Patient: Yes, but love is "love". Satisfying is "social validation - love can wait."

Since I was already sunken into thoughts of school, this conversation sidled in through the open door. Am I in school because I think I'm going to love the job? Or am I in school because I think the job at the end of it will be extremely satisfying?

One of the things I really work on changing about myself is my own craving for that social validation. If you asked me, I would tell you that I don't care what other people think, but in my truest of hearts, it's a lie. I like that when I tell people "I'm in the middle of grad school", I get oohs, and ahhs, and 'wow, that must be really hard's from people I talk to, especially when they find out that I'm working full time at the same time. The goal itself seems more worth the work because other people recognize it to be important. I like that it makes my mom proud to tell people what I'm up to, and that she takes pride in my reachings. Ugh, I am still that little girl who needs the pat on the head and the, "good job, honey!" from her mommy, or the star on the board from the teacher!

With that thought newly in my head, that my real reason for finally going to grad school could be to get the social validation that goes with it, I wanted to throw my laptop out into the snowbank and run off to Mexico to become a starfish. I am an educated, confident, independent woman. Surely I wouldn't have made this big of a decision, this big of a committment of time and money, in order to get approval, to get social validation... would I?

As we grow and change, our goals and values also change. I no longer want to be a ballet dancer, a marine biologist, a fireman, a doctor, a vet, or a lawyer. But psychologist, now that one has hung on. All of my image makers, the people who you listen to growing up when they tell you how they see you in the future, saw me as a counselor, a helper, a psychologist. I have been on the road to my master's, with all of its' twists and turns, since high school. I'm sure my yearbook says something about my becoming a psychologist. It's what I've "always" wanted to do. My 14-year old self embraced that idea with her whole heart, perhaps in a way that I haven't done since.

So here I am: tank full of gas, driving down that road, my destination finally beginning to arise on the horizon. That nagging feeling that I should look up from the road, look around, is finally sinking into my thoughts. My biggest suspicion is that if I check out my reflection in the rearview mirror, my 14 year old self is still driving the car, looking for that feeling of satisfaction, as yet unaware of the magic in the possiblities of love.

Your network cable is unplugged

Do we all live in a state of disconnect, or is it just me? At some point we decide that we want something, and we make choices that head us in that direction. Then, we suddenly turn into goldfish, no memory of where we just came from or where we were headed. At least this has been my experience. Lately, I find myself walking down these paths that I began with good intentions, and I have no idea why I'm still on them, or where I thought I was headed when I began. While I find myself pondering many paths in my life, I'm currently lost and aimless on my way down the road to grad school.

Grad school is an important decision, right? People respect the educational endeavor of graduate studies. Everybody is excited for me. I was excited for me, on my way to becoming part of a respected profession, becoming a psychologist. It means something – people care about what kind of education you have. It’s something I can always remember wanting to do (at least since high school anyway). I have looked at lots of programs over the years, but mostly thought myself destined to a job helping people somehow. Counseling and social work programs are always what I looked into, and different areas of psychology. I was accepted into each program I applied for (3 in the U.S., and one here), but for different reasons didn't go right away. While S and I were still in Korea, I found the local online program for school psychology. I didn't know very much about the job itself, but didn't think I needed much extra information: psychology, in a school - what more do you need, right?

I applied and was accepted, my first semester started in May '08. When I applied to the course, I didn't have a plan for how I was going to pay tuition (almost $1,000 per month). I didn't know that tuition is almost triple that of what on-campus students pay. I didn't know at the time that school psychologists do psychological testing on children that they don't know, they only see during testing sessions, and they have to produce a 'code' in the final paragraph of the report at the end of it to keep the school board happy – not necessarily to help the child do better in school, just to get the school their allotted funding, based on the child’s diagnosis. Now I'm in the final term of my first year. I have 10 more courses that run $1,150 each, and one year of a practicum that is also going to cost me $1,150 per term (for nothing back from the university), and I have NO IDEA WHY I'm still in the program. If I work as a psychologist for the health region, (a "good" paying government job), do you know that I will only make $6-$8 extra per hour than I do right now, but I have to spend nearly 20K to do it?! So why do I continue?

I'm frustrated with the program, and don't feel like I'm learning anything that's going to be useful professionally. I’m annoyed that the only measurement is through papers, which I hate writing. It's expensive, and takes up my free time, and all of my available money. I'm working as a psychometrist, actually doing the testing that I'm training to do in my graduate program - and getting paid for it already. I can’t have the qualification title of psychologist without finishing my degree, but right now I’m not even sure I want it! I started something important, and I should finish it - you just don't change your mind and quit these things half-way through.

I’m having some kind of educational meltdown. Is it just a tantrum? Is it just because I don’t want to do the work of the courses I’m in now? Am I upset about a bad grade? How do I get back on my path, or make the right path clearer? How do I get back in touch with what I was really going for, my original goal? Should I take some time off, an educational leave for awhile until I figure things out? Off to bury my head in a snow drift for a bit - maybe that will help.

Time ticks by

I have lots of time in my day - hours even! So why is it, that when I sit down to do something (like my readings for school), I can't find 5 minutes to put any effort into it? It is Friday today, and all week I have been meaning to get to studying, reading, posting on our class discussion board, and I haven't put a single iota of effort into it, even once. My courses are interesting, I don't particularly object to the subject I'm studying, but sitting down to read and study has been feeling impossible. As if my books and I were each magnets of the same polarity, refusing to sit next to one another and get anything accomplished. When things are due the next day (or at midnight!) you can find uber-focused me, diligently completing my assignments all at once - and my average is fine!! But trying to do things more sanely, preparing ahead of time and all of that organized nonsense, I can't even seem to devote a simple hour during my day.

The most frustrating part is that it isn't as though I have more pressing things to do - I sit down at the computer, and then surf mindlessly for hours, when just ONE of those hours would have made my school life more manageable if I had done some reading. I sit down at the table with my books, open them up to a good starting place, open my notebook, set out my pen/highlighter, and when I'm all set - I go do the dishes, or clean the bathroom, or make the bed - and I hate housework!!!!

What is this fight? This resistance? Why will I not just sit down and get it done? And since we're into the whys - WHY can't I seem to SLEEP anymore? I slept for 8 1/2 hours last night, and instead I woke in the morning feeling like I had just gotten to bed, and surely it was only 2am, and not 20 after 6... Alas, it was 20 after 6, and time to get up and start the day. I looked in the mirror, and almost shut the lights off and went back to bed after seeing the size of the bags under my eyes - unbelievable; especially after going to sleep at 10pm last night. Methinks that perhaps the cat needs to be barred from the bedroom, if only even temporarily; I remember waking up several times to her adjusting her position as she perched daintily on top of me during the night. She will strongly object to her exile, but I think it's necessary - one thing to try anyway, see if I sleep any better...

So this morning I am tired, a bit grumpy, and frustrated. My eyes are burning while I look at the screen, and my mind is sluggish. Maybe once I've had a cup of coffee and started my work day I will have a different outlook on the day. I aim to, anyway...