42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

Halfway through my second quarter of grad school, I feel like an old hand. A tired, old, old hand.

I briefly contemplated the idea of going home between quarters in late March and eventually ruled it out because:

• I’m underemployed and therefore broke.
• I am so stressed it would be nice to sit on my butt for a week between quarters, rather than  brave the perils of the inefficient air transportation system.
• I don’t have a cat sitter and I feel uncomfortable asking for favors from people I don’t know that well.
• Running around and trying to see all of my favorite people in Michiana will also be stressful. I feel stretched thin, like too little butter on too much bread, to quote Bilbo Baggins.
• I want to scrape up enough money to go to the American Library Association annual conference in Washington D.C. It’s a good excuse to meet up with my buddy, and also get a tour of the awesome place he works at. I don’t think I can justify two plane trips.

I miss my family terribly. Don’t get me wrong. My brother is going through a rough time, and I haven’t seen my family since Christmas 2008.

But I’ve learned some important things about myself or grad school since I started.

• I like being busy, but I do enjoy the occasional evening off. This quarter, I feel very guilty when I do that. In fact, I did nothing yesterday except reread a lecture and sleep. I’m feeling the after-effects today as I struggle to finish some work I should’ve done yesterday. And now I’m being punished because my internet went out, and I had to go elsewhere to work. Panera gets all my money these days.
• I like sleeping. This grad student doesn’t get enough sleep.
• If a professor suggests you do not take more than one other class with a certain class: LISTEN. Do not think, oh, I’ve done this before. I can handle this. Well, Mel B. *can* handle anything, but it’s apparently at the expense of sleep, and what’s left of my sunny disposition. Those who know me well know I don’t actually have one. But I thought I’d throw that in for kicks and giggles.
• There is never enough time in the day. Naps, while nice, may make it worse. It’s hard to recover from a late night when you can’t stay awake the next day.
• Planning your days is everything. Make sure you get your work done on a certain day, even if it’s not due that day. It give you leeway for when the wheels fall of the bus, like they did last week.
• I have absolutely no idea how people do this when they have kids. None. I’m only doing this by force of will, because I’m stubborn. Taking a full-load on a quarter system is a very bad idea.

I think I would enjoy my classes more if I weren’t so busy. I’m an overachiever these days, apparently, in contrast to my lackadaisical high school and undergrad days, when I never did my best, but I still managed to get good grades. Now I want to get good grades and work hard. Imagine that. Of course, grad school is costing me much more than undergrad did.

I had one of my classic tornado dreams last night, and this morning I wondered where it came from. This time, I think I can say stress. First, I dreamed that I handed in an assignment to a professor in the next quarter, and without even looking at the assignment, she just wrote C on the front cover. I was devastated and asked if I could rework it. No, she said, and wouldn’t allow further discussion. I’ve had a class with this prof in real life, and doubt she would treat me in this way. I was puzzled by this and then in my dream, tried to psych myself up to go ask her to at least tell me what was wrong with the assignment, so I could do it better next time.

Then the tornado came. I saw heavy clouds swirling, hanging over what appeared to be my neighbor’s yard. As I watched, a white circle of clouds formed and then slowly crawled down to create a funnel. As I watched, it shifted over and around to directly barrel down my short back yard.

At first, I was happy I was seeing a tornado for real. Again, I was convinced the dream was real, as opposed to my sometimes half-lucid realizations that I might be dreaming.

Then I realized the tornado was coming toward me, and that it was going to shatter the windows of my flimsy house, and probably me with it.

I couldn’t do anything. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. I was upset, realizing I would likely die, but I couldn’t even move. My thoughts moved much faster than the tornado, and therefore time seemed to slow down.

Just as the funnel cloud got right next to the window,  it sucked up back into the sky and vanished. Saved at the last moment. Later, I looked at the destruction around me, including the mess the storm had made of the other side of the duplex. But I was left unharmed, and so was my house.

So now that I write this, I think stress, reprieve, and knowing you shouldn’t do something, but do it anyway.

I was happy to be alive, and I’m happy to be in grad school, even if it throws me into a paralyzing semi-panic sometimes. It’ll be OK, I just don’t know when. Possibly not until the break between quarters.