Well; lets start with the good news. I apparently have managed to finally complete my new image. Just for old times sake, lets show you a picture of how I looked at this time last year:
Notice the long hair, the flowing mustache. The blue face paint. (alright, I'll talk straight to you; I didn't usually wear the blue face paint, that was for Halloween. But I was attempting to look like a traditional Irish warrior, do this pic is close to how I viewed myself in spirit, if not reality).
Pretty horrible, eh?
Most of my friends and family put up with that look, although there were precious few who liked it (actually, some to think of it, there were NONE who liked it; same, possibly, my Father who liked the mustahce)
Here is how I look today; following the purchase of a new leather jacket, and also my final mastery of the Pompadour
Much better, eh? I think so at least, as do most of my friends. Most of the women I know have been busy, the last month, lauding me with compliments about how handsome I suddenly look. And that was before I bought the jacket!
Now for the less good news: I'm getting terribly frustrated.
Let me explain; those of you who have been reading my journal might well remember my triumphany delceration that I'd finished a terribly difficult assignment and, I thought, done pretty well at it. Well, I got the project back yesterday and I didn't do nearly as well as I'd thought.
I'd figured I'd pull a high B, low A on it. Instead I pulled a low B, high C. I'm not afraid to ashamed to admit that I was pissed off by this and badly shaken. You see, back when I was doing my undergraduate work, I can remember only one time when I did badly on an assignment I actually tried on. Once. The usual formula was that, if I slacked off, I'd get a B- or so and, if I tried, I'd pull an A. I, of course, didn't always try as hard as I could, because I had more important things on my mind (namely, hanging out with friends and going to see movies).
Looking over the Professor's comments, I can understand his points and will fix these for the next assighment; my citations were rough, I'll admit, and I got slopping in some of my descriptions (of course, it would have been nice to know, before hand, what the expectations were; but thats neither here nor there). My Prof in the class is fair, I can't argue with that, and now I know what he's looking for. Fair enough.
Or so I tell myself, at least. Another part of me, however, is about ready to throw its hands up in the air and curse me for managing to fail once again. Yes, its time for honesty again, I've developed a 'slight' fear of a failure in the past three years, after failing miserably at nearly everything I've tried. You can read 'slight' as 'major'.
And so, currently, I seem to be at war with myself; part of me ruminating at my sheer inability to make anything of myself and cursing the expectations people put on me, and another part (the stronger one) trying to calm the other one down; rationally arguing that, now that I know what the expectations are, I'll do better and will still get through this class all right. And, furthermore, pointing out that I've been out of school for three years, and it takes a while to get back into the swing of things.
As I said, the positive side is stronger, but the negative side is a mean sonuvabitch, and I'm afraid he's going to try something dirty.
Honestly, the class itself is just driving my crazy. Its a 3 credit course, but it might as well be 9-creidts for the amount of work we have to do. I was accepted into Grad School on probation (the standard practice for we 'non-trads') and need to get, at least, a B in all of my courses to stay in the program. Unfortuantely, this one class is taking up all of my time and energy, and I'm very worried that it is doing so to the detrement of the rest of my courses. Every hour I spend on HS701 is an hour I DON'T spend on my "History of the Great Plains" and "Readings in American History" two other classes that I also have to pull Bs in, in order to stay in the program.
To make matters worse; I recently got a job at Wal-Mart (I need money for food and utilities after all) and even though I told them I wanted to work for 15-20 hours; the past two weeks they've already begun scheduling me for 24-27 a week! All of this, of course, during the weekends; the one time when I don't have anything else going on, and I could focus my attention towards getting my work done.
I need to talk to them and firmly explain that I can't work more than three days a week (I'd prefer two nice shifts of 8 hours a peice. Say, a Friday and Saturday; leaving me Sunday to go to the library and plug away). Unfortuantely, I just got hired; and it goes to contrary to my personality to begin to complain about a job when I just got it; I can't aford to be unemployed anymore than I can to work too many hours.
Its all horribly frustrating.
I really wish I had some source of income that didn't involve a job at this point. Both of my friends who went through Grad School had a lot of help from their parents. Unfortunately, when I even jokingly broached the subject to my Mother, I was greeted with a horrified "You've got to be kidding me!? I seriously can't think that you're being serious! You're 25 now, get over it".
Trutfhully, I'd have real trouble taking their money anyway; I was raised to me independent and am prideful enough to want to do things myself. A little bit of kick back though, really would make things a lot easier :/
Oh well, this class IS passable; I've got several people in my other classes who've managed to pull it off. I just don't know how _I_ am going to do it, though. I suppose I'll find a way; there really isn't any other choice. My only other option would be to go back to teaching; and I'd rather put a gun in my own mouth than do THAT. So, I'll keep plugging along, working my but off, and try to scrape by this first seemster; at this point, its all I know how to do.
