Posted on

What not to do in grad school (or, “things I totally did”).

As I type, there are just 28 days, two quizzes, a reaction paper, and a research proposal between me and my master’s degree.

What a ride.

I equal parts can’t believe and am so sad and so happy it is over.

As this part of my journey draws to its close, I look back on it with gratitude for the growth I experienced, the knowledge I gained, and the friends I made.

I also look back and laugh. This is because in the process of learning about mental health and mental illness, I learned by experience what not to do in grad school. For me, the following faux pas ended well. But while I don’t regret that I did these things, I recommend you don’t do them:

  • Forget to write a paper. First semester of grad school. Foundations of Mental Health Counseling. Ready for bed at eleven at night the night before class, it dawned on me that I hadn’t started (let alone finished) a paper due the next day. Who needs sleep? Stayed up, wrote it in full, turned it in, and got an A. #boom.
  • Cry while presenting to your class. Had it happened in, say, Foundations of Mental Health Counseling, or in Group Theories, or in any other class in which we facilitated therapy for each other, I’d cut myself some slack. But there is no excuse for crying in front of the class when the class is Career and Lifestyle Assessment. Bonus points, though, for making at least one classmate cry (and in my defense, the story I shared was totally sad).
  • Yell “gonads” during class. It happened in human sexuality, during an exercise in which our professor asked us to list all the sex words we know in effort to desensitize us to them. Believe it or not, grad school isn’t the first time I did it. I also yelled “gonads” during a tenth grade biology class. And you know what? I take it back. I recommend this, because, um, hilarious, and it hasn’t ended badly for me yet.
  • Run out of engine oil in the parking lot. I owe a debt of gratitude (and/or of approximately $12) to Dr. Wright – the chair of the Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling department at USF – for the couple quarts of oil he happened to have in his car the day this happened. (Long live my 13 year old car. Still kickin’. And still rapidly losing oil.)
  • Forget to pay your tuition. Final semester of grad school. While I filled out my graduation application, I read the stipulation that says you don’t graduate if you haven’t paid your tuition. Which is when I remembered I hadn’t yet paid my tuition. Which is when I checked USF’s website for the deadline. Which is when I discovered I’d missed it. While I’m currently mildly short of breath at the thought of how badly this could have ended, it actually ended with a miracle. A financial services adviser discovered I’d been given a deferment, which – although entirely inexplicable – meant I had the university’s permission to pay my tuition late without penalty. #boom.
Posted on

Sex! And other stuff. | 04.01.13

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

 – – – –

Good sex takes time: Fellow blogger Stephanie at Captive the Heart recently wrote a post about sex that everybody should read (particularly if you plan to save sex for marriage, and to practice natural family planning). “Just like it takes time to build emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy at the beginning of your relationship,” she wrote, “it also takes time, we discovered, to adjust to sexual intimacy. It makes so much sense to me in hindsight. Magazines and the culture can make it seem like if you’re attracted to each other, then–bam!–your sex life will instantly be blissfully simple and complication-free. We’ve learned that it’s so important, though, to talk honestly as you learn one another in a new way.” Click here to read the whole post.

Are you having an emotional affair? In a recent post on Rhett Smith’s blog, he – a licensed marriage and family therapist and author – lists signs you’re having an emotional affair. He also quotes an article about emotional infidelity, which – according to the post – might spark the start of sexual infidelity. Click here to read the post.

Happily married thanks to sex with strangers: Read an article this weekend about a woman who – after receiving implicit permission from her husband of a couple of decades – sought sex with strangers via a dating site for married people. It took her two years, she said, to work up the courage to act on her intention to arrange for affairs. The encounters, while not wholly anonymous, are devoid of emotion, she said. She feels guilty but good, because sex outside marriage is preferable in her eyes to ending a sexless marriage (better, too, than exploring other options, it seems). “I know what you must be thinking,” she said. “How could I? But for me having extra-marital ‘arrangements’, as I prefer to call them, are the secret to making sure my marriage survives and thrives. I might sound cold and selfish, but to me it’s no different from getting my hair and nails done. It’s just about taking care of your needs.” …a telling perspective, because is getting your hair or nails done really a need?

Posted on

Sex! And other stuff. | 03.25.13

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

– – – –

Love and Responsibility: I am VERY excited to report an advanced copy of Pauline Books and Media‘s new translation of my favorite book arrived last week. Love and Responsibility is a brilliant book written by Pope John Paul II before he was pope. Anybody who ever intends to get married ought to read it. The publisher releases the book for real in April. I’ll try, try, try to read it all before it’s released. Might not happen. But since my hunch is I am gonna love it, click here to pre-order your own copy.

Sex outside marriage v. sex inside marriage: Fellow blogger Jamie the Very Worst Missionary wrote a fabulous post in favor of loving instead of shaming the people who haven’t saved sex for marriage. Best part of the post, though, is this: “Sex matters. It’s the most vulnerable thing you’ll ever do with another human being. Commitment breeds intimacy, and intimacy is what makes sex freaking amazing. I’m not gonna lie, you can have hot sex outside of a committed relationship – but mostly it’s gonna be like… clumsy… and goopy… and ew. The better you know your partner, the better your sex will be. So basically what I’m saying is that wedding night sex is kinda “Meh.”, and five years sex is all “Yes!”, but 18 years sex is like “WOAH!!!” So go ahead and wait. Wait and enjoy the waiting, and then bask in all those learning experiences with your most trusted friend.” Click here to read the whole post.

 Virginity in Tampa: Stumbled upon a story in The Oracle, my university’s student paper (for which I worked for a year while I was an undergrad!). First line says this:  “A recent survey has found that women are choosing to lose their virginity later in life.” By later in life, The Oracle means age 20. Sigh. The study it cites surveyed 77,000+ women, including 4000+ in Tampa. “While a study from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University says the average age women lose their virginity is 17,” the story says, “Tampa women say the ideal age to lose it is 20.” Click here to read the story.

Posted on

Sex! And other stuff. | A new series.

Greetings, readers! Quick post to introduce an incoming series. Mondays on the blog (starting tonight!), you’ll find a post called Sex! And other stuff. with snippets of sex and other stuff I concocted, stumbled upon, or am otherwise compelled to shout at you across the interweb. 

Got a post you wrote or read about sex or other stuff and think I should quote or discuss it in a future post? Send it to arleenwrites at gmail dot com or paste the link in a comment on any Sex! And other stuff. post.
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

-Arleen

Posted on

The countdown.

Our “GRADUATION IS COMING” faces.

Eight weeks until graduation.

Two weeks until the giant exam I have to take and pass to graduate, more popularly called “comps.”
I wonder if they call this “crunch time” because of all the snacks you eat while you study.
(Is that just me?)
I have loved grad school.
The classes. The professors. The brilliant adviser. The introspection. The conversation. The journey from not knowing what I’m doing and hating it to not knowing what I’m doing and being ok with it. The trek from feeling like I can’t do this to knowing I totally can.
The laughs. The listening to strangers’ life stories at Starbucks while I studied (which happens when people watch you reading counseling text books). The tears. The mid-registration panic when all 40,000 of USF’s students break the Internet by signing up for classes simultaneously. The post-registration sigh of relief. The growing pains. The growth.
I have loved this.
But I am excited for what comes next.
Ready for it.
Let the countdown begin.