09 September 2002 - 18:06

Some mornings I wake up and the first thing that I think is "Oh god--I have to write my thesis, apply to graduate schools, and plan a wedding."

The last is a lot of fun. The first is a lot of fun mixed with a lot of work and anxiety.

But graduate school... Mmm.

I've been diligently reading and annotating the Princeton Review's biology GRE subject test book. (Fructose is a diglyceride composed of glucose and sucrose. The bundle of his is a bundle of fibers in the middle of the heart that are part of the system telling it to beat.) I've been slowly, meticulously reading the 5th edition of the APA style manual (Running heads can be no more than 50 characters; abstracts 120 words. The recommended length of a title is 10 - 12 words). I'm going to take the practice general GRE a week from Sat. I'm going to carefully read the research methods text.

I know what my top three graduate school choices are. I know who I want to write my letters of recommendation.

I know what facilities I'd like to collect data from, what format that data will probably be in and how I can view it. I've written a short summary.

I don't have any data yet.

I seriously need to review statistics.

But really I'm in pretty good shape.

The thing is, I'm just not excited about grad school. I couldn't wait to come here, to New College. I wanted more independence, I wanted to go to the beach, I figured the college itself would be a blast.

And it has been--all that and a bag of chips. I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave the subtropical climate, the small city, the beaches. I don't want to leave college hall, palm court parties. I don't want to leave my friends, but most of them will move on with their lives, or already have.

I don't want to leave Gillian.

I don't want to go to another country, where it will be cold and I'll be alienated far beyond how I've been here and I won't be able to go home for thanksgiving dinner. I don't want to keep moving from place to place, not being able to have a garden or a dog because gardens and dogs can't be moved every year, don't understand international quarantine requirements, or that academics take some precedent over their whole lives--although if pressed, I could only say that the dogs and gardens were actually more important. I don't want to keep making not-really-enough money. I don't want to keep delaying all my big, time-intensive plans because I've got to focus on getting that degree... even though I don't know what, exactly, I'll be able to do with it.

6 years is too long. I'd be 27 when I got out. That's not ancient or anything, but it's also not that much younger than my parents were when I was born.

I'm sure as heck not going to do all this if it doesn't lead anywhere better than the boat that I spent the summer on. There's got to be more out there than that.

... but I am going to do it. It's been planned too long. It's formed too many connections in my life. If I don't give my best shot at that doctor of philosophy title I'll always regret it and wonder what might have been, and I couldn't stand that.

And maybe I will get to do that stuff I like. Research. The kind where I work with a few other people and I respect them, maybe even like them--no rejection, no passion. The kind where I know what I'm doing, and can be actively involved at most stages of the work.

Being cold makes me sad.