I gave the scary presetation that I mentioned in this post. Afterward I didn’t have the sense of relief that it was over. Instead I experienced more of a “buyer’s remorse” type feeling. I decided that I’m just not good at this graduate school business and that perhaps going for the master’s is going to be good enough.
Then I started working on my term paper and got incredibly excited by the topic. So excited in fact that I went to campus on Memorial Day and worked on it for 10 hours. Then I couldn’t calm down and suffered anxiety most of the night. Fortunately today I had to wait for the plumber to snake out the drain from our washing machine. I worked on my paper at a much more sane pace and still got a fair amount done. I have a good idea of where this paper is going.
Of course, I’m waffling back to “well, maybe I’m not so awful at this grad school stuff after all.” I don’t know that that is true but I’m still intensely interested in the subject. Also, I thought a great deal about Fran’s comment about fear. I thought that perhaps I was letting fear keep me from enjoying graduate school. The truth is, I am not a fearful person. Heck, I fought forest fires for 10 years! I ride jumping horses! I am actually very good at facing my fears and getting beyond fear. Consequently I have accomplished a number of interesting things in my life. Perhaps I for the first time in my life I have to face that just because I’m intensely interested in something, it doesn’t mean that I have a knack for it. Sometimes accomplishing something takes more than hard work. Sometimes skill is involved.
I’ve applied for two fisheries research jobs with NOAA up in Seattle. I’m interested to see if my past and new skills are anything useful to them.
Glad I gave you some food for thought. Fear comes in so many different forms and sometimes the most subtle are when we are afraid we won’t measure up. You’re going to make it through grad school, Corinna, but I still see you ultimately working with horses in some capacity.