the first person who can tell me 900 words about the role of education in nation-building wins.
this is the task that i am faced with at this moment. i am 335 words in, mid-sentence, and totally tapped. it's moments like this that make me wonder, "is doctoral school hard?"
the answer to that, i've decided, is no. doctoral school is still not hard, in the sense that i get all my work done, produce the deliverables that are asked of me, and still have time to be bored and wish i had a television or some friends who would hang out with me. it's challenging, when i start to think about my own research and all the world changing i want to do. but that part is fun. this part, where i have to take classes about stuff i'm not interested in, is just frustrating.
it's like when you go to college and you have to sit in freshman chemistry. and you think - this is ridiculous. why am i here? when am i ever going to use this? but you suck it up and do it because you know that in the early stages of your academic life, you have to take a lot of classes that won't apply later just to help you gain a world-view. it's like that...except now i'm 24, and i've been in school for 19 years. further more, i'm in doctoral school, which should mean that i'm focusing on something in which i want to gain expertise. i feel like i spend about five hours a week doing that and the rest of the time drawing every animal i can possibly think of in my notebook, until i run out of animals. and then all of a sudden i have to write 900 words on the exact stuff i couldn't physically bring myself to pay attention to, then do that four more times. then do finals. repeat times however many classes i'm taking, minus one (environmental ed).
this is frustrating also because everyone else seems totally into it. and then i look like a huge negative nancy for not being on board. which i don't think really makes people want to hang out with me. but i can't help it!! there are 30 people in my environmental education class, yet i am the only person from the school of education. how is that a thing? there's not a single other person in my school of 300 people who's interested in the environment? and yet i am required by the school of education to take three quarters of educational theory where informal education is mentioned in *maybe* three classes in the entire year, and the environment is mentioned exactly zero times?
lucky for me, my advisor continues to be great and i'm holding on for dear life to this beacon of hope that next quarter will be a game-changer. and i can spend lots of time now day-dreaming about summer in portland, although there's this little part of me that will stay worried until i sign a piece of paper (as opposed to verbally saying, "i accept!" which i have done).
in other news, i've decided to train for a half marathon. this is not a joke.
No comments:
Post a Comment