My Life List - Revisited

Today was a bad day. All around. By the end of the day I couldn't even summon the energy to keep the badness off of my face or out of my voice.

It was just bad.

Today I had dressed up for a presentation that I didn't even end up having to give. That may sound like a good thing, but A) I'm not big on dressing up, and B) I now have to give a presentation during finals week that I thought would be done and out of the way.

Today I furiously scribbled notes in a class that I'm learning a lot in but barely passing, and then fought to stay awake in a class that I'm passing while learning nothing. Then I had to sit through two and a half hours of useless meetings meant to bestow upon us a wealth of information, all of which could have been summed up nicely in a short email. No time for lunch. Low blood sugar. Then I went to the class I'm being forced to take (bringing my course load for the first quarter of grad school to a whopping 26 credits), but that I'm not actually getting credit for, but that I still have to pass even though technically I'm not even allowed to be taking it (makes about as much sense as it sounds like it makes). It's a waste of time, and time is a precious commodity in grad school, especially the week before finals. To make matter worse, the "teacher" handed back a homework assignment -- and I got a 50%. A 50% -- in a class I have to pass, but that doesn't count. A 50% in a class that is all review for me. A 50% in a class designed to teach undergrads how to get into an SLP graduate program (something I must know how to do since I'm in a graduate SLP program). A 50% on a stupid homework assignment that, admittedly, I did at the last minute because I had forgotten about it as a result of the 21 credits that I'm actually required to take and that DO count. I turned that assignment in the same day that I got a 93% on a neurology quiz -- neurology being the class I'm barely passing. Let me think -- where should my priorities be -- on a homework assignment for a class that doesn't count, or on a quiz that my entire academic career is riding on. Hmmmm. That's a thinker!

And then I started to cry. I had been doing so well. I had talked myself into staying in the program. Into thinking about the PhD. Into making the best of a bad situation. And then today happened. And I just started to cry. And... I... couldn't... stop.

It was one of those situations where there's no point in even trying to hide it. It wasn't as horribly humiliating as it might sound. I was in the back of the room, and I kept it pretty quiet, though a few people certainly noticed. But whatever. I didn't care. I was just overwhelmed. Here I am, trying as hard as I can to get by in a program that seems to want me to fail -- persevering against the odds, blah, blah, blah... and I get handed a 50% on a meaningless homework assignment in a useless class that doesn't even count. And I lose it.

Then someone asked me about my tattoo. Every now and then I wear a shirt that proudly shows off my tattoo, yet rarely does someone ask me what it means. It's simply a boy's name and then the words "forever young" - maybe people don't ask because they assume since it's a boy's name that it's probably an ex, and I'd probably rather not talk about it. But I like it when people ask me about it. Because it gives me a chance to tell them about Cameron.

My cousin Cameron was a great kid. He was killed in a car accident in January at the age of 16. He is terribly missed, but he lives on in his friends and family (many, many friends -- more than anyone I've ever known).

Cameron always manages to bring me back around. Not long after he died, I made a life list for myself, and for a few months, I really did live by it. I looked at it all the time, and I did my best to honor it, and in honoring the list, honoring Cameron.

Things Cam Taught Me about Life and Love
Cameron lived and loved. Let him be an example.
Be there for the people you love.
Embrace the challenges.
If someone you love is in need, try to help them find what's missing.
Ask yourself what you’ve done to keep yourself alive or prolong your life today.
Fight your fears.
Work hard.
Play hard.
Call a friend.
Send your grandparents a card.
Tell your parents you love them.
Find the things that feed your soul.
Be open to love.
Let the good things come.
Give as good as you get.
Stop waiting for your real life to begin.
Never put your life on hold for anything.
Embrace your inner fool.
Let your freak flag fly.

I can't even tell you the last time I looked at this list. How sad that I could let something so important to me slip to the back of my mind. I look at it today, and I see that I'm still managing to honor some of the things on the list. Like fighting my fears and working hard. But the rest of it -- I'm in grad school! Come on! I don't have time to be open to love! I don't have time to find things that feed my soul (I was naive enough to think that being in grad school would feed my soul, but I was wrong about that). I'm certainly not playing hard. Or at all. I don't know the last time I sent my grandparents a card or told my parents that I loved them.

