Attitude Adjustment

I need one! This has been a very crappy week all around. On Wednesday I found out that, in spite of the fact that my MFA was writing intensive, and I got the highest score on the diagnostic essay, I still have to take the flipping research methods class! This is a waste of 3 credit hours, a waste of time, and a waste of money. I know how to research and write an academic paper, and since my dissertation is project based (unless I change my mind), it won't be that difficult to write. I think I can handle it without the research methods class. The Teaching Learning Center here is very good about putting on workshops for grad students to help them with this stuff - we don't need no stinking class! Grrr! Needless to say the rest of the week was not pleasant because I did not want to get up and go to class or teach my class or do any of the other myriad things GPTIs have to do in addition to keeping up with their schoolwork. I always thought I came here to get a PhD, not to be a peon for the department, so my first priority should be my academics. Apparently I was mistaken. All of this stuff is piling up and making me seriously consider whether I even want to accept a GPTI position in the spring. I just want to get this over with & go somewhere else right now. As I said, attitude adjustments are in order.

On the positive side, "The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later" event is coming together very nicely. We have had nothing but positive feedback and support from everyone we've worked with on campus, and in the community, to get this project going, and I've got a great bunch of readers who are as passionate about this as I am. This is one of the few bright spots in my life right now.

I also talked to a Peace Corps rep this week on campus. I've been thinking about this for a while, and if I wasn't in school right now I'd probably be in the Peace Corps somewhere. I'm going to apply when I finish here. Volunteering and being useful have always been high priorities for me, and I'm at the point in my life where I feel I can do that. I want to combine my interests in women's issues and theatre with a stint in the Peace Corps. I don't care where I go, as long as I go. Now that I made that decision it is making it just a bit easier for me to stick it out here. I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, all I have to do is navigate the darkness to get to it!