April Showers, Fools, and blasted I.D. Card-part 1

I had one of those "Ain't that a b^&%*" moments yesterday afternoon and through the evening. So the day got kicked off by me debating should I goto the weekly seminar series hosted by my department or go meet with the fellowship representative who happen to be on campus on yesterday over at the graduate center. Even though I actually wanted to go see this particular environmental law professor speak, I knew I had to go meet the representative from my fellowship consortium, cause you know, they are paying my way to be here (i.e. THEY ARE THE ONLY REASON WHY I EVEN HAVE FUNDING FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL!). SO I went, and she was there, along with the diversity coordinator for the graduate school and the student affairs rep. So essentially, the conversation was initially about protocol, paperwork, tuition and stipend being paid and so forth. And for some reason, I felt I had to give the people there a "Let me tell how I really feel" dialogue. I don't know what possessed me, but it seemed as if something in my mind was telling me its time to open up and express how I have felt thus far at this institution during my first year of grad school. And I tell you, I didn't realize how easy it would be for me to open up about my frustrations and growing sense (at times) of apathy for the institution, the department, and my program in general. Everyone seem to have this look upon their faces of wow, I did not know that was how you really felt. Now the diversity coordinator, I had talked to him on several occasions of certain incidents that occurred and he offered me advice. I hadn't told him of all the "wonderful" events that happened to me this semester. Needless to say, they were telling me that I should not feel apathetic, I should be receiving better mentoring from my adviser, that I should probably have some kind of definitive research topic by now and other things I brought up. Long story short, I have felt so much better, so much opened, so much, like my old me, that I had repressed in some way since I have been here.

It felt gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!!! Anyway, so after that meeting, I headed to my research lab, and proceeded to get to work on this research paper for one of my classes that I got to get done. Then when it got closer to 5pm, I headed off to the soccer fields because I had an intramural softball game. Of course for a second Wednesday in a roll, the weather was just downright dreary and wicked with light sprinkles of raindrops. I was not totally a happy camper because I just washed my hair the night before and usually am not a big fan of getting wet because normally I get sick afterward. So I get to the softball fields, started throwing around with one of my teammates, ready to play,when we found out that we didn't have a game because one of the teams had been consistently forfeiting. So we ended up scrimmaging with each other, and I had a great time because I was catching pop-ups, and fielding good and throwing even relatively well. I miss playing softball, a lot. So after the scrimmaging and someone helping me get my softball back after it was hit into the construction site next to the fields, I proceeded to head to the main library on campus to check out books for my research paper. And let the adventure begin...

status messages

But on a lesser note today, since I refuse to get into this whole twitter phenomena, I still use Facebook statuses as my way (when I do create status messages) to relay how I am feeling at the moment. For a while now, I have realized the evils of posting all personal content about yourself on Facebook (and others too, i.e. Myspace), especially since companies were starting to use Facebook as a “pimping tool”, I mean a screening tool to take a look at potential candidates that they were really considering hiring. So for the most part, I took down the truthful stuff about myself and kept the basics. If you can’t get a 1% idea of who I am from my quotations, political views and religious views then perhaps one is the wrong business of trying to figure out the psyche and character of people. Not too long ago, I decided to do an update status which when a little something like this:

{redacted} is redefining her short, mid and long term goals as a result from events over the last couple of months...I will get to where I want to go...

When I wrote this, I was taking a mini-break from working on my current assignment to look into doctoral programs and what I wrote in my doctoral program and what research I want to engaged in. in a sense I was redefining what I wanted to do academically because I certainly have not felt (can you tell my the posts I have done?) I was getting mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically what I had so worked hard for (just to be able to get into graduate school in the first place). I have refrained (quite amazingly too) from expressing how I really feel because the choice of language may prove too colorful to some. I said what I wrote in my status message because one of the main things I have learned since the middle of my freshman year of college is that shit happens, life happens and how you bounce back from that depends on how you are able to adapt and pick yourself off the ground after being knocked down in the 12th round of a boxing match. I admit I used to be a very stubborn woman (I think it runs deeply in my family, at least on my mother’s side that I know of) who did not like to change too much. Some of it had to do with the fact that my life was changing so quickly and grief and shock and sadness was just coming from all angles all over the place and that is a pretty scary thing to deal with at the age of 19. So as I have gotten a little older and a little wiser, I have learned that I have to be able to be more fluid than ever, especially given the instability and unpredictability of what’s going on in the world today. So as I say this, I have always been pretty good setting and meeting short and mid-range goals. I believe I have taken steps up to this point to get myself in place to meet all of my long term goals. I am not quite there yet but I have learned that as I grow my goals and life and accomplishments that I set out to do will change as I live day to day. But I refuse to have any of my goals compromised as a result of what others tend to impose upon me; I just do NOT get down like that. So even though I have vented, vocalized, and expressed some pretty vicious statements of my current state as a graduate student, please realize that it was not a sign that I was giving up anytime soon. As a matter of fact I am more resolved than ever, I am just using this blog as one means to release outwardly how I feel inwardly that I work hard not to express too vocally around here. (I still need recommendations from certain folks here, ya know?)

