Graduate school for dummies

I started back at school on the 23rd and am now missing my six-week winter break like deserts miss the rain. Sure, I spent most of that time piecing together the most beautiful (read: looks like a six-year-old completed it – in crayon) fellowship application ever, which really means that I spent six weeks agonizing over the essays, the reference letters, and the biographical data, slowly working my blood pressure up to a boiling point. Oh yeah, and that ulcer I’m working on, it’s coming out GREAT.

I have three classes this semester, which should really help my stress levels. I’m at work from M-F, 6:30AM-3:30PM, and then I have classes on Mondays (Ethics), Wednesdays (Program Evaluation) and Thursdays (Intro to Public Admin) until 10PM. My professors this semester seem to have no indication that people actually work outside of the classroom, so they have each assigned a year’s worth of reading for each day of class. I have been reading like crazy and still haven’t caught up – and it’s only the second week of class!

Let me give you an example, so you know that it’s not just me, whining, moaning, and generally complaining my way through the week. For my Intro to Public Administration class last night, I was supposed to read about eight different academic “essays” (which we all know means that each one is twenty to thirty pages long), along with the first chapter in our case studies book. Let’s be generous and guesstimate that I only had to read 200 pages of text. This is on top of the estimated 200 pages of text that I had for each of the other two classes, which somehow must be fit into my Tuesday or Friday evening or the weekend, and must jockey for position with feeding and walking the kids, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, banking…you get the idea. And then Anthony wonders why I am so crazy during the semester. Maybe, sir, it’s because you left your dirty socks on the couch again, which you know gets my undies all in a tizzy. Grumble, grumble.

For a moment there, I thought I was developing an ally in Anthony. After New Year’s, he began his six months of Spanish language training. He spends five hours each day attempting to speak a foreign language and then has to spend a whopping twenty minutes at home completing workbook assignments. After about ten and a half seconds, he develops a headache, announces his need for a break, and then runs to the fridge to grab a beer. He proclaims his misery for at least a half hour to an hour each day and then starts the process all over again in the morning. I thought that because of these experiences, he would be more understanding of my plight.

Not so. He seems to think every night is a good night to participate in happy hour, or go to a movie, or just slack off in general – as if he just forgot that I attend graduate school and am a slave to the man. It’s almost as if he is enjoying the look of pain on my face as he dangles yet another tantalizing idea for playing hookey in front of my eyes (come on, let’s face it – even scrubbing the toilet with my toothbrush and then brushing my teeth with it is a more tantalizing idea than reading yet another public administration textbook).

Yet there is good news to counter the fact that Anthony keeps forgetting that I’m in graduate school (and ergo have no life). Earlier this week, I received a letter from the Director of my program, inviting me to join my program’s honor society, Pi Alpha Alpha. So at least my hard work is paying off in that arena – I will be inducted in April! Can I get a woot-woot?

In other news, Anthony and I are hosting a dinner party this weekend with six of our closest friends. It’ll be a collection of Jews and vegetarians so the dinner menu will be limited, but I think I’ve come up with a good compromise. I’ll try to get online again sometime and tell you how everything turns out. But no promises.

I’m also supposed to attend an MPA happy hour tonight, but I’m not sure I’ll make it. After a full week of reading til late, attending class til late, and stressing out over both, I may want to get some grocery shopping done this evening and then get started on my homework instead of kicking back with a beer and twelve of my classmates. Anyway, my friend who organizes these events just came down with a wicked cold and may not be a) there, or b) a whole lot of fun to hang out with.

We’ll see.