Hop on and ride

It's all begun again...the school year, the grind, academic pressures and the race to the doctorate. A slow race at that...but it always feels like a competition.

While I'd love to tell myself, and anyone who's listening (yah right...who am I kidding, the only one reading these ramblings is me!) that I'm going to be less down, less bitter, less of a cynic and a ranter.... that's just a pipe dream. I may have good, or noble, intentions, but let's be real--this is grad school, a doctoral degree...and I will be miserable...often! Isn't that part of the point of the whole degree process? I'm sure some schools even count on it to weed students out. Not Metro U though, not my department...that would mean a loss of dollars, a loss of prestige and less to puff themselves up about. On the other hand, if they really gave a good damn about the health, well-being and progress of students, wouldn't there be more support??
Granted, gotta give it to 'em, they are making some strides there...or at least making it more visible that staff is in place to help support the students--we just have to ask for more help, cause they can't give what they don't know about. Fair. True. But I haven't had complaints about the staff...more about the Faculty. Maybe it's just that I keep chafing at being a square peg amongst round holes.

And now you're wondering what the hell am I doing in this U, in this dept. if I'm so out of place. For most disciplines, most fields, that's a very fair question and someone might be nuts to have gone somewhere they knew might make them miserable, and didn't completely support them...couldn't. But my field is unique (and no, I'm not just saying that). There just aren't many places that practice it, teach it, let alone have a PhD program. And I'm not some young 'kid' right out of college, with no commitments tieing me down, able to move anywhere in the country based on who has the best program, or the best fit for me. I had to go with what was available locally...and the funding support I'm getting is a huge piece of it too. Won't lie about that. Doubt I'd go for my PhD right now if it wasn't for that. Although sometimes the constraints it puts on me, the extra demands, the extra hoops, and the feeling of being someone else's damn experiment are just too much and I want to tell them all to just 'chuck it', they can shove their funding where the 'sun don't shine' just leave me alone.

but I'm all talk and no action......

On a good note, I like my classes. One is a nice change of pace, not as hard or demanding it seems (probably because it pulls many Masters students) and with a prof with a sense of humor, a bit of a rebel, non-conformist. I like that, I really do.
The other course is more methods, and will hopefully give me real hands-on experience and move me that much closer to my disseration topic, questions, and proposal. Advocate is teaching it, and also thinks my ideas on research so far are quite good and promising. It's such a relief to hear that. And a good bit of confidence bolstering.

Now if I can just get through a session of hoop-jumping coming up with Majesty, Loose-Goose, Pudding-Head and others. Astro, Mambo, Flash and I all have to jump the same firey hoops. I'm just more worried than they are. I think they did more this summer, have more concrete to show in this circus than I do. I copped out, I wussed, I ran, I got distracted, and didn't get enough concrete stuff done. I have great ideas, great readings and a direction for my own research...but not the concrete project I so hoped for, wanted to achieve. Because it was hard...too hard I think I determined...and I didn't feel I had the skills to do it justice. And I should've faced that down, but I took a more cowardly way out. And now I'm ashamed and scared.

I'm an ostrich. And sticking your head in the sand and hoping the trouble will blow over never works, no matter how often I do it. So why do I keep doing it? Why am I more afraid of rejection, of messing up, of some kind of failure...on smaller scales (becuase face it, if I had accepted the fear or the failure earlier it would still be small..not bigger like it always gets when you avoid it).

So the merry-go-round is back up and running and I'm trying not to get dizzy.