One semester down

Finally, my first semester as a PhD student is over! The final result: 3 A's and one B plus. The first B of my graduate career, I might add. Not that I'm surprised. In fact, I'm glad to have done that well! I won't get into details, but let's just say that the final exam (and the whole class) made me feel dumb, when I haven't felt dumb in years.. well, at least not in school. I spent hours and hours every weekend on this class and still screwed everything up! Now here's my attempt at deflecting responsibility: 1) the professor sucked, 2)the course moved way too fast through the latter half of the semester, where the material was the most challenging, 3) the class needed to be taught in a computer lab and wasn't except for a few times, 4)I was sick during the week when the new material was first presented and missed 2 classes, so I was at at disadvantage. So, as you can clearly see, it was not at all my fault that I didn't do well.

And now I am rewarded with a much-needed 4-week break; a break that is not so much refreshing as it is frustrating. It's just long enough that I can completely forget about school and and let all of information I jammed in my brain this semester seep out, but not nearly long enough that I get to the point of missing it. Rather, just when I'm starting to realize how much I enjoy NOT going to school, it is almost time to force myself to get back into my masochistic routine of sleeping and eating too little,driving too much, and eschewing all of the other demands in my life (e.g. house cleaning, personal hygiene, marital responsibilities, and income-generating work) for the sake of this one academic goal that somehow is supposed to be worth all the trouble. There is no turning back now. I'm going to do this. I'm just not always going to do it with a smile on my face.