The dreaded yet much anticipated last semester of coursework for my Ph.D. is looming on my calendar.....within two weeks time I will be immersed in books that make no sense that take me much time to read all while wondering "why the hell did I do this to myself". After buying my final notebook and folders, and after the box from Amazon arrived I was happy, sad, scared all at once. I think for anyone this would be almost a rite of passage, for me, it scares the hell out of me. It's as though I have been putting on an act during all of my schooling. Trying to prove to people that I could do it and that I wasn't too stupid to go to this school or that program and that I deserved to be here just like anyone else. I think confidence in any student is something that is grappled with before a big test, right before you print a final draft of a paper and in the end you still question why you started the journey and what you have learned. For me, I am in survival mode and my last thought is will I take the quals this fall or delay to spring and the deeper question is at this point after all that work, "Why do I still question my ability to handle it all?". I want to be the risk taker who just says, "yes, I can do this" but I have this lingering belief that although I want to just get it done and move forward that I'll fail or that I wont' be able to sit still long enough to get the studying I need to do done. And deeper than that, am I making more out of it than needs to be, am I pushing myself needlessly for one set of exams that truly tests the knowledge that should be part of my daily work? If only years of schooling really provided you with the confidence and the insight that in the end everything will be alright, and beyond that you still will be that little distracted girl who just wants to bounce around helping people and not fitting the mold of a true academic.
the blog may not make sense to any who read it, for me it was my distracted attempt to figure out what I really want to do NOW.
