The balancing act

This semester is just flying by. I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last updated this blog. It felt like just yesterday I had uploaded my last entry. The weeks move at an unprecedented speed. Monday arrives and I wake up the next day to find that it’s Friday, and all of the deadlines for my big projects and papers have moved steadily closer. This semester is very different from all of the others so far. It’s true that each semester is different from the last, but this semester I feel like there is so much expected from me from my professors. I have so many papers and projects that all have deadlines that are way too close to the current date. I guess that just comes with being a senior. Although I feel busier this semester, I also feel more confident than I have in previous semesters. I believe this has to come from the experiences I’ve had over the past year, especially studying abroad. This semester is hard, but I feel like I’m dealing with the stress better.
Recently I’ve discovered what I’d like to do with my life, at least career wise. I want to get into economic policy analysis. I know that probably doesn’t sound too interesting to you, but I find it fascinating. I learned about this economic field this semester through my public policy class, and I’ve become more and more intrigued as the semester has gone on. It incorporates a lot of economic tools and theories that I’m familiar with, but it also allows for analysis on a more human, psychological level. I love economics and psychology and I’ve been looking for a way to combine them and I think this may just be the way to do that. I’ve been meeting with a career counselor to discuss my options for grad school and for getting a job. Considering what to do after my undergrad years is pretty intimidating and nerve wracking, but at the same time I’m excited at the prospect of moving to a new state and getting to know a new campus and town. Or, if I go the job route, I’d get to enter the work force and start building my career. I know at some point I’m going to get my Master’s degree, I’m just not sure if I want to take a year off and just work or try to get the degree while I work. Still figuring that out. But I’m excited at all of the future prospects, and that makes things easier.
My public policy class is not the only class that is changing the way I look at things. I’m also taking a high level German class that is focused on analyzing German literature, and although it’s above my level of comprehension, I still learn and engage in the class. The professor for that class is very understanding and is working to make sure that everyone in the class is getting something out of it, even though there is such a wide range of skill levels between all of us. Seriously…we have people in that class who have lived in Germany for a good part of their lives and are fluent in the language, and then you have people like me who can only keep up a casual conversation in German. I’m not only learning German in that class, but I’m also learning how to let go of my perfectionist side and let myself slide a little on the assignments, which, if you know me, is a big change. I’m starting to wonder, though, if I’ll ever use this language outside of academia. Maybe Spanish would be more useful. Maybe.
This semester I have a job on campus working in the undergraduate student services department in the business school. I’m the personal assistant to the study abroad coordinator for the business school, who is an awesome person and a blast to work with. There is a lot going on in that department, though, and it gets pretty hectic at times. But I love working there, and I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to work on campus. It gives me a chance to take my mind off all of the homework and projects I have and just focus on other things for a few hours.
During this fall I made it my goal to try and balance my academic and social lives better. In the past I’ve felt like I put my social life second to my academic life, and that lead to me staying in on some weekends and just working on assignments, or not enjoying a night with friends unless I had accomplished a certain amount of work. But this semester I’ve been forcing myself to take breaks, both on the weekends and during the weekdays, and the world hasn’t ended…so far. I feel better about myself when I know that I have the chance to hang out with friends and just chill once in a while. One thing I have taken away from this whole college experience thing is that life will always be a balancing act. Try as you might, you can’t be everywhere at once, so you have to make decisions about how much time to spend doing something, or which friend to hang out with and when. Sometimes you’ll accidentally piss somebody off because they feel like you’re slighting them, or you won’t be able to finish a project as soon as you’d like. But you have to try to maintain a balance or else you’ll just teeter and fall. So far I’m working the balancing act, although the dark clouds surrounding all of my projects that are due next month are threatening to change that.

Just gotta hang in there ‘til Thanksgiving break. A month and five days to go.

