Blogging Again!

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am with the Livejournal Crossposting plugin I’ve been using – as WordPress gets easier to use, Livejournal continues to pale in comparison. Besides, it feels weird having an official ‘blog’ on the intraweb but only using it sparingly. See how pretty it is?

So where have I been the past, oh, three months? You might say I’ve been alternately bored, animated, irritated, and happy. In other words, life has been going on as usual.

You probably already know this via my twitter content, but I was taking classes this summer because of the brilliancy of certain people at my college who never scheduled prerequisite courses before the requisite ones (please tell me you heard the sarcasm dripping from those words). I can’t understand it, honestly. I get that my college was originally intended for part-time students who are also working, but even they need to take courses sequentially, don’t they? My innate niceness (yes, it’s in there somewhere) prevents me from really telling you what I think and how annoyed I am with my school, but I think you can tell already. Let’s just put it this way: yes, I am counting down how many more days (277, to be exact) I have until graduation.

To add to the insanity of trying to learn 4 months’ worth of Master’s material in 7 weeks, I had to deal with a professor who had a severe inferiority complex and another that struggled mightily with the English language. To be fair, the English-challenged prof was far nicer and helpful than the other. I wonder why.

And so here I am, waiting two more weeks until the fall semester begins, and all I keep wondering is: was it worth it?

For all the complaining I do about this school, yes, it is worth it. I feel like a complete person now. Epidemiology is connecting parts of me that engineering failed to do, and I’m really enjoying it. When I can stop myself from procrastinating, I’m learning and enjoying learning. This is probably one of the few times of my life when I’m too busy to think AND the happiest. Everyday is a challenge that I’m willing to accept, no matter how cliche it sounds.

Probably the most obviously proof of this change is how I’m relating to my parents. They’re far more willing to talk to me and open up to me these days. We feel more like a family unit than I thought possible, and considering where I’m coming from in my relationship with them, that’s saying a lot.

Not everything is perfect, however. I’m still stuck in this limbo between now and graduation where I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m thinking of applying to Ph.D. programs, but the fact that I’m 26 puts me at prime marriage age (if not a little older than I ‘should be’) and that’s making the future very murky. Up until now my life has been pretty predictable (school, work, home, etc.) but these days I actually can’t predict what will happen more than a week in advance.

It’s driving me crazy! I’ve never liked living my life according to other people’s whims, and now that I actually have goals I want to accomplish in a short period of time (ie, getting my Ph.D. before I’m 31), the fact that those goals might be put on hold or pushed back a bit irritates me more than it should.

Why is this the year that everything is happening (or not happening, from what it seems)?!