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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.
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Three ways I intend to not fail grad school.

This is my “grad school equivalent of
senioritis” face. (Or a picture I accidentally
took with my phone the other day. Either way.)
The start of the spring semester last month marked the beginning of the end.
The end of grad school, assuming I pass comps so I can walk in May. 
I walked into class on Jan. 8, naturally overcome by the deep-seated confidence that I would fail comps in March as a direct result of the existence of the Lifetime Movie Network.

(Don’t judge me.)
I’ve been tired for awhile. Dreaming of the time to read for leisure, and write a lot more than I write, and partake in communication not mediated by computers. So by the time the spring semester rolled up, I was – to quote what I am fairly certain I recently said to my adviser’s face – “OVER IT.”
But the grad school equivalent of senioritis plus a slightly-more-than-mild case of test anxiety does not equal graduation in May. It equals the Lifetime Movie Network (who knew?).
So as of late, I have had to force myself to resist the TV and grab grad school by the horns for the final time. In the process, I have concluded there are three ways I intend to not fail grad school. And they are these:
1. By gratefully accepting the grace of God. Because frankly, it is ultimately by His grace that a young woman for whom it comes far more naturally to procrastinate than not has not already flunked.
2. By buying people lunch if they agree to quiz me. Attention local friends: Expect an invitation. I’ll buy your food and I’ll bring the flash cards. Boom. (Bonus: It’ll be like grad school for you, but faster. And free. And there’s food.)
3. By using the Pomodoro Technique. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank my friend and fellow blogger Edmund Mitchell for casually mentioning the Pomodoro Technique via Google Talk chat last month, because it is changing my life. I’ll sum it up like this: Set a timer! Work for 25 minutes, break for 5. Badabing, badaboom.
And great news:
The grace of God plus flash cards plus the Pomodoro Technique does not equal the Lifetime Movie Network.
Lord willing, it equals graduation.
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Three big deals.

Probably more than a year ago, I barged into my adviser’s office at the University of South Florida, where I am working on my master’s in rehab and mental health counseling. I dropped my book bag on the floor, stood in front of his desk, and said the following:

“I need you to help me.”

“With what?” he asked.

“I need you to help me drag this out.”

“Drag what out?”

“Grad school!”

He cracked up.

“IT ISN’T FUNNY,” I said (albeit while I laughed, too). “I’M SERIOUS.”

We laughed because grad students do not traditionally ask how they can spend as much time in school as possible. Grad students traditionally ask how they can spend as little time as possible.

But grad students aren’t traditionally afraid to graduate. Probably more than a year ago, I was.

I worried then that I might have to quit my job at the paper in order to graduate (and eventually, I did).

That I’d run out of time to study for comps, the exam that covers all the required courses I have taken in my 60 credit program (and I kind of am).

But I am happy to report the following:

Despite that I had to quit my job at the Times, and despite that I am running out of time to study for comps, I am now super stoked to graduate.

This is because I am tired. And I miss being able to watch some TV without regretting it. And socializing. And not setting my alarm on weekends. And responding to emails in a timely manner. And eating dinner at dinner time instead of before class (too early) or after class (too late).

It’s because I’m excited for what comes next. And for being able to sign my name with an “MA” after it.

Which is why it was very exciting this week, when I a) applied for graduation, b) registered for the commencement ceremony, and c) registered for comps.

These are three big deals.

These are points in my program I once didn’t want to reach, points I eventually couldn’t wait to reach. Finally, I have reached them.

And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pumped.

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[Announcement] 2013.

Mmm, sugar. Photo by Jordan Bowser.

A couple weeks before 2009 ended, I made a decision off the cuff:

I’d quit sugar for 2010.

My relationship with sugar had been turbulent since childhood. Eating too much sugar meant I’d be moody or anxious or I’d sleep so deeply you’d have to shake me to wake me up. But eating too much of it had become inevitable. How can we not eat too much sugar when too much sugar is added to nearly everything we eat?

