Welcome to the odd part of Germany universities. I now have all this free time, in between semesters, to get my work done!! It’s incredibly stressful! The last two weeks have all been the same. Wake up, drink coffee, get not nearly as much work done as I planned, go to bed determined to do more the next day, fail and so on, so forth.
Not like I’m complaining, but in the US when the semester was over, it was over, there were no due dates in a month.
It isn’t that bad really, I mean I can’t completely relax, but you know like everything since starting this Masters program, it’s all about finding a balance. At least the two papers I have to write are both in English. I am already flipping out a bit, since they are the only part of my grade this semester, so you know me, little Ms. Perfectionist. I want an A dammit or in this case a 1. And I can get it, if there is anything in life that I am sure about it’s my ability to get good grades when I make the effort. But what’s been happening is me flipping out about not having written a paper since 2007. I mean 2007. Let that sink in. And the last time I was at a German University 2006, and I never wrote any serious papers there. But everyone assumes I did. I feel like an OLD. POSER. There I said it.
So the first week was me immobilized by my fear of me being too old and not understanding the expectations properly here. And before you scoff at me for being silly, the number of times I have been kicked down because of my failure to prepare properly, (well up to German standards, I certainly thought I had done enough at the time) it’s not even worth the “if I had been given a penny…” metaphor. If I could avoid all those instances, I would be so stupidly in love with Germany, I’d have applied for citizenship by now. This constant struggle to stay on top of things, that’s what makes me hate this place when times get tough.
Anyway. one paper down, mostly, one to go. And today I chipped away at it slowly. Still am in fact, this is just a break. Now I can say I’ve got about a third of the content down and will get to the halfway point by Friday easily. I’m meeting with the instructor on Wednesday, so by then I should have the first section printed out, so I can discuss what I’ve written up and where it needs to go. This is a huge relief. The other instructor who taught our intro to linguistic research course, I’ve also met with and he offered to look over my paper before I send it in to be graded, so I just sent that to him as well. And I am correcting one of my fellow students English draft, since we’ve already reached an agreement about checking each other’s stuff. So I am setting myself up for success. What actually will happen, that remains to be seen, but I am certainly being active here. Running my butt off.
Speaking of running around a lot, I am unable to stop losing weight, I guess. Obviously I am ok with this. What, I’ve only spent most of my life on a diet. I better be. But I haven’t worn my rings now since the semester began and that I HATE! But they have slipped off so many times and once or twice nearly lost for good, so I am hoping summer means fat swollen fingers. I mean to be fair I really don’t need more slender hands. Of all the things, but you can’t chose it. I feel healthy. I’m not cooking a lot read: at all. But why I am losing weight is hard to say. Stress or lack of stress, or simply eating when I am hungry and only then. I’m just nervous that it’ll all come back with a vengeance, or when I go to visit the bf for a few weeks his mom will stuff me, just in time to be fat again for Greece, or what’s the most worrisome is that going back and forth and losing and gaining quickly is really very dangerous. So mostly I am trying to focus on the down direction, but in a stable way so that when my life gets turned upside-down again, I can remain in control. And obviously figure out whatever good things I am doing so that when I get to feed the bf again, I won’t go crazy as well.
And then there’s this someecard. Can you sense my anti-social nature? I need to get away from things online and concentrate on the things I have here. (which in terms of a social life, is like zilch, but currently it suits me) The bf has changed my fb password and I won’t go on it again til all my papers are written and handed in. I am not going to let surfing online stop me from being successful here and all this free-time and all this anxiety means it’s easy to distract yourself from the tasks that you must finish. I am so motivated to do well here and determined not to psych myself out. So no fb. Never mind that overall I am still sick of all the demands people place on me. Look I am going away for about 5 weeks, and in that time my ability to earn the rent is very limited, but I made some promises to my old boss and that’s important to me and all my new students have to just deal with it. Dealing with people’s expectations for you never gets easier, but it’s part of life. I wasn’t planning on it, to personally, disappoint/offend some one, it just happened. It’s a GOOD problem to have. But now I am scrambling to stuff as much cash into my checking account as possible, and let me private students down gently. The timing and last minute nature left something to be desired. I could have saved 150 Euros on my flight back to Nbg which I won’t be going on with the bf. Also I certainly wouldn’t have planned my dentist bills, eye doctor bills, new glasses, new semester fees crete and really really slow days at the restaurant all at the same time, but now I am stuck with it all and they’d have to be paid at some point anyway.
So yes, nothing glib from me today, just a stupid little update. The bf has got his rewrite test to write on Friday. We are both stressed about it. I can’t call him like I usually do, so I’ve gotten out my puzzle and when I’m sick of my paper and Greek, I work on it. It’s helping me from going crazy, because calling him is a distraction we can’t risk. This long distance thing won’t be worth it unless he passes everything and his second test happened over a snow day and he ended up arriving late and felt rushed and unsure. I hope this time the news is much better.
littlemsami 