Aaarrrrrrgh and ba humbug all roll up in 1

Let me tell you how I really feel now at 12:50am. Just the fact that its 12:50am and daylight saving time has officially kicked off just makes me want to scream and hurl some rhino dung at the nitwits who continue to advocate for daylight saving time this time and age. All DST does for me now is take away a hour that I so desperately needed to pretend was still there even though it never really is while being a graduate student. Now with the return of the “daylight from hell” all I have to look forward to is to lose 2 hours that I didn’t realize was actually still apart of the 24 hour day. Somehow when I played basketball last week and was giving it my entire all, apparently my right knee did not appreciate my hustling up and down the court and since then I have been paying it by walking around like a block of wood stuck in my knee. Then when I finally got around to starting on my homework 2 assignment for my water resource class, I was working on the parts, doing the math and calculations, putting off using excel for graphical purposes, when I realized just 20 minutes ago that all the work I had computed for the last 3 days was entirely and completely and woefully ALL WRONG!!! And ladies and gentlemen, that is how graduate school goes for me, when I think I am taking 3 steps forward, I just took -5 (yes negative 5) steps back and then I am back to ground 0. What makes this worse is that this assignment is due today (Monday) and I just don’t see it happening since I have to start from the beginning and finish the next 8 parts to this problem, only me I tell you can make such draconian mistakes on homework assignments. I used to do this crap when I was an undergrad. Downright ridiculous how much backwards work and erasing I had to do. Last week, after my monthly affliction passed, right on schedule comes my wisdom teeth of horrors. Oh yes, every month, right after my monthly affliction, my wisdom teeth starts to hurt. First it starts off as a nagging soreness, but eventually the pain begins to throb and pulsate with a mind of its own in my gums and surrounding teeth until I am in agonizing pain with tears ready to stream out of my eyes. Usually if I can’t take the pain anymore, I try to soothe it with some ambesol (which makes my mouth feel like I had several injections of Novocain after being in the dentist chair) and if that doesn’t work, its onto popping Advil. Needless to say, this has a tendency to affect my mental state greatly and leaves me void of doing anything productive until the pain subsides. I said all this to say that its downright frustrating and aggravating for me, its like why me? I seem to have just bad luck at times, which is fine with me, I can deal with, but can I please schedule and plan the times that bad luck wants to come knock on my door? At least wait until I finish all major projects, assignments, and to-do list items. Thank you, that is all I ask for. But there is no use in crying, I mean all I can do is wake up, start anew, and just plow right along and pray that things will go right, or at least partly right at about 50% of the time today. Oh well, at least its suppose to be spring break for me this week, doesn’t seem like it all though.

