Treading Water

When I was really young, my parents took me on a nature hike, and while they were (I assume) birdwatching, I filled my pockets with rocks.  And then I managed to fall into a pond.  I was treading water, saying "help me, help me" until they noticed and pulled me out.  This is how my parents found out that I could swim...

Two weeks into grad school, as a full-time student (which means I take 3 classes which each meet once per week) who is not new to the city, who is not working at all, and who has ready and willing childcare, I am already feeling completely overwhelmed.  This time, though, I'm expected to know how to not only tread water, but do the 400 IM.

Unlike most of my "cohort" as they call your class, I did not graduate from college recently.  The last time I wrote anything in APA style or even thought about (never mind worked with) statistics was over 10 years ago.  That's a decade.  That's a long time.

I expected to have a rough time with Stats.  After all, in college, my lab partner and I may have been referred to as "team idiot" by our TA.  I partly blame our professor (no joke - he only lasted a year, and it was very common for him to be apologizing for giving us the wrong information), but Stats is just not my strong suit.  I love the idea of stats - using formulas to support or refute hypotheses - how cool is that?  And when I read my text book (which was written by a Brit, which means that in my head I have to read it in a British accent, which makes the reading take about twice as long, but also twice as entertaining...) it all seems to make some sense.  In class, it makes sense, more or less.  And then I get home and try to actually do my homework and my head basically explodes.

So that sucks, but I expected it to suck.

However, I kind of had this expectation that I would be somewhat of a star pupil in my other classes.  One is a professional development seminar and the other is Organizational Behavior, which is what I find so interesting about Industrial/Organizational Psychology.  I figured my passion for the material would help me turn back into the girl who could easily speed-read and synthesize material, who could bang out a kick-ass paper at the last minute (but who would be doing said banging well in advance of deadlines), and whose somewhat photogenic memory would reappear to assist with some of the Stats work...

This week I have received a serious Reality Check.

First, my presentation group for my OB class thought we were presenting on the 17th...but we're presenting on Monday.  So I have spent hours scouring the frustrating e-library system for articles and attempting to use PowerPoint for basically the first time (I know, I know...)  Meanwhile, my teammates, with whom I will share a grade, may not have even read the chapter we're presenting on yet.

Next, I handed in a Stats assignment without thinking about APA style formatting.  And the formatting is just the tip of the iceberg...

And on top of that, my Big Research Paper topic for my seminar is due Wednesday.  So far I've circled about 10 broad subjects and have thought of zero problem statements.

But the worst part about all this is that I feel like I'm hardly spending any time at all with Max, and I've sort of put my grieving on hold.  I just don't have time to cry when there is a pile of case studies that I have to read.  And I can tell myself "I've learned my lesson and once I get past this presentation, I'm going to be diligent about getting my work done right away so I have time to spend with Max"... But the reality is that Maddy goes to therapy 3 times a week, and even when it's just 30 minutes of therapy, it takes almost 2 hours from when I start getting her geared up to when I take all the trappings of her degenerative myelopathy off of her.  And the reality is that as soon as I get past one big school project, the next will come.  And the reality is that the week after next my parents are out of town, and while I will have my MIL here, I'm not going to be able to do much in the way of school work during the day.  And the reality is...I am just going to have to get used to playing catch-up.

So here I am, at midnight on a Friday night, enjoying a glass of wine because I feel like I deserve it after turning in two homework assignments.  I still have another formal written homework assignment, two more informal ones, my presentation to finish, the paper topic, a quiz to take, and a boatload of reading.  I guess if there is one thing that I have learned over and over, it's that "things will get done because they HAVE TO."