Tired of feeling crappy for eating it and to prove that life can be lived (and enjoyed) without dessert, I embarked on a year-long journey, and called it “My Sugar Free Year.” In it, I’d sever my ties to added sugar (with the exceptions of the sugar in bread, crackers, condiments and alcoholic beverages.).

Sans a few snags in the plan (like the week I was so sick all I could stomach was Jello, and all the Cheez-Its I ate before I knew sugar’s in them under other names, or when the Cake Boss made my cousin’s wedding cake and I was talked into trying a forkful of frosting), I succeeded.

I had picked the probably impossible and promised myself I’d pull it off. I did it in part for my health, in part as a discipline, in part to stick it to the man.

But ultimately, I did it to prove a point:

We are so much stronger than we’re told we are.

We live in a culture where we are certain we would die if we had to go back to dial-up Internet. We have drive-throughs and smartphones (Except for me. And my grandparents.). We have instant music on iTunes and instant movies on Netflix. We can shop, and make friends, and work jobs without leaving our houses.

None of these things is bad. All of them are convenient. But where we live, we are so immersed in convenience that we depend on it. We don’t feel blessed by what’s convenient anymore; We feel entitled to it. So we perceive what’s convenient to be necessary, which, by default, results in our referring to what we should expect in life (like waiting in a line at a store) as inconvenient. It inflates a person’s sense of entitlement and erodes his or her ability to wait. It communicates that what the world says is unbearable or impossible is, in fact, unbearable or impossible. And so we subscribe to that and stop trying.

It weakens us.

It’s why our culture is obsessed with effortless gratification.

It’s why your friends think you’re weird if you won’t eat fast food.

It’s why you hit a certain age and the assumption is you aren’t saving sex for marriage (or capable of it).

They tell us it’s probably impossible.

I am telling you they are wrong.

That we can master our appetites instead of being mastered by them.

That if we can master one of our appetites, we’ll be better able to master the others.

I aim to do it again in 2013, which will be my second sugar free year.

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[Repost] “It’s not me, it’s you.”

This post originally appeared in Sept., 2010.

On my way to school last night, I got annoyed at a few other drivers.

When don’t I?

But last night, while I headed to school for a test in psychopathology, a couple cars ahead drove too slowly. A couple other cars hit the brakes too hard in front of me. All the way through the hour-long drive, I tried not to let it bother me. Instead, I tried to think about all the things that might be on my test.

In the class, we’re studying the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. So, personality disorders and anxiety disorders and psychotic disorders. (And I could actually go on for awhile — it’s a long list.) Here and there, we also get into theories, like attachment theory — the styles of connection between an infant and his or her mother and how they affect the grown up person the baby becomes, and attribution theory — whoa.

While I drove, attribution pushed me into a little more self awareness.* Simply, the theory says a person attributes his or her own behavior to his or her circumstances and a person attributes other people’s behavior to other people’s personalities.

In other words, “It’s not me. It’s you.”

It’s why when I drive slowly, it’s not my fault but when you are a driver in front of me and you drive slowly, it’s because you are inept.

Clearly, that belief is false (most of the time) (don’t lie — some people can’t drive.). But how few among us don’t think it all the time? If I forget something, it’s because other people are pulling me in too many different directions. You forget something, and I ask, “What is wrong with you?”

What’s wrong with all of us? We want to believe that when I drop the ball, it’s your fault and when you drop the ball, it’s your fault.

And I must say. When “you” drop the ball that much, it’s really hard to love you. But it takes the blame off the one around whom the world revolves (Ha! We humans. So funny.).

How different a day would be if only we’d admit that sometimes, it’s actually not you. What if I choose to believe the slow drivers are slow because of their circumstances — they’re lost, for instance — and not because their number one goal in life is to make me late?

I can empathize with being lost; I cannot empathize with rudeness. Why assume the worse when there’s no way to know which is the case?

Going with the one that doesn’t make my blood pressure go up might make my hour-long drives more pleasant. And if we all do it, it might make the world a better place.

– – – –

*Getting a degree in mental health will do that to you. I highly recommend it.