Taking a step back

Every once in a while I hit a point where I'm forced to reflect on where I am right in the moment. This point came to me recently, as I've been working through a head cold for the past couple of days. The other day I was feeling too tired to do anything, but then my thoughts went to the homework I could be doing and the time that I'd waste by not at least trying to do something. I'm one of those people who tries to do every assignment in every class as best as I possibly can. And that's where my point of reflection hit me: I realized how draining that is, and not just because I was sick. I want to do well in my classes, but does that mean I have to make an A in each of them? What if that's not possible? What if I feel like I need to put more time into one of my economics classes and less time into, say, my German class? I'm still dealing with this conviction that if I don't get A's in my classes it means I didn't work hard enough. I'm trying to change that, trying to change how I feel about grades and GPA's and things of that nature. Grades are just a number that is assigned to your work based on how well you did at one point in time. That time could have been confounded by any number of variables...but that's not taken into account. They don't consider whether you had a really tough semester and just couldn't put in as much study time into a certain final exam. They don't consider the fact that some people just aren't good test takers. You get a grade, and that's that. I'd like to change the way I look at my own grades and the the feelings of self worth that I tie into them. It's hard to, though, when so many things depend on how well you do in college. Scholarships, internships, jobs. I don't want to focus on school so much that I don't give enough time to my friends and other people I hold dear. Maybe I'm blowing this a little out of proportion, but it's still something that I'd like to change.
Yeah, so....that's all for now.

I have finally found the time to write on this blog. Senior year is only two weeks old and it's already keeping me extremely busy. I've been wanting to write for weeks now and just haven't had the time. So...

I've decided that my posts don't always have to be these really thought out entries that I meditate on for a while before I write them. I just don't have the time for that anymore. Now if I feel like I need to post something I'm just going to post it...however it comes out. I figure that's the only way it'll get done.

The ending to this summer was semisweet. In August I went on a great trip to the mountains with my sweetheart, and also traveled to Charleston, SC with my best friend. Then at the end of August my great grandmother passed away. This was the first time that a death in the family had taken someone close to me, and it has taken me a while to deal with that. My family and I traveled up to Ohio for a few days to visit family and attend the funeral, and then the day after we got back I moved into my apartment at UNCG. It's been a crazy two weeks since then, but I'm feeling on top of my game...for now. My class syllabi are predicting a good many papers and projects in my future, and I'm wondering how I'm going to handle those when I feel like I'm thoroughly spent at the end of each day already. But hey, that's what college is all about, right? Completing a tremendous amount of work in a limited amount of time.

My psychology classes have been getting interesting as of late. The two that I took over the summer, plus the one that I'm taking now, are helping me to see how many things influence the actions of people and how people respond to certain situations. This is causing me to re-evaluate how I interact with people and what I think of someone that I don't know that well. I'm trying to apply the things that I learn in the classroom to my everyday life, and I think this is a good way to do that.

Enter: Week 3.

Moving at the speed of life

Life has been moving pretty fast since I got back from school. After finishing my classes I went to Ohio to visit my great grandmother, who isn’t doing too well at the moment. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her, and it felt good to spend some time with her and help her day pass by quicker. I’m sure it gets pretty boring being cooped up in a hospital for weeks at a time. But I know that’s where she needs to be right now. I love my great grandmother, and my other grandmothers and other extended family, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that there is a lot about these people that I don’t know. Many aspects of their lives are unknown to me. I guess that’s just how it goes with extended family, though. We aren’t around them all of the time, so we can’t keep up with everything that they are doing. But I’m starting to feel that disconnect more and more with my own family. I’ve been living away from home for over a year now and every time that I come home I feel a little more like a stranger. But it’s a disconnect that lends itself to growth and development. Since all of us now have our own lives to attend to it’s hard to keep track of everyone. My three youngest siblings are growing up so fast, and pretty soon will have to start considering college options for themselves. I’m excited to watch them and see what they become and what they accomplish. My next two younger brothers are very set in their own lives, so much so that I can’t seem to keep tabs on either of them, especially the younger one. He’s so busy now. It’s even hard to have a phone conversation with him. But we do talk when we get the chance, and he seems to be doing quite well for himself, what with all of the plays and commercials and films he’s in. Everyone is busy, moving at the speed of life. I guess that’s just it: life moves pretty fast for everyone, and we’re all trying to keep up with each other. I’m not saying that this disconnect is a bad thing. I realize that this is something that everyone goes through when you move away from home. It has to happen. There are just times when I stand back and reflect on how far we’ve come.

