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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Pulling my Hair Out

So, I just spent a relaxing week on cruise ship, stopping in Mexican ports, trying new things, bonding with my in-laws, having the time of my life, all this great stuff.
I was hoping that I could just ease back into reality...

Of course, coming back home was a rude awakening.  Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights, what have you) of my past few days back home:

As soon as I got home, I checked my e-mail.  The sheer number in my inbox made me want to puke.  When I was in high school, I would get so excited about having a new message in my inbox; it made me feel popular and wanted.  Now, it's usually someone giving me one more thing to add to my to-do list: schoolwork, rent reminders, church assignments (narrowly avoided since I'm only here for a few more weeks), the nice admissions lady for the masters program I'm trying to get into, reminders from friends of things/promises I've made.  Plus, all the lovely distractions of facebook notifications and online shopping subscriptions.  I decided that perhaps I'd finish some papers I'd put off till the last minute (who wants to write a paper when you could be out in the sunshine?).  I stayed up late, after Dan had gone to bed, trying to force my brain to articulate my thoughts into a page of Times New Roman size 12 font, single spaced.  Multiple times.

I woke up early on Tuesday, because guess what, I hadn't finished all my papers/reading.  Then it was time to leave for school.  I get to my classroom, ten minutes before, and no one is there.  I figure maybe I'm just earlier than everyone else, so I sit in the corner with a book and wait.  Yeah, class starts and no one is there.  Cool.  Well, sometimes we meet at my teacher's house in Orem, so I figure maybe I'll head over there, just to check and see.  As I'm walking down the hall, I see a girl in my class (hallelujah) and ask her if she knows where everyone is.  She doesn't, because she missed all of last week too.  Sooo we both head over to our professor's house, and once again, our class is nowhere to be found.  We decide maybe it was cancelled and she forgot to send out an e-mail.  No problem, that gives me time to finish my book for Wendesday.  Except, being myself, I procrastinated, so once again, Dan had to go to bed without me while I worked on homework.  And once again, I had to wake up early.

Fortunately my first class of the day was in the proper place at the proper time, so I was able to attend.  All went pretty smoothly there.  After that, I headed over to the library to do my reading for my next class.  I look at the syllabus to check the reading for the quiz we had that day, which was longer than I thought.  Also, I'd forgotten to write down on my list of things-to-do-on-the-cruise a project that was due within the hour.  Awesome, right?  Then I had to prioritize: in one hour, I needed to read 30 pages and take an online quiz and complete a project that required an interview with a married individual.  I decided the project was probably worth more than one quiz, so skimmed the reading to get the answers on the study guide, and decided I'd just take a fall on the honesty question of "Did you do all the reading?" (which is worth half the points on the quiz...cool, I know).  While I'm typing the answers up, the computer I'm using crashes.  Perfect.  So then I get to wait for it to reboot, retype all my answers, sign back into blackboard, take a 50 on a quiz I knew all the answers to, and now I'm left with 30 minutes to complete a project.  By the time I finish, I'm already ten minutes late to class, and Blackboard won't let me submit my project.  After another ten minutes of that, I e-mail the TA in frustration, but then Blackboard cooperates, so I have to e-mail the TA back and say never mind.  Then I got to make my walk of shame to the front of the class and join the tail end of a small group discussion.  Get home, more homework, make dinner in a rushed manner, more homework, decide that at least one night this week I'm going to bed at the same time as my husband, and fall asleep.

That brings us to today, where I have to wake up early to try (in vain) to finish the novel for my next class, and go to the mysterious disappearing class.  As I'm walking from my car to the classroom, I run into the girl that I went on the wild goose chase with last time, and we laugh about how funny it would be if our class was missing again.  Except when that happened again, it wasn't funny.  We decided that maybe we should go up to our professor's office and see if she was there to do some explaining, she wasn't but we ran into her in the hallway.  She said hi to both of us, and dived straight back into whatever intellectual conversation she was having.  So we were left awkwardly standing in the hallway, wondering where she was going, if it would be creepy to follow her, and too shy to ask her what the heck was going on with class.  We went back to the classroom to see if anyone was there, no bueno.  We went back up to her office, and she had dissappeared again.  Not knowing what else to do, we decided to go back home and e-mail her.  I just got an e-mail back from her saying that now they're meeting in a conference room upstairs with the professor's offices.  That's great, and she is one of my favorite professors, but she couldn't have sent out an e-mail about that?  Now I've missed 2 weeks of class, and in summer term, that's like missing a month.  So hopefully this doesn't totally and completely screw me over.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to/should go to grad school, but need to make a decision quick before I miss all the deadlines for scholarships and admissions.  I am FREAKING out here.

Sorry for all the complaining.
On the bright side, I've liked every book I've had to read this term, I only have one class tomorrow, and my family reunion is this weekend in St. George, which means my family will be here from Saturday until my graduation.  Let's just hope I survive till then.

5 comments:

Autumn @ Autumn All Along said...

Stress! I understand...this is how practicums and working have been for me.

Good luck with your disappearing class and your grad program you are looking into. The worse that can happen is that you get accepted and you decide not to do it. (What kind of program is it?)

Lauren said...

It's a Masters of Teaching and the Arts at USC, which is where Dan is going to be for Dental School. It's an online program (but it's like super interactive, I guess you have class via webcams...I don't really know, sounds cool though.) Anywho, the online thing would be nice because I can just do it from home, you know? And maybe even have a job and be bringing in some funds. We'll see.

robertandsharon said...

Breathe, just breathe....it will all come out okay. Love you...and see you in St. George. We are leaving about 10 am to drive down. What time are you leaving? I can't wait to see everyone! :O)

Jessica said...

Lauren, I love this. It made me laugh so much because I know the exact feeling... Skimming through reading, realizing it will take a LOT longer than you thought, then having an inner moral struggle when asked, "Did you complete the reading?"

Good luck deciding on grad school, and good luck with the rest of summer school! You're almost done!

Garrett Steppat said...

If you are ever stressed and feeling misunderstood, just remember to say this phrase to yourself.

My Kung Fu is the Best!