You may remember that I'm looking at grad schools. Well, the search goes on. Here's the checklist for my search:
- Take the GRE.
- Figure out subjects that I'm interested in and that will be worth five cents in five years (when I get out of my long-term imprisonment - hopefully).
- Figure out schools I want to go to that offer said subjects.
- Email professors at said schools who teach said subjects.
- Figure out if I really want to work with those professors at said schools who teach said subjects.
- Apply to chosen school(s).
- Cross fingers.
I'm planning on taking the GRE soon after I get back from D.C. in early June. I don't know when it's offered yet (add that before #1, I guess), but I do know that I have to do it soon. Things are starting to get hectic, and it's not even really summer yet. My summer checklist is far longer than this grad school excerpt, and I'm working full days at my job, so my days are shorter at home - when I am home. I just happen to be home at night all this week because my car is in the shop and it was too expensive to rent a car.
This field stuff is getting to me, though. I know that those wiser than I have told me (
warned me, even) that sometimes it takes a while for field interests to gel. As good of advice as that is, I know I've still got to figure out the general vicinity of my focus. You don't go to seminary to get a physics degree, and, while not as drastic, I'm not that far away from being
completely clueless as to what I want to do.
Don't get me wrong - the
Pickelhaube of Professorship has settled upon my brow and I think it fits rather well. However, my
accoutrement, such as the Sword of Specialty, or even the
Faulds of Forte, have yet to come into my possession. I am a little worse for the wear worrying about it, and I haven't figured out how to overcome this.
In the meantime, while my brain is whirring and ticking and spontaneously combusting, I have begun the slow and oh-so-envious! task of emailing professor after professor after professor. So far, I have been very daring and emailed professors and grad secretaries and grad recruiters at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Berkley, University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas at Austin, all of whom I'm sure are now regretting putting their email addresses online. So far, only those at Austin have gotten back to me and been very helpful at all. Unfortunately, I contacted them about American or International diplomatic history, which I was promptly told by a professor who's helping me that that field was, and I quote, "as dead as Vanilla Ice's career."
Ah well. The search continues.
This semester has been rough. Really rough. The marathon paper turned out not so well. "Not so well" means "B+", but it bothered me a lot that what I thought was one of my best papers ended up being... well... not so much. My thesis is defunct, quite officially. I'm looking at three B's if I don't pull up my shoelaces. And... school just sucks in general.
Part of it has to do with the expectations of my professors. I'm not particularly upset that they exist, but I am rather flustered with it on both sides of the coin. My professor's expectations with me are either higher or nonexistent in comparison with my own. One of my professor's teaches a class of twenty people and doesn't know a single one of our names. This same professor apparently didn't notice that about 50% of our class has been missing for the majority of the semester, because he told us that our attendance had been really good. However, my language teacher is constantly pushing and making the students learn. Her expectations are very high, but I feel like this is fair because of how she works with us. On the other hand, another professor uses classtime as a tribute to his own ego (most of our assigned readings have been things he has written). His expectations of me are high, but I don't think it's fair because I always feel like he asks the wrong questions in response to things I write - meaning I think that he has the wrong impression of my paper when he finishes it.
Move on to my thesis tutorial class where there are such high expectations with no direction from any of my superiors, and you've found where the disconnect between school and me begins. I feel pathetic and weak because I'm not able to fight my own discontent and lack of desire to have a fulfilling education this semester, but I also feel like it would be as helpful as punching, kicking, and screaming would be to keeping afloat in the middle of the ocean. So I've decided to tread water while I can.
Not that treading doesn't have its consequences. I've know people who have been doing so since they got to college (and are still doing so afterward). But I feel that my life has become so fast-paced and determined by those outside myself that "treading water" - even for half of one semester - is a euphemism for "drowning." The dates pass me by, the times hit me in the face, the people pull me down. I've put myself into this position, and I'm not complaining that I've done so, per se. I enjoy my responsibilities and I have a desire to do my duties. But I also feel like I've allowed myself to be tied and gagged without possibility of escape for a future I'm not even sure of yet. Are my sacrifices of self too great? Have I done too much? Or am I just too lazy? I don't quite know that, but I do know that I still feel compelled to do what I've promised to do, and that I love being able to offer my services at their demand. I really think my lack of motivation is a byproduct of a really rough semester. And you know what they say about rough times?
This too shall pass.
...or at least it better. I've got a year and a half left.