Another issue that I’ve been dealing with that adds to the whole “speed of life” thing is that I am now starting to really dig into the world of graduate schools. I’m entering into my senior year at UNCG, and have to start seriously considering what I’m going to do after my undergrad years are over. I have to say…it’s quite overwhelming. Not only do I have to pick which school I want to go to and when I’m going to take the GRE, but looking at different graduate schools is also making me consider again what it is I really want to do with my life. For right now, I want to try and pursue a career in experimental economics. Not sure how that’s going to go, but I’d like to give it a try. So I’ve been looking around for graduate programs with courses in econometrics and mathematics that will apply to the field of economics. There are a lot out there, and they all have their selling points. It’s another one of those times in life where you have multiple paths in front of you and you have to just choose one and hope that it turns out for the best. Of course, it’s not like I’m signing myself into a contract, but I would really like to make sure that my first choice is the best choice. Maybe I shouldn’t be so focused on that. Not sure.

I’m also going to start looking into the job market soon and see what exactly is out there for a student fresh out of undergrad school with a degree in economics. It might turn out that I’ll spend some time in the work force before I go to graduate school…but with this economy I’m not too sure. A lot of students that I talk to are feeling like they should just stay in school for a while, put off paying their loans, get their master’s degrees, and hopefully the economy will have changed enough to get a decent job. So many options…but I’ve got some time. I’m not totally overwhelmed by all of this stuff. I mean, when I step back and look at the big picture, this is really exciting. I’m moving forward, reaching for the things that I really want. As long as I remember take a step back and see that all of these options and all of these decisions are going to leading me forward, I’ll be ok.

Dragonflies

So I have about four days left to this summer semester. I don’t have much to do now; most of my time I spend studying, reading or surfing the internet. When I do feel like going outside into the Carolina heat, I’ve taken to walking down to my favorite place on campus: the small koi pond outside of the music building.

Although it was probably 100 degrees outside today, I walked down to the pond and sat on one of the rock slabs that surround it. There was a lot of activity going on above the pond. About six dragonflies were hovering and diving above the surface of the water. I love dragonflies; I think they are one of the coolest insects, so I was really enjoying this chance to see them so close. The dragonflies were chasing each other all around the little pond, never straying too far from it. After a while I noticed that there was a little turf war going on over the water. One dragonfly, the largest of the bunch (I call him Boss), was chasing out all of the other dragonflies that attempted to land on any of the lily pads that were growing in the pond. Boss would chase them to the edge of the pond and then turn around and land on a pad and wait for them to return. It was a lot of fun to watch, but I noticed that Boss wasn’t making any progress against the other dragonflies. He’d chase them out and they’d come right back in, not a second later. This had been going on for a while now and I couldn’t figure out what compelled Boss to defend his pond so viciously. He was very small fly and, comparatively, this was a very big pond. It seemed a little pointless. I moved myself right to the edge of the pond without disturbing the mini dogfights going on, and extended my hand out over the water. After a minute one of the other dragonflies landed on one of my fingers and sat there catching her breath. Boss flew by and didn’t seem to pay attention to her. She flew off for a second and then came right back. Boss didn’t seem to notice her when she was on my finger, even though she was still over his pond, and I think she caught on to that fact. I was able to get a good look at her as she sat on my hand. Dragonflies are beautiful creatures when you get to see them up close. She stayed on my hand for quite a while, both of us silently watching Boss’s losing battle. She probably was sitting there thinking about how pointless it all was, fighting over the koi pond. Well, probably not, but I like to think she was. After a while Boss did notice her and flew right up in front of her, his large insect eyes probably a centimeter away from hers. She didn’t even flinch. She just stared at him, daring him to do something. This seemed to tick him off, and he flew up alongside her and rammed his wings into hers. And just like that, my dragonfly was pulled back into the fray. I left shortly after that, the heat getting to be a little too much. But I’d have to say that was the highlight of my day, watching those dragonflies.

This story has no moral to it. I’m not going to end this post with a line like “Some days I feel like a dragonfly fighting over a koi pond,” or something like that. There are just times when you’re observing nature and you get to see something you normally don’t get to see every day. So I thought I’d write about it.

I’m going to head back there tomorrow. See how Boss is getting on.