One term down, something like 8 to go...

I finished my last final for my first term of "back to college" about an hour ago. I was the most nervous about this final--Death and Dying--but I got a 98% on the test. That means that, with Accounting and Biology, I have my first ever 4.0 gpa. This is a great beginning :-)

I'm celebrating, of course, but my best friend is in a meeting, my other best friend is putting her son to bed, and my parents are in Costa Rica. So, I'm celebrating alone, but that's okay. A lot of this I did on my own. All of my celebrations will come with various friends and family in their due time, but tonight I'm content to celebrate with myself. Gatsby greeted me at the door and we spent a fair amount of time jumping on our hind legs and dancing about. Gatsby did great work too...he spent a damn lot of time alone during this term and didn't so much as tear up one shoe or dig one item out of the trash.

I start up again in two and a half weeks with intermediate algebra and cellular biology. I need to find a way to bottle this feeling, 'cause it's not going to last long. Tonight, though, I will allow it to last forever.

I'm still here!

I promise...and I have quite a few things to write about, but no time to do so. Finals begin soon, and I'm in the middle of all sorts of craziness. So, stay tuned--I'll be back!

A calmer, gentler day

Started out the day with Erica hanging at the outlet mall and doing some well needed retail therapy, which helped me recover from yesterday's "episode." Then I headed to Normandale to talk to one of the academic counselors there and see what deals I could shake down.

Apparently, I am not a deal maker. I'm taking Survey of Chemistry. BUT, I'm taking it this summer, so it will be as painless as possible. I'm also taking an anthropology class called Magic, Witchcraft & Religion, which I'm super excited about. During the second summer term I'm taking Intermediate Algebra and Health Professions Terminology. That leaves me with quite an icky schedule for fall classes, but I'll make it work. Maybe.

At any rate, I'm scheduled for classes and it's spring break and I'm c-a-l-m.

The meltdown

Call it a flash in the pan or a major malfunction, a stress buildup or a psychotic break...whatever it is, it happened to me today. The culmination of three months of stress and anxiety and overload simmering in a pressure cooker called "Kelly's body" finally flew out today and the result was, very nearly, a broken patio glass door.

Registration for summer classes is upon me, so after sitting in biology for awhile and talking to a counselor about classes I need and want and can have, I logged on and tried to work my magic. Long story short, there was no magic to be worked, and I found out I need to take a class called "survey to chemistry" which is a lower level class than my high school class and, it goes without saying, a lower level than my college chemistry class. I balked at that a bit, but not as much as the impending realization that the addition of even one more class will cause me to stay in teaching for another year and push off my plans. This freaked me right out, on a cellular level.

Then, I couldn't find my wallet. This was where I dumped the contents of my purse onto my dining room table and, not finding the wallet there, decided it would be a good idea to fling my purse at the patio door. Fortunately, my frontal lobe was engaged and quickly calculated the cost-benefit analysis of this action and told my hand to knock it the fuck off. I found the wallet ten feet away.

There is a third component to my stresses that I'm keeping totally to myself. Erica knows, and my mom, but that's it. It's nothing bad, don't worry. In fact, it will either be neutral or totally kick ass--no chance of badness. But, it's still causing potential stress because anything "unknown" right now is causing me total angst.

So, it's happened. Everyone has been saying, and I've been agreeing, that at some point I would have a complete and total freakout. I'm glad that it happened over spring break in the privacy of my own home, and that it's done now so I can go about my business.

"And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!' "

My mind and my body are currently waging war against each other.

Mind: Babydoll, you've got a ton of stuff to do and time is flying by. Get to work. Quit being so dumb.

Body: Dude, please. I'm tired. I'm sick. I want to be horizontal rather than sitting at this damn table for the rest of my life. We can do the work later, can't we?

Mind: Absolutely not. We've got papers to grade, accounting to do, histology to study, and bone anatomy to memorize. I need you on top of your game!

Body: But we've got As in everything. Can't we maybe just, I don't know, stop studying histology? You'll do fine on the test.

Mind: We haven't started studying histology! You think we have because you look at it all the time, but we haven't been studying. I've been reminding you to study it but you haven't because you've been so lazy.

