Regardless of how I feel about my location, or my immense fear of failure at several potential benchmarks over the next several years, or how hard all of this is, I gotta say that I really can't imagine doing anything else with my life. Everything that happens makes me want to do a psych experiment.
Take, for example, interactions between new people. I'm always amazed when I meet someone new and we just "click" and it's like I'm talking to an old friend, someone who knows me and just... understands. I'm sure that there are attraction studies that I can track down that explain this very phenomenon, but it's just... nice. And interesting. And yet another reminder, that despite the fact that I had ~300 pages to read this week, plus a presentation to prepare, plus an altruism scale to find, plus things like eating and sleeping, I really do love what I do. And I really do have to say that I'm really happy with my cohort. And that my facebook stalking was wrong on almost all accounts, but in a good way. On that note, I do have to say that I have met plenty of new people for the time being, thank you very much. It's all a little overwhelming.
There's also a bit of culture shock. And I know that I'm annoying, always asking about things and commenting on how different it is back home, but back home is on my mind most of the time, and we all know how bad I am at self-regulation. The differences in little things are pretty pronounced, too. There are only 2 people in the program from North of the Mason-Dixon, and only two people from West of Texas. 3 of us are women, and we are consistently the most overdressed in the group. Wearing things that are fairly casual back home is waaaaaaay overdressed here, and I always end up feeling/looking like I'm trying too hard, but I'm just too vain to skip the makeup. Maybe that's the narcissism talking, but I just can't do it. I am quickly falling in love with "y'all" though. It's just adorable. I don't interact with very many people who have a thick accent, so I don't think I'll pick one up, but I've already started saying "y'all."
The time difference is also causing some problems. I'm having a hard time falling asleep on East Coast time, but because I haven't gotten around to it/can't really afford it, I haven't bought curtains yet. That means I'm still waking up on East Coast time, which is leading to 4 hours of sleep. Right now, it's 3 AM, and even though I woke up at 7 this morning (yes, that's right folks, we had a professional development class at 9 on a holiday), I am wide awake (also just realized I've been awake for 20 straight hours and am horrified). The massive amounts of socializing are not helping matters much either--Friday I was out until 4, Saturday until 2 (?) and I know I didn't fall asleep for at least an hour. I tried to be better tonight, deciding to stay in and bond with my roommate over boy talks and True Blood* and meeting our neighbors while watching the rain, but, alas, it didn't help. I really need to get some work done if I'm going to be up this late, so goodnight, readers.
*Which is totally jumping the shark, btw. This season is completely ridiculous, even with the massive suspension of reality required for a show about telepathic faery waitresses who date vampires and are friends with were people (animals?).
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