Overwhelmed

I rarely have something clever or witty enough to take up a whole blog post.

I don't this time, either.

But I figured it was time that I let you guys know a little about what's going on in my life.

This semester I am taking 9 credits. For those of you who don't know, that is full time on the graduate level. Lucky for me, 3 of those credits are devoted to my research, and I don't have to go to class for them. So, basically, I'm taking 2 classes. One of them is TOTALLY FUN!! We basically analyze medical data using techniques suited for biological/medical data. The homework is more of a fun activity than a chore, and class time is always fun. My professor has a great sense of humor, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who thinks he's funny. But the point is, I love that class. The other class? Not so much. The professor is nice, but not very funny. The material is boring as poop. The homework is harder than wrestling a grizzly bear. And it's required for my major. Lame. Oh, did I mention the take-home midterm is estimated to take between 12 to 15 hours to complete? *Sigh* So much for my fall break. Needless to say, my classes take up a lot of my time.
Not to mention the research I'm supposed to be doing. It's a good thing I have a very motivated adviser, or I would never get a single thing done for this project. I'm having a hard time self-motivating myself to get anything done with it. I had a great time doing all of the exploratory analysis! But now that it's getting down to the nitty gritty? Yikes. Let's be honest. Who actually enjoys reading journal articles? And what about writing them? Not me. I guess it's an acquired taste. Kind of like drinking beer. At first it's gross and you want to spit it out. But as you drink more and more and taste different kinds you start to like it. Or so I hear. I've never actually tried that one. It just smells gross. Why would I want to ingest it? Just like journal papers. They just look gross and tiring. Why would I want to waste my time reading it (just so I can walk away feeling like I've been hit by a train)? There's still a few fun things to do with my research. But writing it all up into a big paper just seems so daunting. Also, this month is crunch time. My adviser is giving a presentation on my project and wants to have a paper submitted, or close to submission, before he goes to present on it. That way, people won't steal our ideas and beat us to the punch line. The stuff we're doing is pretty amazing. But sometimes I just feel like I'm in over my head with it. *Sigh* So much for October.

And that's just the classes I'm taking. Then there's the easy part of school: teaching. I teach two help labs for two classes. They are both very easy to teach and talk about since they are statistics classes, and I have been doing this stuff for 5 years. HOWEVER, along with teaching comes grading. And that can take forever. With two quizzes a week and a homework every other week for one class, and a homework every two or three weeks in the other class, I end up with a lot of grading to do. And not only do I have to do it, but it's boring. I used to help my friend, Laura, with grading her 5th graders homework. That was fun because they say funny things. But grading stat homework (as much as I love statistics) is not fun.
Then there's the other job. You would think that working one or two nights a week wouldn't be so bad, right? Well, that's wrong. It's so hard to be working at Domino's, driving around thinking "I could be doing my homework or research or grading right now" and then not be able to do any of it. Even when it's a slow night, I have to just stand inside and do nothing. HOW COMPLETELY UNPRODUCTIVE IS THAT?!! *Sigh* So much for date nights.

Despite how this post sounds, I am actually doing well. I was sick for a couple of weeks (which only stressed me out more) but I'm over that now. I don't cook. The house doesn't get cleaned very often. Sleep is often neglected. But we are alive and getting through school. And ONE DAY, we will have degrees to prove it. Which will lead to careers that we like, instead of delivering pizza.

Until next time, my friends.