Blog Happy

So.

I'm done with my first semester of my second year of graduate school.  Technically, I'm 2/3 of the way there.  Actually, I still have four semesters to go.  Luckily, though, 2 of those will be spent working.  Not just a job, but the start of my career.  I am admittedly not as excited about that as I should be.  I think it's just that I can't realistically envision myself doing it.  I've been in school MY ENTIRE LIFE, and it's nearly impossible for me to imagine doing anything else.

For the first couple of weeks of my break, I've been trying to take it easy.  Not stress about anything, because I'm always stressing about something.  I've come to terms with it in the past, so it's not like it's a big deal anymore.  But since I have a break I figure I should use it.  After Christmas I plan to get a lot of things done--not necessarily important or remarkable things, just things I would like to do during school that I can't do, either because I don't have the time or because if I spend time doing them I would feel guilty about not doing school-related things.  That's a huge source of my stress, because I have these two equally logical voices in my head that tell me opposite things:  "You need to take a break.  If all you do is schoolwork, you're going to get burnt out." followed by "You've got deadlines coming up.  You need to get it done, and do it right.  This is your career!"  It's hard to listen to both and not be stressed out, so I just deal with it.  I stress and I get my stuff done and I make good grades (the best of my class) and I move forward.  It's exhausting, though.  I don't want to do it anymore.  I want to go to work, do something awesome all day, and then come home and not be at work.  I feel like when you're a student you're always at school.  That's all anyone ever talks to me about and that's all I ever think about.  With that said, however, still no one knows what I'm going to school for.  "School counselor?"  no.  "Oh, then...specialized school counselor?"  no!

It's just another one of those things that makes me feel unimportant.  I don't know that I want to feel "important" per se, because the people around me who seem important don't really impress me all that much.  I just always have this feeling that I don't belong--everywhere I go and everything I do I feel like I'm supposed to be somewhere else doing something else with other people.  It's so rare for me to be in a situation and think "Hmm.  This is working for me."  I don't know what it's all about--I've felt this way for as long as I can remember.  Maybe I just expect too much from my life.  I'm young.  Maybe I need to be patient and work hard to be who I want.  Maybe I feel like I've been working hard and it's time to see the payoff.  I really hope it's coming.  I really want to believe that when I'm on internship in 8 months that I'll be seeing a difference.  But even that seems unsure.  I'm scared all the time that I'm not doing enough with myself.  Like I might be settling for less than I'm capable of.  That I may have taken the easy way and missed out on something.  I guess I live life looking over my shoulder.  I work very hard to keep moving forward, and I think I've gotten the hang of that.  I just need more focus.  I need to focus on where I'm going.

I Wrote This The Other Day

If I could do all of the things I want to do, I would do things like get up early on Saturday mornings and hit up garage sales.  I would find such awesome things, I just know it.  But I would give myself a budget by only bringing -so- much cash with me and not even my debit card to go to an ATM if I saw something really cool.  Like I could have a jar by my front door where I put random change and sometimes dollars you know just whatever was in my pockets when I got home from being wherever.  Then I could use that money at the end of the month to spend on a garage sale shopping spree.  Also included in that could be trips to goodwill and maybe frozen yogurt/smoothies.

I want to know what I’m going to be doing with my life next year.  I want to know where I’ll be and if I’ll be happy.  I want to know what my options are.  I need to be able to sit down and think about those things and know the factors that will come into play so I can put the pieces together.  I don’t like depending on someone else for answers—I don’t want that to end up being what I do.  I also don’t want to provide answers for someone else.  I want to be able to do what I need to do and not feel bad about it.

If I could do all of the things I wanted to do, I would take lots of classes because I think the only way I would make myself do things is if I was getting a grade for them even if the grade didn’t matter for anything.  I would take classes on seamstressing (lol), pottery, drawing, painting (!), quiltmaking, crocheting, dancing, singing, playing guitar, playing piano, playing drums, more singing, more piano, both of them together if I could, and another one on costumemaking.  Maybe hatmaking, if that’s a class all by itself.  I want to know how to do things!  Like photography, how could I forget that one?!

Also I think maybe I would have more friends if I moved somewhere else.  If I were alone and forced to hang out in places that were unfamiliar I would basically have to make friends to survive.  And my survival instincts are pretty strong, for my age.