Grad School Grumblings

Me, as a cute "dark" girl...or Ruby Gloom, one of the two

      My fourth packet was due on Monday (and was mailed on Friday).  I only have one packet of my MFA life left.  Why has every other semester dragged and this one flew by?  It doesn’t seem fair.  I’m hoping I don’t have too much to change this time around, since I my mother sacrificed around fifteen hours of her life listening to me read the entire thing out loud, helping me nitpick pretty much every single word.
    Though I suppose I can’t feel too bad, since she was stretched out on my bed in a leisurely fashion while I was at my small, cramped desk made even more cramped by the fact that I had my notebook for this novel in front of me with notes I wanted to ask her about each chapter.
    I’ve worked really hard on this novel, for a really long time, and fuuuck it’s still not done.  I have twelve chapters in my thesis, and six that aren’t, though only two and a half of those are written (but all roughly plotted out).  I know that the two chapters I had when I came to the program are way better now than they were then, and I can feel that my writing in general has improved.
    But I’m a little nervous.  I’m nervous about the class I have to teach based on my critical thesis.  I hate to have everyone in the room looking at me, and the introduction I did for my former mentor last residency was pretty nerve-wracking.  I’m worried that I’ll get up there and suddenly everything I was going to say will sound stupid, or that someone will ask a question I don’t know the answer to.  But I’m also nervous because one of the teachers is teaching a class that’s almost the same as mine.
    I’m also nervous about the reading, for mostly just the people-looking-at-me-and-no-one-else reason.  I also feel like, even though it’s ridiculous, my mentor is just being really nice when he says he likes my thesis and that it’s strong.  It’s so ridiculous, but this is how ingrained my low self-esteem is.  I also might invite my high school teacher, who kind of revived my love of reading and writing.  I had her junior and senior year, and I actually took two English classes my senior year.  She was so nice, doing stuff like letting me know in advance that I got accepted into the AP English class, so I could plan my schedule accordingly, and writing college recommendations and the like.  She even had these like Academy-Award type things at the end of the year our senior year, so everybody got superlatives.  It was so cute, in Honors English I got the Cover Girl award, because I always made a point to find what I considered awesome cover pictures for my papers, and in AP English my friend and I got the Statler and Waldorf award, because we always talked shit about our pretentious classmates...oops. >_< We’re Facebook friends now (which obviously means we’re bffs irl), and she’s a world-class nerd which is fabulous, and nothing less than what I expected.  So I’m thinking it would be cool to invite her, but it’ll also add some pressure.
    Aside from the nerves, I’m also just sad.  I’ll be able to see my friends in the semester below me in the winter, and the ones below them next summer, but this residency will be the last one where I see my same-semester friends together, probably ever.  I had a totally high school moment where I realized that we’re all going to go off and live our lives in the separate corners of the country where we live, and our little bubble is going to pop, and it’s really bumming me out.  I like my little grad school community the way it is, and I kind of wish it was a three, or even four year program.  Of course, that would mean a lot of people couldn’t do it, myself most likely included.  But it just feels so safe and scholarly and special on this quaint campus with its rustic dorm buildings and Dracula main hall, and I don’t want to go into the big, scary world without everyone I’ve met here.  Of course I already do, and it makes me happy but also mad that Eddie lives near me.  Eddie, who told me he circled the two appearances my name makes on the schedule.  To drive home my resentment about it, supposedly.  More like he’s bursting at the man-seam thinking about being able to baldly ogle me, but what do I know.
    Thus I continue to read the last few books of the semester, and already begin to think about the books I need for residency.  I’m only taking five classes, and they are:
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY: THE THIN LINE SEPARATING LAUGHTER AND PAIN
GROUNDING THE READER: BEGINNINGS IN YA NOVELS
APPLICABILITY: WHAT MAKES SCIENCE FICTION HUMAN
GROWN-UPS RUIN EVERYTHING…DON'T THEY?
ACT YOUR AGE
     I very well may audit more if I feel up to it, though.  I’m also being super traditionally-feminine and getting my hair done right before residency, as well as waxing my legs for the first time >_< We’ll see how that goes.  Then, on one of the days I don’t have class scheduled, I’m gonna go get my nails done and this cool-sounding massage that’s supposed to drain all your excess water. O.o We’ll see how that goes, too.  I also have dresses for all my public appearances, which is rare for me.  I wear a dress to graduation and nothing resembling a dress for pretty much the entire rest of my life, unless it’s a cosplay situation.  But I’m going to be the cutest little “dark” girl (Eddie’s adjective, one that apparently applies to both of us...here's how I feel about that) anyone’s ever seen. :)
    I can do this, I know it.  All of it.  I’ve started a new thing lately, when there’s something I don’t want to do coming up (namely these things, but a few closer things that have passed), and I just think “Eventually *insert event* will be over, and I’ll still be alive.  Eventually, there will be no need for me to be anxious, because it will have happened and been fine.”  It usually works, but it’s late, and I get emotional when it’s late.