First Day of Class...Epic Fail!!

So yeah.... I was very excited for my first class. It's on a topic that I'm personally very interested in (Medieval/Early Modern Nuns) and I loved the reading. To make sure I was really prepared I read it twice and I had all kinds of thoughts and notes. Then I got to class and I froze!!! It may have been all the experienced grad students in the room, it may have been that the professor is also my adviser (meaning a little more pressure, at least in my mind), or that I ended up sitting right next to him --- regardless of the reason though --- I froze. Suddenly everything I had thought seemed really stupid. So I proceeded to spend 3 hours with "Say this... no that's stupid... oh shit you should have said that - she just said it and it sounded good... well say this... no that's stupid" running through my head.  Anyone who's ever taken classes with me before knows that's so not like me! I'm usually very vocal, not at all intimidated, and basically fearless about contributing. When class ended I was so frustrated and then, to make matters worse, my professor says "you need to talk next time Kimberly." Yep - epic fail. 

So walking home I beat myself up and I tossed and turned all night. This morning I decided to text my mentors, because they're the only people I know who've ever been to grad school and they know me well enough to know that not talking in class is not like me. Thank goodness I did - she calmed me down, helped me to realize 1 bad class is not that big of a deal, and restored my confidence. I've just never felt so out of my league before - but as she said "remember they chose you and you can do this!" So with a little restored confidence I will be going to my second graduate class today at 3 - Advanced Feminist Theory - and I seriously hope it goes better than last night!

Just a little overwhelemed

After getting settled into my apartment I turned my attention to school. While I'm on track to get started next week (the 30th!) the more information I get, the more confused I get. The only thing that I left feeling less confused was my meeting with Dr. Bornstein. I met with him on Friday and left knowing that I could register for classes now and I sort of knew what I was signing up for. One of my classes I had to email the instructor to get permission to enroll - which she gave me and when I called her admin to finish enrolling she had already done it -so that was really easy. Another one of my classes was in the process of transforming from a half grad / half undergrad class to 2 separate classes. After many emails trying to figure out when we'll meet I now know that I have that class Tuesdays at 5:30 -8:30. My third class I simply registered for - no problems there. So I have class Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for a few hours each. 

I have to say - I've never had such an empty schedule before. Three classes, 1 time a week each?!? I'm sure I'll be thankful though - as the workload will be immense I'm sure - for 3 reasons: (1) everyone who has been to grad school tells me it's harder than anything I've ever done before; (2) I already have reading assignments from 2 out of 3 of my classes! and (3) I just dropped over $350 on 28 books for 3 classes! So yeah feeling a little overwhelmed... For one, I was NOT prepared to spend that much on books (why? because I'm dumb - after 5 years in school you'd think I'd know better). Two - one of my reading assignments for next week I don't actually know how to get to yet! I emailed my peer mentor and she's amazing so I'm sure she'll tell me, but in the meantime, worried! 

Meanwhile...I had orientation on Monday - which I assumed I would leave feeling more oriented. Not so much... instead I was given a ton of information that I didn't even realize I was missing that I now have to process and deal with. For example, I have to pay quarterly taxes on my stipend - taxes are not automatically deducted like a paycheck. I sat there in utter terror, because my first payment has to go out September 15th and I had no idea how much I was going to have to pay. (I went home and worked the worksheets - only need to pay a little over $100 so it's okay - but still I was terrified...) Then the health insurance information is still confusing me - I have coverage as of August 1st, but I'm not showing as registered (hearing that worries me, because I should be...) so I'm not really in the system, etc. I'm gradually sifting through all this new information and getting it under control but talk about overwhelming. 

Here's hoping that Monday's History department orientation actually serves to orient, rather than further confuse...

Moving woes and Trucks with Superman capes!