Notice the long hair, the flowing mustache. The blue face paint. (alright, I'll talk straight to you; I didn't usually wear the blue face paint, that was for Halloween. But I was attempting to look like a traditional Irish warrior, do this pic is close to how I viewed myself in spirit, if not reality).
Pretty horrible, eh?
Most of my friends and family put up with that look, although there were precious few who liked it (actually, some to think of it, there were NONE who liked it; same, possibly, my Father who liked the mustahce)
Here is how I look today; following the purchase of a new leather jacket, and also my final mastery of the Pompadour
Much better, eh? I think so at least, as do most of my friends. Most of the women I know have been busy, the last month, lauding me with compliments about how handsome I suddenly look. And that was before I bought the jacket!
Now for the less good news: I'm getting terribly frustrated.
Let me explain; those of you who have been reading my journal might well remember my triumphany delceration that I'd finished a terribly difficult assignment and, I thought, done pretty well at it. Well, I got the project back yesterday and I didn't do nearly as well as I'd thought.
I'd figured I'd pull a high B, low A on it. Instead I pulled a low B, high C. I'm not afraid to ashamed to admit that I was pissed off by this and badly shaken. You see, back when I was doing my undergraduate work, I can remember only one time when I did badly on an assignment I actually tried on. Once. The usual formula was that, if I slacked off, I'd get a B- or so and, if I tried, I'd pull an A. I, of course, didn't always try as hard as I could, because I had more important things on my mind (namely, hanging out with friends and going to see movies).
Looking over the Professor's comments, I can understand his points and will fix these for the next assighment; my citations were rough, I'll admit, and I got slopping in some of my descriptions (of course, it would have been nice to know, before hand, what the expectations were; but thats neither here nor there). My Prof in the class is fair, I can't argue with that, and now I know what he's looking for. Fair enough.
Or so I tell myself, at least. Another part of me, however, is about ready to throw its hands up in the air and curse me for managing to fail once again. Yes, its time for honesty again, I've developed a 'slight' fear of a failure in the past three years, after failing miserably at nearly everything I've tried. You can read 'slight' as 'major'.
And so, currently, I seem to be at war with myself; part of me ruminating at my sheer inability to make anything of myself and cursing the expectations people put on me, and another part (the stronger one) trying to calm the other one down; rationally arguing that, now that I know what the expectations are, I'll do better and will still get through this class all right. And, furthermore, pointing out that I've been out of school for three years, and it takes a while to get back into the swing of things.
As I said, the positive side is stronger, but the negative side is a mean sonuvabitch, and I'm afraid he's going to try something dirty.
Honestly, the class itself is just driving my crazy. Its a 3 credit course, but it might as well be 9-creidts for the amount of work we have to do. I was accepted into Grad School on probation (the standard practice for we 'non-trads') and need to get, at least, a B in all of my courses to stay in the program. Unfortuantely, this one class is taking up all of my time and energy, and I'm very worried that it is doing so to the detrement of the rest of my courses. Every hour I spend on HS701 is an hour I DON'T spend on my "History of the Great Plains" and "Readings in American History" two other classes that I also have to pull Bs in, in order to stay in the program.
To make matters worse; I recently got a job at Wal-Mart (I need money for food and utilities after all) and even though I told them I wanted to work for 15-20 hours; the past two weeks they've already begun scheduling me for 24-27 a week! All of this, of course, during the weekends; the one time when I don't have anything else going on, and I could focus my attention towards getting my work done.
I need to talk to them and firmly explain that I can't work more than three days a week (I'd prefer two nice shifts of 8 hours a peice. Say, a Friday and Saturday; leaving me Sunday to go to the library and plug away). Unfortuantely, I just got hired; and it goes to contrary to my personality to begin to complain about a job when I just got it; I can't aford to be unemployed anymore than I can to work too many hours.
Its all horribly frustrating.
I really wish I had some source of income that didn't involve a job at this point. Both of my friends who went through Grad School had a lot of help from their parents. Unfortunately, when I even jokingly broached the subject to my Mother, I was greeted with a horrified "You've got to be kidding me!? I seriously can't think that you're being serious! You're 25 now, get over it".
Trutfhully, I'd have real trouble taking their money anyway; I was raised to me independent and am prideful enough to want to do things myself. A little bit of kick back though, really would make things a lot easier :/
Oh well, this class IS passable; I've got several people in my other classes who've managed to pull it off. I just don't know how _I_ am going to do it, though. I suppose I'll find a way; there really isn't any other choice. My only other option would be to go back to teaching; and I'd rather put a gun in my own mouth than do THAT. So, I'll keep plugging along, working my but off, and try to scrape by this first seemster; at this point, its all I know how to do.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
A loser is someone who quits right before they would have won. So dig down deep and summon some of that left-over Irish-Warrior-Man-Beast and get crackin on what needs cracked. There will be time for all that emotional stuff later. It's called partying after finals! Ya hear?
Now back to the trenches tough guy!