Second thoughts

Brandon’s mom spread the word about that we’d prefer gift cards to Lowe’s as wedding gifts, and both our family and friends responded with showers of home improvement gift cards. Since we both lived independently before we met, we didn’t need to register for anything, but we do have a list of home improvement projects a mile long. We’ve mentally spent our upcoming tax return sevenfold.

We set out Saturday to squander our newfound wealth, and thought up of new projects to add to the ever-expanding list, like refinishing our kitchen cabinets. I’d love to totally renovate the kitchen when Ikea opens, but I know we’ll never get the return on the investment. Along with the cabinet materials, I also bought enough spring flower bulbs to open a small conservatory, along with mulch that I need to finish Phase I of the backyard project.

It occurred to me on the way home that for the next two years, I will not have the time to do projects like these, thanks to the time black hole they call graduate school.

I’ve been looking forward to graduate school ever since I returned to college years ago. I’ve always felt like the geriatric outsider lurking around the MTV spring break set in my undergraduate classes, and I envisioned graduate school to be oh, so much more serious and intelligent and full of academic people like me. For the record, it isn’t - the second-year grad students treat us like lowly high school freshmen.

I’ve been looking forward to graduate school for so long, but now that it’s here and classes have started, I’m ready to hang it up. It’s intimidating; reading two books on average each week with reviews and papers due several times weekly. My first American lit class is on Monday, and we have a 12-page review of a reading due on Friday. This wouldn’t be such an impetus for panic, except that I also have to squeeze in a 40-hour work week sometime.

Add to this the difficulty I have even getting through the first chapter of a book, any book. I tend to skip words, lines and even paragraphs when I read dull and dry material, which is how most historians write, unfortunately. Writing papers can be a test of true endurance. I’m trying to get back on ADD medication, but it’s going to take some time for it to even kick in.

Have I gotten myself over my head? And for what? The vanity of a master’s degree?

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