That Day of Pure Frustration

Today, I was into day 4 of trying to finish this homework assignment that was actually due yesterday. But as I have been working on it since Sunday, I have felt so frustrated because it’s like homework in one of the few subjects I could care less about-economics. Now I know that is a wrong attitude, since particularly everything as a way of living as we understand it is in part due to economics. I am lost as to why economics has never caught to me like other subjects I enjoy (math, history, geography, political science, engineering, chemistry). But it’s more than just that, I feel like I am not getting the most currently from my graduate education. Now whether its I feel burned out, or feel there is no direction in terms of my research, or just feeling out of place in the first place, I feel like my time can be better doing something else. I dread when I wake up in the morning and knowing that I either have to go to the lab today or go to classes. I feel the classes I have enrolled leave me feeling a bit lackluster, I feel I am just being stringed along with my research group and I feel as if I have nothing to contribute here. I am constantly questioning my aptitude because of the degree of difficulty and lack of progress I make in some of my classes. For the first time in my life, I feel lost and directionless being here. I thought graduate school was supposed to make you feel more scholarly and worldly. I feel as if I am regressing in the skills I possess and the brain cells to enlarge my think capacity. Oh it makes me feel so depressed day in and day out, like why I am torturing myself? The only thing that keeps me company around here is listening to old school music (at the moment it’s Earth, Wind, and Fire). And even though I have reached out to people(students, staff, faculty), I still feel so isolated and alone, which is crazy because I am used to living in solitude at this point, but to be surrounded by all kinds of people at an institution such as this, just doesn’t make sense to me. And to think I have another of year this to put up with. I wish something would happen, some kind of epiphany that will just turn around how I feel, how I learn, how I do research, and just change the plain way how I feel day in and day out.

This is How I feel Day in And day Out

So I am taking a brief respite in order to put down these thoughts that have been constantly racing through my mind today: I am so unhappy where I am right now. At first, when I was struggling in my classes, I thought it had something to do with me just not having the background necessary for the classes I just happened to throw myself in. but then I would go into my research office expecting something that hasn’t quite transpired yet. And then I realize I feel like a ghost at this campus because of my age, too young for most of the constituents in graduate school or too old for the most part for the overall constituency at this campus in general (you know you getting old when kids born in 1990 are now invading college campuses where you attend school at, uh-oh). Needless to say, I feel lost being here, and let me tell you the last time I felt lost and drifting-the day my uncle died. When he died, I felt my whole word stopped moving and begin to move like a fly stuck in molasses. I really believe it took me a year of grieving and a transfer of schools to get back on track. But now I ponder that the energy and enthusiasm for all things scholarly have permanently (or least semi-permanently) taking a back seat. I feel a lot lately that I spent so much time trying to prove to myself (and on a lesser scale to cats who did not think I could do engineering) that I can do engineering, that I am just as capable and bright as the next privileged fellow. I spent countless hours of studying, sacrificed really getting involved in clubs and organizations and literally put myself out in the middle of a cow pasture in order to succeed. I cut ties to family members whether they did or did not have my best interests at heart and pretty much stopped talking to classmates I was relatively cool with and/or close with from high school because I felt they could not relate to the pain I was in every single day my freshman year. And putting all that energy in has awarded me a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, the opportunity to obtain a full ride in environmental engineering in graduate school and the chance to get out of Texas. Sadly, after my uncle and grandmother died (and heck even my mother who played about a 0.000001% role in my upbringing) I felt that there was nothing left for me in Texas. My dream, whether naive knowing my uncle and grandmother delicate health situation since I was a kid was to go to school, graduate, get a great job, make lots of money to take care of them so they wouldn’t have to depend on Social Security and disability checks to get by only month to month and basically take them to Hawaii to spend their relaxing days (especially my uncle who was stationed in Hawaii when he was a marine during Vietnam). But now its 2009, and I feel drained. It’s a struggle every single day for me to wake up, get out of bed, and be productive and sustain in this college town. I have a hard time focusing on studying, and there are even days where I don’t just want to read anything academically related. And that is a scary thought for me because I love to read, read, read. But now its not even fun for me anymore to read academic journals, textbooks, scientific articles or notes; and its like what the hell, this is only my second semester of grad school in a master’s program. And I am thinking to myself, well hell if you feel like this now, why are you still hell bent obtaining a PhD? I hesitated to tell any of my close friends about how I really feel day in and day out because I am pretty sure they would tell me I am being a whiner and I need to suck it up and stop complaining cause I got a full ride to graduate school. And I understand that perfectly clear, but it’s something about this place that just sucks the life out of you. I wish I could pin point what it is but I can’t.
(Classic and current example of how I feel: I have been trying to reread this same paper that summarizes about interpretation of recorded data related to climate change, and this is day 4 of me trying to get through this paper. The content of the paper is not difficult to comprehend, it’s just my mind is doing a hell of a job of blocking the sensors in my brain from absorbing and storing the information that is necessary for this one particular class. Now take that and multiply that by 4 and that is how I feel in all my classes and research. It just makes me want to turn on the faucets in my eyes everyday because I feel inferior day in and day out and a failure because I am not getting the material. Oh well, I guess its back to attempt number 5 of reading this paper. Hopefully I can finally catch up in reading for this class by tomorrow’s lecture, even though I seriously doubt it. I will prolly have to seek refuge in the rec center in a couple of hours from now, at least I won’t be tempted to continue to overeat or consume any vodka tonight.)

