Life is crazy chaotic, hectic, frantically fanatic and most days I don't bother doing my hair because I float in the middle of a spiraling vortex anyway. My first semester as a graduate student was a successful one despite the nights without sleep and the readings that sometimes weren't read. I had a 4.0 semester, but then, who pays attention to that anyway...?
Moving into the second semester it seems I have even less time, triple the reading but half the work (at least in the classroom). I can't seem to figure out the math here, but then math was never really my thing, and in the midst of all that, I find myself lacking motivation but full of desire and drive; again, the math doesn't appear to be correct. How do I illustrate this...ah, I know: on Monday (08 February 10) Dr. Dorothy Strickland came to UTSA and I attended her talk. There weren't as many people as I would have liked to have seen in the audience, and I took a seat in the middle, off to the right, out of the way but visible. I was by myself until my advisor/boss/professor came by to chat (she was also responsible for the talk so she was, in essence, taking a short break). Shortly after, a doctoral student that I've had class with came in and sat behind me, then my boss left and I felt a tap on my shoulder, I looked up and saw a former professor of mine as she moved past me to take the seat next to me. Not a minute later, two more professors entered, one whose class I am currently taking and one I have met due to a paper I'm working on, they too tapped me to say hello as they took seats next to the doctoral student behind me. Finally, towards the end of the talk, I turned back to look at someone commenting and noticed one other professor, whom I met due to my job, and we waved, inconspicuously, at each other. Once the talk was over and I shook hands with Dr. Strickland, I found myself chatting it up with the group of professors and realized that they have become my 'new friend base' since moving to San Antonio. There isn't anything wrong with this, I'm not out to make friends necessarily, but it did make me realize that I am finding a place here and with UTSA but I'm not sure that I'm finding my place; but then, where do I belong anyway...?
Don't get me wrong, its a wonderful feeling to be lumped in with a group of phenomenal faculty members, or to have them talk to you as if you're one of them; but as I try to measure my self-efficacy, moments like those make me question my strengths and weaknesses and leave me wondering, "do they see something that I don't?" I'm sure the pressures from my job play some part in that, not that I have a difficult job necessarily, I get to develop books for 1st-3rd graders in Malawi. BUT, it has challenged me in new ways because writing children's literature is not a genre I've ever written in or for before. I've always (well almost always) prided myself on my writing until now, now I question everything I write - work or class, it doesn't matter. I've never felt so unsure about what I write despite the fact that the feedback on anything I write is always positive -- what am I so afraid of? I am afraid of the moments when my professors think that I'm bored out of my mind because I already 'know all this stuff,' but that means that they have set the bar higher for me than I have set for myself, which means that I have to outperform my last performance which is good, I suppose, but sometimes it just leaves me wishing I had quit before I started. Except that I'm not a quitter so not even that statement is entirely true...and now do you begin to understand why I'm slowly going insane...? But then, who's to say what insanity is anyway...?
On top of school, I do feel as though I deserve the award for 'Most Self Indulgent' when it comes to maintaining relationships with my friends and family - talk about dropping off the face of the earth - I am sorry for disappearing my friends (if you still consider yourself one, or me at all). I will attempt to reconnect and reach out to those I've abandoned along my journey of self-re-discovery...I promise in 2010 to be more connected...or at least to try. And in love, well, that's another chapter all together. It's funny how human beings will believe all their life in one perspective but then when put to the test, if they love someone, they begin to reconsider what was once gosspel. I've always believed in working on a relationship when two people truely love each other, and though there are a great many questions that will need to be answered in order to know how to move toward a future together, whatever lies in the road, along this twisting path, I will accept because I have love, I know love and sometimes, you have to face a firing squad to feel love...but then, who really ducks for cover anyway...?
So, as I prepare for more chaos - conference in March, the hope of seeing beautiful faces in DFW in March, conference in April, consortium in April, and a homecoming in May, I will attempt to update more often so that people don't wonder if I died trying to navigate the winding, and disconnected roads of San Antonio, but then, who wonders that anyway...?
Until next time,
Courtney Chivon
