Graduate School: Anxiety Attacks and Ulcers...
The strange thing about stress, lately, is that it seems to come from seemingly "invisible" sources. I have some exams and some papers and some deep feeling of academic inadequacy, but this is physically and seriously affecting me lately. This morning I woke up around 4am, having this McElwee-inspired monologues with myself, and around 5am I just decided to throw in the towel and get up, have some coffee, and think about Jonas Mekas. I made my way through the biting cold, some 6 cups of coffee (according to the coffee maker's measuring stick) later... arrived in the office and am trying to prepare myself for the last day of CA 100.
It was a really good semester and I think all week my classes have shared in my bittersweet relief of having the class end and break to begin, but knowing that we've had a nice run, and we've bonded. Therefore, my plan is to dope them up on a sugar high, get them to sing Kum-by-ya, and then right some kick ass teaching evaluations. So it's sad to see my first group of students move onto brighter things - I should think back on this day fondly when I am very jaded about teaching and students in general.
In unrelated news - I was a very grumpy camper yesterday. After re-arranging and re-tweaking my schedule time and time again, I realized that it just doesn't work - there is one possibility to take the three classes I had planned to take and that involves taking my production lab at 8am - the only thing I like less than film production is getting up early... I still haven't finalized my schedule... what a mess, I was so stressed out yesterday...
posted by lmjasinski at 9:05 AM