Whispers in the abyss

So I have these whispers of doubts within myself internally and I know I shouldn’t have but I just do. Its in regards to how since I have been in graduate school, I haven’t really passed any tests, quizzes or major assignments with A’s and B’s. It has been mostly on the lines of C’s, D’s, and F’s, and its just so deflating because it makes me feel so deflated, like I don’t belong here or that there is something wrong with me. It’s almost like being back at the first college I went to my first two years of college. I did fine my first semester, and then I had these tragic family incidences that warped and turn my world upside down and I begin down this slippery slope of failing and struggling in a lot of my engineering classes until I finally decided to transfer to another school (where I ultimately got my bachelor’s degree). It’s like déjà vu, except this time around, I don’t really have any tragic incidences that is preventing me from being successful where I am at. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it makes me doubt my intelligence, my desire to learn, my spirit to be curious. I feel as if there is something about this school that is stifling me. I don’t know what it is, but I wish I knew so I could face it head on and take it out. But until then, I guess I will continue to be disappointed at the grades I earned while in graduate school and continue on this trail of wondering what is internally wrong with me. Its very frustrating because of how I feel being a minority in a program taking classes that had nothing to do with what I did as an undergrad and spending ridiculous amounts of time playing catch-up in classes by going back and researching and surfing and reading up to 4 or 5 subjects at a time per class I take (I average 3 classes a semester thus far) plus seeking a lot of help (especially in one of these classes I took last semester almost every other day with the professor). And I feel the said pattern is on assignments and take-home tests I put my blood, sweat, and tears to I fail worse than on said assignments in which I did not try or just did not care about. Its almost as if by me coming into the program I have came in, I am just simply setting myself up for failure. Now don’t get me wrong, I won't stop nor do I mind doing what I am doing in terms of researching and studying extra materials for classes but its like wow for me. I am also concern that it seems that I was successful at the school I transferred to which is an HBCU, and yet the first school I went to the engineering program was majority institution and now the school I am attending for graduate school is also majority institution. Does this mean that perhaps I am not cut out for these types of schools? That certainly can’t be a fact or a terrible notion to even entertain. So then why I am struggling so much academically, (and heck spiritually, socially, physically, and emotionally) at this school I am at now?Is it the school or is it me?

This Whole studying thing

So as another weekend comes and goes, i find myself not studying as usual, which normally wouldn't be any reason to ring the alarms, but i just happen to be in graduate school. I managed to survive my first semester last semester and I thought I was going to stress myself right out. So this semester I DECIDED to do things my way, which is the only way that keep same in the membrane. This includes working out ridiculously at set times during the day. I felt as if I had no energy whatsoever to get through the day. I felt like blah every day I had to wake up and goto classes or go into the lab or anything of that nature. So I had to get through my stubborn mind that I can't be any good if I am always feeling drained and depressed and desolate. Next step, get out more, even if it means I have to goto events/places/locales by myself-especially if those locales were meant to be done with friends. I am going to try to smile more and come off more approachable, I have been told that the impression people have of me when they first meet me is one of being a diabolical "insert expression for female dog". Now I find this quite laughable because I am the opposite of what people's first impressions are of me. What can I say? I guess it means that people prescribe to reading the picture illustrated on the front of the book instead of trying to read the words on the front cover of the book, let alone whats contained inside the book.

I guess the point of all that before the slightest of divergence was that overall I learned during my first semester of graduate school I went about everything the wrong way. Instead of trying to adapt to people that are not like, I should have been doing everything I can to get people to adapt to me. I am not like most people, I knew this since I was about 4 years old. So I will study more this semester, but much more effectively and at much of a satisfied position than before. I will be more social than I was before, even it means I have to hang with undergraduates at the school I goto and with different people at different schools within a 50 mile radius (there is a lot of colleges and universities in the area, let alone in this state). Hey I know I am unique and I have my quirks and whims that does not prescribe to anything mainstream, and I will not waste my time around people or entities who only see people in a box.