Pass the lithium

Any of you who’ve been reading my blog lately may have detected a recurrent theme of fatigue, exhaustion, and self-pity. I was honestly beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me, because I’ve been so overwhelmed the last few days. Some of it was spurred on by my realization that I was one-fourth (one fourth!) through my six general terms of grad school…. But did I feel like I’d accumulated one-fourth of what I needed to know to finish? Uh, no! Panic was setting in, and tiredness and worry about money were adding to it, and as much fun as I’m having, it was all feeling like too much.

But then, I went to school on Monday and headed for my GA office and started talking with my fellow First Year GAs about these “symptoms,” and they look at me wide-eyed and started blurting out the same things, and it was like we were all echoing each other. Enter one of the Second Years, who listened to us and then, with a rueful grin, explained that this was a common phase, a combination of adapting to GA-dom and of the dark winter post-midterm slump. It will pass, she said.

So, today, although I’m still mildly panicked and still somewhat tired, things are looking up. I found out that I’ll be teaching again next term—another class of freshman comp, a.k.a., Writing 121 (Big yay!). I’m meeting my lit advisor tomorrow to talk about my three areas of study (more on that in another post) and have also found out that I can work this summer, so at least a little bit of money will be coming in.

And, last night I had my first piece workshopped in our non-fiction grad writing seminar, and it went very well. The high point of the evening—and of my life for some time—was having the professor say that the writing was “very strong” and that one part, in which I used listing as a form of emphasis, was “perfect.” That rocked my world.

Things are looking up. That’s not to say the tantrums and whining will end, but I think I’ve got a tenuous grip on reality, which is something.