At some point today I should find myself on campus.

A friend told me I needed to chronicle my experiences in graduate school.

I've been in Mississippi for a little over a month. I'm still weirded out by the fact that I'm a graduate student... It seems like - Well, honestly, I always knew I'd be here. It was kind of the end of my "life planning" that I had loosely laid out in my mind.
So it seems like I've almost made it. To what, though?
Adulthood? Holy crikey, that's scary. Wasn't my dad supposed to be here to help me get through grad school? Wasn't he supposed to advise me on how to manage my time, how to make 14 different variations on the mac n cheese theme? Every day it gets easier... and every day I miss him more. How can I not?

But grad school... This week is absolutely crazy. I guess we kind of brought it on ourselves by asking for a week off and changing around our schedule. We'd have only had class on Thursday since another professor was out of town and we didn't have our weekend seminar class until the following week. Still, the 3 papers, outline for a research paper, and the ever-present developing research proposal weigh heavily on me.

It's tiring. Why do we put ourselves through this? Oh, right - education. Bettering ourselves. Grad school says "Here, give me your soul for a year, two, maybe 6 and I'll give it back at the end and you'll be more educated and a better person. Doesn't that sound FUN!?"

What made me think it would be? I enjoy learning, don't get me wrong. I also enjoy reading for pleasure and taking naps, baking, cooking, going for slow, ambling bike rides in the cool of morning (if i convince myself to get up that early). Those things aren't hard. But then what benefit would it be to me? What sort of mental and emotional growth would i experience if I had stuck to the status quo?

This will pay off. And hey, at least it's free.