suddenly, the up and down thing makes sense

[dancingyel]

so, the last few days haven't been that great. partly, it's cause i have a cold and allergies all at once, and my tummy is being unhappy on top of that, so being physically unhappy has made everything else worse. but being sick doesn't really explain why i miss my friends so much more this week than last week, or why i'm missing davidturtle so much more than i have been over the past month. what does explain it, i think, is timing. when i just moved here, i was super busy with everything, but i was also so intensely sad, that being busy only helped somewhat. then, the sadness got better, but i was still so very busy that i more or less stopped feeling sad except for at random times. i was so overwhelmed with school and arranging my life here that i didn't have time to dwell on being unhappy except for a few down moments. now, even though i'm busy with classes and research and all that good stuff, i'm less overwhelmed by it. it's not so new, i've figured out how to juggle most of it, and it's just getting more manageable. so, of course, the sad has time to come out. presumably, now i just need to wait it out so that the sad becomes less salient than the busy again, and then it'll all be better!

so yes, that's my theory. it's all a matter of which mood outweighs the other. it didn't help that dance sucked on monday, or that a scary professor got me very discouraged about being in grad school all together, but i really do think it's a matter of timing, and once i get a little less sick and a little more busy, the sad will fade into the background again.

Comments

[coolhandamanda.livejournal.com]

What scary professor? What did they say??

For whatever it's worth, I remember feeling that same way first semester. Once you're settled in, it's like there's not quite enough stuff to keep your mind off the other stuff.

[dancingyel.livejournal.com]

Lee came and spoke at our clinical brown bag, and she was really scary! She went on and no about how you're supposed to be totally obsessive about your research and how you're not gonna succeed otherwise...and also time management and how we should be super busy. And I'm not as busy as all that, so I feel like maybe I'm doing something wrong already, plus I'm not so obsessive about my research...I like what I'm doing, but I like plenty of other things besides! So yeah. I feel better about it today, but on Monday, I was really discouraged.

It's nice to hear that I'm not crazy, though, and that you felt similarly. It's weird for me to be so up and down...I tend to be a relatively happy person, so I'm really not enjoying myself this way.

[coolhandamanda.livejournal.com]

Boo on her. I remember she said similar stuff when she came to our brown bag, and I too felt awful afterward. Then I realized that (a) that's just her opinion (which a lot of other faculty here don't share), and (b) most people I've talked to agree that she's a little off her rocker.