Body: Not lazy--TIRED! I'm exhausted! My phalanges hurt from writing comments on a billion essays and my eyes hurt from reading, reading, always with the reading......


You see how it's going. So, we'll see who wins. Either my mind will give in or my body will. Either way, there's not a prayer in the world that I can keep pushing myself full force without a break.

Tough transition in the making

Since I've been more vocal about my plans (what with having to brag about my unbelievable grades and how smart I am), there have been some unanticipated side effects: mainly, talking about quitting teaching is damn scary.

I had no idea how much of my identity was wrapped up in the word "teacher." It is me. When I'm in school. At home. On dates. On the street. I am a teacher, not as a profession, but as myself. When I give up teaching, I will be giving up a huge part of who I am. I'll fill that space, eventually, with something else, but it will never be the same and there's a strong feeling of loss there.

Next week is the last week of the trimester, and I'd be lying if I said that carrying twelve credits and teaching six classes and trying to keep up with grading and working with a student teacher (and training for a half-marathon, and...I could go on and on) wasn't totally kicking my ass. I am one hundred percent beaten down right now. And though I am being careful to take time for myself, it comes at a cost that eventually has to be paid up.

From English teacher

I have a student teacher for the next few months. It's an interesting position to be in: to be leaving the profession while trying to guide someone into getting into it. He knows that I'm not much longer for the teaching world.

Yesterday he had a total meltdown. Epic variety. The same meltdown that every teacher has had at least once: where he wondered if he was meant to teach and thought about quitting but couldn't quite manage to quit because of that pesky work ethic. Been there, done that. He came back today and had a much better day, which is typically what happens in the teaching world.

The struggle for me is to convince him that teaching is a fantastic profession; that it is noble and valuable and rewarding and that if you are a good teacher you absolutely should be in the classroom..........without convincing myself of it. Trust me, I'm quite a persuasive person. And when I talk to him I think "I'm right. Teaching IS fantastic." And then I wonder why I'm leaving. And I mean really why I'm leaving...because I don't think I'm completely being honest with myself about that. I think a part of me wants out because if I stay in teaching much longer then it means that I'm really getting older. I don't know. There's something there, for sure. But when I tell him that I love to teach, I'm not lying. All of the things I say about teaching--the good things--are true. So why am I leaving?

Oh yeah, I've got time for this...

Panic attacks have set in. Tonight I've had three of them in as many hours. The first happened when I walked back into my death/dying classroom after a lovely discussion on organ donation, DNRs, and how to figure out if someone is really dead to get my purse. That was the worst because it's the first one I've had in a few years and I totally wasn't expecting it. The last two haven't been quite as bad--have been able to breathe through them.

Panic attacks are so ridiculous. But they are, unfortunately, a sign of impending doom. They mean that I have to chill things out a bit. Sadly, with the way things are, that's not possible at this time. So, I need to suck it up. I know that sounds a little harsh, but the fact is that I've already cut out everything that's cutoutable. I'm not going out, I'm not seeing anyone, I'm going to work, school, home, the chiropractor and yoga. And the lab.

And yet---I'm loving school, I really am. I love taking notes, love walking from class to class with my books, love learning new stuff. So, at the end of the day, is it worth it? Absolutely. And this is short term stress--brought on because I'm not as dumb as I was when I was eighteen. The end of this process is definitely worth the short term pain that comes along the way. Nothing worthwhile comes completely easily, right?

Balancing teaching and studying

One of the most important aspects of transitioning from one career to another is the time management of maintenance and learning. I need to, essentially, balance two careers for at least another few years.

I've taken and scheduled to take several days off from teaching in order to complete my obligations to my second career: school. What that means is that even if I'm not feeling well, or if I might have taken a day off in the past, I need to weigh my current "need" of a day off against the potential future need (that may be greater). Hopefully that makes sense.

Today was a day I stayed at home. Students had the day off, so the teachers had an inservice. I decided that my time would be better served by finishing chapter 2 in accounting, reading chapter 2 in Death/Dying, and running through my anatomy flash cards one more time (or more) before I hit the lab tomorrow for a few hours.

I'm pretty surprised with my level of studying, to be perfectly honest. If I had put forth this amount of effort the first time around, I'd be a much different person. Crazy how one's priorities change as one gets older.