Whining.

Week 1 of grad school is over and I'm already feeling hopeless and sorry for myself. While the material is challenging (obviously) it's the time commitment that is horrifying in every way. I just can't wrap my head around working full time, attending classes until 9:00pm two nights a week, reading 200 pages of material in my free time (literally, that's my assignment by next week), and eventually I'll need to fit 24 hours of internship in there, too. I kind of want to kill myself, and I can't help but wonder how the hell it's even possible.


I kind of find comfort in knowing everyone else is overwhelmed and terrified just like I am, but it doesn't help knowing I actually need to suck it up and do this. I know "two years will fly by!" but considering I'm only a week in and I'm depressed already, it's hard to see the silver lining. I've always been the kind of person who looks toward the future instead of being one of those instant gratification-types, so I keep reminding myself that that is the reason I am doing this. I need my Masters Degree so I can move up in the world and make more money. Two years is nothing in the grand scheme of life and by the time I turn 27 it will already be over. I'll just repeat that over and over again until I'm blue in the face and hopefully I'll get used to the fact that I have no free time whatsoever for the next 700-some days.


I have come to grips with the fact that my cookie-making days are temporarily OVER. Before classes started I figured, "First semester, classes are only Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Surely I can bake and decorate cookies on the weekends!" WRONG. Next weekend I had planned on making bridal shower cookies for my sister's best friend, and bringing them home for the shower to use as favors. Not happening anymore. It makes me sad. It would have served as a 'see mom for her birthday' weekend, too, so I really wish I'd be able to escape overnight to go see everybody. I also had to break a cookie promise with one of my coworkers, who had requested 50 or so for her little man's 4th birthday party. I feel like such a douchebag but there's literally no way I can accommodate fun in any way. Grad school is probably a lot easier when you're taking it online, or when you're just taking classes and they don't require you to get an unpaid part-time job while you work toward your degree. Why is Social Work so damn difficult? School is difficult and the job itself is difficult and no one gives us any effing credit when it's all said and done. This degree better be worth it! I will have to remember to keep calm and have a cupcake (though it'll need to be a store-bought one because I have no time to make them anymore). 


I have started Googling speed-reading. I figure if I'm going to have mounds and mounds and mounds of reading material to get through on every other day of the week, I may as well try to get through it as fast as possible while retaining the information. I read that just following the words with your finger can actually speed up your reading, since your eyes don't stop on every word as they would without the finger. The finger hurries it along without you misunderstanding the content. I tried this, and I find that I move my finger too quickly in an effort to get through it as fast as possible, so I wind up just skimming the text. It doesn't work at all. Then I have to go back and reread it, wasting more time. Then the cats come sit on my book and I don't make them get up, so that wastes more time. I hope I just need some time to get back into the swing of things. Maybe this is just a cruel adjustment period. I have been out of school and working full-time for over a year, and this may just be a rude awakening. I'm not used to having to buckle down and commit myself to material like this, the way I was in undergrad. I do feel lucky that I don't have to accommodate all of this while having to sustain the life of a toddler, though. I don't know how the parents get through this program in one piece. All I have is a boyfriend and two cats (though one of the cats was mad at me for not being here for our nightly routine on the nights I had classes). 


This was a horrible entry. I just needed to vent. My apologies - maybe next time I'll have my act together. Back to reading!