I'm trying to keep my cool. I just need to hang on one more week, and then this semester will be over.
Unfortunately, since I've been working pretty nonstop for several weeks already, I'm wearing a little thin. Hopefully I'll be able to get through things without any trouble, get A's on all my papers and exams, and feel like the end of this semester was worthwhile and successful.
Right now I just want to hide in bed until it's all over. Instead, I'm planning to go for a little run, take a shower, and then spend the day working at a coffee shop. Or maybe at K's library. I've been avoiding studying at K's library, since I'm not a student there anymore and I feel silly for wanting to use a different school's library, but it really is peaceful and lovely and well-lit and comfortable, and there are fireplaces and armchairs.
We'll see. I know I'll get my work done eventually and it will feel great. For now I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted and just want it to be over.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Ready...go!
I'm a Masters student and a TA. So, in an ideal world, I would have the challenge of balancing my tutoring and grading with my own school work. In the real world, that is the case, plus I have to find a new place to live (my neighborhood has gotten too dangerous), find time to eat (and cook!), make time to meet with my partner for a group project, keep in touch with family and friends who don't live close by, and spend time with my boyfriend and other friends in town. Not to mention those other chores like working out, cleaning the house, doing laundry, etc.
Right now, the semester is coming to a close (time flies!!) and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching. I know I won't get any work done when I'm visiting family in California for Thanksgiving, so I have to work extra hard now to finish as much as humanly possible before I leave town so I won't be completely swamped when I get back.
I just finished grading 60 exams for the class I TA. Next, shower, lunch, group meeting, homework for Thursday, emails to professors, chauffeur the boyfriend (his name is Jeff, by the way) to his class since he doesn't have a parking pass, and possibly go rock climbing. And that's just to stay caught up. I need to start getting ahead.
That means, in my "spare time" I need to be reading scholarly articles to work on my 20-page research paper for my political development class; researching prices, mental health, and NGOs in Senegal to get going on my 20-page development project design for my development methods and skills class; come up with a presentation critiquing an evaluation of two development projects in Azerbaijan for my monitoring and evaluation class; and reading and critiquing an evaluation to write my 20-page evaluation critique paper for my monitoring and evaluation class.
To sum up, that's 3 20-page papers and one 30-min presentation on top of my normal homework and TA responsibilities, and it's all coming to a head in the next 4.5 weeks. So I'm trying to pretty much finish in the next two weeks. Yeah right.
Anyways...off I go!
Right now, the semester is coming to a close (time flies!!) and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching. I know I won't get any work done when I'm visiting family in California for Thanksgiving, so I have to work extra hard now to finish as much as humanly possible before I leave town so I won't be completely swamped when I get back.
I just finished grading 60 exams for the class I TA. Next, shower, lunch, group meeting, homework for Thursday, emails to professors, chauffeur the boyfriend (his name is Jeff, by the way) to his class since he doesn't have a parking pass, and possibly go rock climbing. And that's just to stay caught up. I need to start getting ahead.
That means, in my "spare time" I need to be reading scholarly articles to work on my 20-page research paper for my political development class; researching prices, mental health, and NGOs in Senegal to get going on my 20-page development project design for my development methods and skills class; come up with a presentation critiquing an evaluation of two development projects in Azerbaijan for my monitoring and evaluation class; and reading and critiquing an evaluation to write my 20-page evaluation critique paper for my monitoring and evaluation class.
To sum up, that's 3 20-page papers and one 30-min presentation on top of my normal homework and TA responsibilities, and it's all coming to a head in the next 4.5 weeks. So I'm trying to pretty much finish in the next two weeks. Yeah right.
Anyways...off I go!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
A New Stage of Life, A New Blog
My mom has asked me several times since I stopped posting on my Senegal blog to start blogging again. I wasn't interested, because I didn't have the urge to sit down and write about my life. Lately, though, that has changed, so I figured it was time to start a new blog.
Some background info about me and my life:
My name is Erica. I just started a Masters program in International Development Administration this fall in Kalamazoo, where I have been living and going to school for the last four years. Starting the program has led to a shift in the context of my life in Kalamazoo; while I had been living here as a student, whose "real" home was in California, it became clear when I decided to stay here that I needed to make Kalamazoo my real home. So I spend the summer shifting banks, renting a new apartment, getting a Michigan license, etc.
Part of the reason I decided to start this blog is that I keep wanting to post things about my life--observations, questions, comments, pictures, recipes--and using Facebook for that kind of thing gets old quickly. So here we are. We'll see what happens. For the moment, I'll leave you with what I'm working on right now, which is my homework for tonight.
Tonight is my seminar class called "Development Methods and Skills." Tonight I need to turn in an outline of my project plan, which is our large project for the term. I need to outline what the project is that I'm designing: who is the target population, what needs are being addressed, what are the indirect costs and benefits, what inputs are necessary for the project, who are the relevant stakeholders in the project, etc. My project is based off a WHO project I read about in the NY Times, which aims to diagnose and treat adults suffering from mental health disorders (and thus improve their income, productivity, and parenting skills by helping them achieve mental health and stability).
Some background info about me and my life:
My name is Erica. I just started a Masters program in International Development Administration this fall in Kalamazoo, where I have been living and going to school for the last four years. Starting the program has led to a shift in the context of my life in Kalamazoo; while I had been living here as a student, whose "real" home was in California, it became clear when I decided to stay here that I needed to make Kalamazoo my real home. So I spend the summer shifting banks, renting a new apartment, getting a Michigan license, etc.
Part of the reason I decided to start this blog is that I keep wanting to post things about my life--observations, questions, comments, pictures, recipes--and using Facebook for that kind of thing gets old quickly. So here we are. We'll see what happens. For the moment, I'll leave you with what I'm working on right now, which is my homework for tonight.
Tonight is my seminar class called "Development Methods and Skills." Tonight I need to turn in an outline of my project plan, which is our large project for the term. I need to outline what the project is that I'm designing: who is the target population, what needs are being addressed, what are the indirect costs and benefits, what inputs are necessary for the project, who are the relevant stakeholders in the project, etc. My project is based off a WHO project I read about in the NY Times, which aims to diagnose and treat adults suffering from mental health disorders (and thus improve their income, productivity, and parenting skills by helping them achieve mental health and stability).
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