But here is the real question that this list makes me ask. Am I still waiting for my real life to begin? That's what grad school was supposed to solve -- it was supposed to be that step that got me moving, propelled me down a road that was worth taking. Yet here I am, fighting every day to stay sane in a thankless program that spends more time demoralizing than educating.

So how do I make this right? Do I quit? Do I try another program? Do I scratch the whole grad school thing and do something else? If so, what?

I guess it's a lot to ask to have gut feelings you can trust the week before finals, but I'm hoping I tune into my intuition, but quick. Because if leaping is the thing to do, the time to do it is now.

At any rate, I'm happy someone finally asked me about my lovely tattoo. After all, if I didn't want to talk about it, I wouldn't have had it tattooed on my skin!

Challenges

I'm into being challenged. Really. I live for it. Otherwise I never would have moved to New York to become a big Broadway star.

Joanna, the successful singer/actress

Otherwise I never would have spent a month at sea, facing my fear of the ocean and chronic motion sickness at the same time.

OK, that's not me diving off of Alvin into the deep blue sea, but I did take the picture!

Otherwise I never would have run a marathon (with a broken foot, thank you very much).

smiling through the pain...

...the next day

But the end has to justify the means. And so far, that's just not happening here. If one more person tells me that this two years of my life is just going to be a blip on the radar, I'm going to lose it. I don't know about you guys, but in my opinion, life is too short to allow any part of it to be just a blip on the radar. I don't want my life to be a blip. I want it to be extraordinary and amazing and spectacular.

I know that most of the time my life won't be any of those things. It won't often be extraordinary or amazing or spectacular. But I won't sign up to have it become a blip. I won't choose that. I just won't.

So raspberries to you blippers. I'm having none of it.

So why don't I just leave?

I don't actually know.

Is it because I'm not a quitter?

No. I've quit lots of things. I've quit lots of jobs that I hated. I quit hating myself a few years back. And in the 3rd grade I quit Eric Frisch (or maybe he quit me. Can't remember for sure). It's not about being a quitter.

Is it because I have a glimmer of hope that it's going to get better?

No. Not really. I've been around long enough to know that things don't often change, and when they do, especially in this kind of situation, it happens very... very... very slowly. Maybe around the time I graduate things in the SLP department will have improved.

OK, so it's not about the quitting or about things improving. Then what?

Honestly, I'm not quite sure. It does have to do with hope though, I guess, though I don't think it's hope that anything in the program will change. I guess I'm just hopeful that this path -- this incredible journey that brought me this far -- is still the right one. And this might sound kind of lame, but I guess maybe it's not wrong enough yet to give up on it.

Or maybe it's as simple as liking Columbus and loving my apartment. And liking some of the people I have class with (except the cheaters -- I don't like, nor do I have time for, the idiots who cheated).

Or maybe it's just that at the moment I don't have a good solid plan B. I have lots of plan Bs, just none that are great. And all are expensive and difficult.

But here's what it's going to come down to: money. If I do end up leaving, it'll be out of necessity. It'll be because of money. This program that I don't like, I'm not learning from, and I'm failing, is costing me over $20,000 a year.

Aye, there's the rub.

God, when I think about that it seems like it's crystal clear. Get the hell out! But to where and to do what? I just don't know.

And until I know, I'm not taking any leaps. For once in my life I'm going to wait and see. Yes, it means continuing to be bogged down with neurology reading and studying, and yes, it means learning about little else, and yes, it means being unbelievably broke for a little longer. But until I know what my next move is, I'm not going anywhere.

But here is what I will do. I will stop being miserable. I will stop forcing myself to study non-stop. If it's not going to do me any good (as the 57% I got on my neuro midterm proved), then why should I? I'm going to run, I'm going to do yoga, I'm going to turn on music and sing and dance, I'm going to dust off my guitar and learn a few new songs, I'm going to eat good food and enjoy the company of nice people, I'm going to watch reruns of Arrested Development and laugh until I can barely breathe, I'm going to watch movies that make me cry, I'm going to go out on a few dates and maybe do some things I won't mention since my parents read this.

On Halloween -- a really bad day for all the first year SLP students because of a cheating fiasco among other things -- I took the time to look pretty for a change. Dressed up a little. Made an effort. Enough that people noticed and asked me why I was dressed up. I told them my Halloween costume was a happy woman enjoying her life.

'nuf said.