So after months of waiting and planning, I finally left Texas. You'd think with all that planning time things would've gone better... for starters my packing procrastination made it a really rough couple of weeks for me. I spent most of the first week trying to say goodbye, which sent me home in tears more than once. The second week was packing to all hours of the night (bc I was still working until Friday the 12th, leaving me mainly evenings to pack). In the process of packing I somehow seriously hurt my left knee, making it pretty much impossible to move quickly at all :-( I just hope its nothing serious and will mend itself.
Friday my wonderful brother and boyfriend came over to load everything.  When they saw the pile of boxes they both were pretty sure it wasn't all going to fit. My brother even asked "are we making 2 trips to St. Louis?"  Despite their skepticism, basically everything made it in. Yay! Then it was time for the hardest goodbye of all, my stepson. I love him so much and I know he's going to be just fine with us moving far away - we'll talk all the time and visit a lot - but I still hated to see him cry. And I know it tore my boyfriend up. Sometimes the right decisions are also the hardest.
Let me fast forward to Saturday morning at 4:45am when I was getting ready to leave (@5) and my brother says "Kim, I think its raining!" WTF!?! It hasn't rained for 45+ days and it decides to pour the morning I move? What's best - we decided not to buy a tarp when we saw the prices and the truck was sitting in the rain at that moment. So me and my boyfriend run outside, take my moms car out of the garage and back the bed of the truck in for some cover. Then we run to Walmart to buy a tarp. Only this one doesn't have them - it only has car covers - but since they are water repellent we decide to buy one and make it work. It was entirely too big though and we couldn't get it to stay tied down in the back. We had to stop 3x to fix it before we gave up and said whatever isnt covered is going to be ruined. So, until we took it off in Oklahoma, where it was no longer raining, we had what could best be described as a Superman cape on our truck. It'd be funny if I wasn't worried about all my stuff being destroyed, but I bet it will be someday.
From there the trip went pretty smooth (except somehow my data turned off and I had no GPS) and we made it safely. Unfortunately me and my mom bigtime miscalculated how far out this resort were staying in was from St. Louis, so when we arrived after 12 hours on the road tempers were kinda hot. Thankfully this place is beautiful and we're enjoying so much needed r&r. Hopefully the drive to St. Louis and moving in will be a little smoother.

Actually thinking about grad school...

Last week was my last week of teaching for Upward Bound. As much as I know that teaching high school students long term isn't for me, saying goodbye to some of my students at their award ceremony was actually bitter sweet. I really enjoyed my Women's Studies class and there really were only a handful of students that were a problem. Grading took forever, but I finished all my paper work around 1am on Friday... meaning I've had time to start thinking about grad school.

The first thing on my agenda was finding a place to live, which I accomplished within a few days. I did lots of calling around and thanks to a friend who lives in St. Louis (I'll be going to Washington University there) I was able to secure a place with minimal hassle. Now the procrastinating packing has begun. I keep looking around my place, knowing that I need to start packing something, and then I do something else instead. I think seeing my belongings packed away will make this all too real. It's already starting to sink in, since I wrote a check for my new apartment this weekend, but packing will bring it to a new level. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity, but the next few months are plagued with so many uncertainties... I'm starting to feel very nervous. New city, new school, new people, new challenges.

So I leave August 13th... only 25 days from now and I'm procrastinating to the extreme to avoid the terrible trepidation that is threatening to overtake me and I keep thinking, "what the hell did I just get myself into?"

The coolest app for fellow bookworms

I've always had the hardest time keeping track of which books I own and have read. I'm always losing books because I loan them out and I have random scraps of paper all over with recommended book titles or authors scribbled on them in the hope that I'll read them someday. I've told myself I'd keep a notebook or an excel spreadsheet to keep track, but its never happened.

Finally last night, as I tried to figure out what new book I wanted to start, I decided to look for an app. And I found a really cool one. It's called BooksAp and you can check it out at http://books-app.com/. It has a barcode scanner that automatically adds your books. Like all barcode scanners I've used, it doesn't work every time, but you can also search for books and add them via Google books.  It automatically sorts your books by author and you can put the books into series. You also can create collections. For example, I'm using a collection called "to buy" for the books that I still want to buy or that have been recommended to me. I have another list called "to read" for the books I own but haven't read yet.

My favorite feature though is the "lend to a friend." You can select any book from your library and there is a link to click on if you loan the book out. That link synchs with your contacts and you select the friend you loan it to. If I'd had this a few years ago I wouldn't be wondering what happened to my Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

Anyway it has a lot of features I haven't had time to really explore yet, but I'm really excited about what I have found and wanted to share! Happy reading!

Not meant to teach high school...

