Midnight musings

Maybe I'll take a Unisom tonight. I'm really exhausted, but I'm not sure how well I'll sleep...aside from last night, the past several nights' sleep has been a bit tumultuous and hard to come by. It might be too late for a Unisom now that I think of it. I'll hope for a good, regular sleep though.

These next few days are going to be hard. These past few weeks have been hard. I feel worn out, dragged down, threadbare. I'm trying so hard to push through; I know it's only a little while longer. Robert reminds me that every time I complain of how tired I am. But that doesn't stop me from being tired. I'm just tired. Maybe I won't agree to teach a 5-week minimester again...this is ridiculous. Well, especially since the course I'm teaching is World Lit. II, so the material is nearly foreign to me. I walk into the classroom feigning confidence and competence; and, when my students ask me questions, every day I feel a slight panic in my heart: am I misleading them? do I say "I don't know" again? when will this come back to haunt me? This process exhausts me.

It's true that students respect a teacher who is honest with them. There is such a thing as too much honesty, however. There is such a thing as self-incrimination in the classroom. There are times when a teacher should be honest with her students and tell them, "You know...the details of eighteenth-century Shinto beliefs is an area in which I am sorely lacking." (A fancy "I don't know.") But then there are other times when the students are surely tired of hearing "I don't know" from their teacher. What does she know? When is she going to instruct? The potential of those questions causes my resolve to quake.

Tonight, while hanging out with a few of my grad school girl friends and a couple new faces, I was informed that there is a prerequisite hoop I have to jump through before I can jump through the hoop of my preliminary examinations. Not only that, but this prerequisite hoop must be completed a semester in advance of the exams. The good news is that I found out now--my exams will be in January/February, so I haven't missed the deadline. The bad news is that now my fears are elevated: what other preliminary hoops have I ignored? I'm too tired tonight to deal with it...and I'm afraid of the memory loss that plagued me all last semester (medically-induced, though it was). I'm afraid of residual memory loss, I suppose. I don't want to forget these prerequisites. I don't want to postpone my PhD because of a formality--a misplaced justification, an unwritten prospectus, an incomplete form.

I'm tired all the time now. I hardly have enough energy to keep ahead of my own class--I'm reading the homework I myself assigned at midnight the night before it's due. Maybe my priorities are out of whack. I look to my right and see a table overburdened by books...and only 2/3 of the total requisite books. I have hardly made a dent. When I mentioned this to my fellow PhD third-years tonight, they balked and said in a chorus, "You haven't really started reading yet?? We're worried! What are you going to do??" I don't know. Keep reading? Start reading more diligently? Hole myself up in my apartment until January with only a book light to keep me company?

And these are not where my priorities are!

And I don't want to refocus my priorities...I don't want to be the one-dimensional graduate student any more. I want to think about and see my fiancé. I want to think about my wedding. I want to see my family. I want to study for my exams at a leisurely pace.

Why didn't I take time off between academic levels at least once? (This is not to say that I'm ungrateful for my path...if I had taken time off, I might not have met Robert. In my non-academic life, I jealously guard my decisions because they were right. In my academic life...I'm exhausted and have nothing to add. I want to recharge. I want time off. I want to sleep weeks and weeks away until I feel refreshed again.)

Here is why I'm exhausted: the push and pull of my decisions keep my mind whirring.

I know. The decisions I made are the ones I made. There is no repeating the past and undoing it. That's true. I wouldn't want to undo it. Making the opposite decisions (taking a year off between my Master's and PhD, for example) would not have led me here...and I couldn't be made any happier where I am. I'm just tired of being a student. I want to start my life. I want to start my career, my marriage, my family. Maybe I'm restless...and exhausted...it's a vicious cycle.

I'll be fine, I know.