This one's optimistic

There was a time when I was preparing to go to grad school and I was so excited about everything that meant. It meant a new place, new faces, and a new life. I was talking to one of my professors about what lay ahead and she said a few things that didn't make sense until now. The first one being "check out the environment before you go." She told me she might have made a different choice if she had known what it would really be like for her to go to school in San Diego, implying that she didn't like the weather and surrounding city life. This makes sense coming from her, as she spent one Christmas break in a snow shoe race in Norway. Oops.

However, that isn't the point of this blog post. To be honest, I'm actually kind of getting used to the weather here. The other day, the morning came and brought several clouds and much drizzle and I thought to myself "it's a beautiful Seattle morning!" So either I'm acclimating or slowly going insane.

No, the second thing she said is what really prompted this post. I asked her how she had a social life while she was in school. She laughed in my face. "And what makes you think I had a social life in grad school?" That one makes sense to me now, too. In popular media, grad students are always shown as hurried, disheveled people constantly talking about the reading that they have to do and I always just sort of figured that was a weird Hollywood-ism, kind of like the enhance button on cop shows. Sure, it exists, but it can't really exist the way it's portrayed. Oops. As of this writing, I have looked one person in the face while talking to them in the last 48 hours, and that was my landlord. Every moment besides that has been in my room, either on my computer doing stuff for work (how people successfully navigate work and grad school is beyond me, I'm barely staying on top of it) or sitting on my bed reading about either existential phenomenology or an overview of Freud (which thankfully I don't have to read anymore since I finished it last night). In fact, that's what I should be doing right now. It's just that the thought of reading one more thing right now makes me want to turn off. Not cry, not scream, just sort of turn off. Maybe short circuit would be a better word.

It seems my life is fast becoming an isolationistic fantasy island retreat. People exist on the phone but nowhere else. Once a day, I have the privilege of talking to my amazing, beautiful, fantastic, wonderful fiance (ps, I'm getting married, but since I don't have the ring yet [it's being made, should have it next week], we aren't shouting it from the rooftops just yet) who keeps me sane. I feel bad sometimes because I think I might be putting a little too much on her. Especially today, when I was so mind fried that I didn't know how to string words together, but I was so desperate for human contact that we still ended up talking for about an hour. For that one hour a day, the world is made of pink fluffy shoes, but after that, it's back to the bed to read more. It gets quite maddening.

Anyway. Enough of this frankly pathetic pity party. I have a fat stack of books to read and a test due on Tuesday. Cheers.

ps - I was recently called to be in my Elders' quorum presidency. As such, I've been tasked with occasionally updating the blog. It's the one that says U1 EQ Blog. My specific responsibility will be the music post of the week. I just posted my first ever posting. I might actually copy a few from here and post them there as well. Happy reading!