I've been away for a bit because I've been incredibly busy trying to get through teaching this summer. I still have 3 weeks left and I can't wait for it to be over! Thankfully 3 weeks means teaching 8 more classes total after today, which isn't so bad. I just had the longest weekend ever due to the program... we went to Weatherford for their Academic Bowl competition. I was the social studies coach, which meant I had to be there all weekend to monitor students and help out with the events. I had some great times - for example watching our basketball team win 1st place in the championship - but there were more not so great times. Like when I got to haul all the girls bags onto the back of the bus and get all sweaty before we left. Or when I got to haul all the bags off the bus when we got there (I did the bags 4x...). Or when I didn't get dinner because I was grading tests. You get the point - the kids had fun, I worked.

Anyway classes started back yesterday. The kids didn't get a weekend (nor did I), so we're all tired and I just don't have it in me to try and come up with great lessons. Movies are wonderful things... the kids like watching them and they mean less work for me. Plus they actually can be educational...

What a Week!

I haven't posted for a while because I've been busy having one of the busiest weeks ever! I started classes on Monday and started teaching on Tuesday. If that wasn't enough to keep me busy, I was also tutoring a little bit this week. Let's just say I really underestimated how busy I'd be and overestimated my ability to deal...

So first - let's talk about ridiculously long days! Monday we got to campus by 8:15am and didn't leave until 8:45pm. Tuesday we got there at 7:30 and left around 4:30. Wednesday was 9am to 9pm.... you get the idea. The worst part was, I was busy for every minute I was there. If I wasn't teaching, I was learning. Talk about mental exhaustion.

I had planned to combat my mental exhaustion and stress by taking scuba diving. What a let down! I couldn't have hated it more. I'm a swimmer. Scuba diving is about sitting under water. We didn't swim, we sat and froze our asses off. Not exactly my idea of a good time. And we had to haul around our gear, wear heavy weight belts so we'd sink, and after all that - sit in a classroom for an hour and learn the SCIENCE of scuba diving. Well anyone who knows me knows that the entry of science marked my departure from the class. Yep, I dropped it. I'll stick with swimming laps, which I love.

And I'll be doing lots of lap swimming to deal with the stress of teaching. Don't get me wrong, I do like to teach. But I decided to be a professor and not a middle/high school teacher for a reason. This week has served to reinforce that I made the right decision. These kids are smart, more dedicated and focused than most their age, and still they are... well their age (15-17). I just prefer adults, what can I say. I have 20 students in my Spanish I class, which I realize is not that many, but it's more than enough for 8am. Especially since these teens ARE morning people and are already bouncing off the walls. Actually they may just be on a caffeine high, because by an hour in they are done bouncing off the walls and I'm having to keep them awake. On the other hand, I think I'm really going to enjoy my Women's Studies class. There's only 11 of them (well 9 were there on Wednesday), and it's a discussion class, instead of lecture. I'll know tomorrow when I see if they did their reading and are able to engage in coherent discussion.

On the plus side of the week - my French is flying back to me! My first week in a graduate class went really well, and if I do say so myself, I'm one of the best at it! I'm sure the fact that I: (1) took French extensively once upon a time, and (2) know Latin and Spanish pretty well has have helped quite a bit. Either way, I don't suck and that's an exiting way to start my first graduate class!

Sleep was a real issue this week  - I was going to bed at 2 and 3 am and waking up by 7 at the latest. I made up for it yesterday though. Went to bed Friday night at 11:30pm and didn't wake up until 1:15pm!! I didn't even know I could sleep like that anymore, it's been so long, but I guess I really needed it. Then we went to spend the day with my stepson and his family - I had a kinda pathetic birthday due to my crazy week and lack of sleep (thanks to Laura who joined me for drinks on Thursday it wasn't truly pathetic. Thanks for lifting my spirits girl!), but they surprised me with a tres leches birthday cake, making up for my lackluster birthday. Then we went to the creek, where I proceeded to think I was a kid again and walk around barefoot in the water, falling on my ass (2 times actually), once with my cell phone in my pocket. So I'm waiting for my replacement to come in on Tuesday (I have a long, bad history with phones and am always well equipped with insurance). Despite the damaged phone it was a really great time and I know the kids had a blast.

Oh and I just got an email from WashU about setting up my student ID and email address. Yay!! Things are starting to fall into place! Anywho - that's a really quick snapshot of my crazy week. I'm finally done grading papers (that's a real drag, BTW... I think I hate grading essays more than they hate writing them), so I'm off to do my French homework.