Countdown to End of Line

It's Wednesday and I have a brief amount of time to write a post. I have a timeline going at home, with countdowns of the days until my next three biggest life events.
3.5 days until comprehensive exam (Part 1)
13 days until comprehensive exam (Part 2)
16 days until my defense for graduation

These countdowns are scary and yet comforting, because they remind me exactly how much time I have. The more I know and prepare, the less scary the event will be. 17 days from today, I will have a LARGE drink of the liquor variety, because let's face it, I really will deserve it. Unlike all the other times I have a drink, those are just because I want to chill out or it's the weekend. In case you didn't count which day that first exam is, it's this Saturday. Yup, the Saturday before Easter. What's messed up is that we don't have classes on Friday (Good Friday and all), yet our professor feels he's only available to hold this exam the day between a no-classes day and Sunday. Depending on how many of my posts you've read that talk about grad school, you may or may not have picked up that my department is a little...well, let's just say they're not entirely organized nor do they communicate well with their students. The up side to this exam is that I DO have Friday off and I can study in the comfort of my own home. On a regular Friday I would have to teach at 8:30am until 11:30am and work 11:30-12:30pm. So it's not all bad, I'm really happy I won't have to wake up before the crack of dawn.

I'll be able to make my morning coffee without rushing out the door, and if I feel like hitting the snooze button just one more time, I can. I'm pretty sure my sleep deprivation is adding up faster than usual, but I keep telling myself that it's ok. It's ok because when I'm done with this semester I can take a break and sleep a little more.

That's my update. Any positive motivational quotes are welcome OR if you have suggestions for what you think would be good studying music, by all means list them below. I'm a pretty frequent Pandora listener with many stations.

Until my next post!

Comments

  1. amqzApril 5, 2012 at 1:01 AM

    From what you've written (in many of your posts), your professors seem either old and/or worthless and/or think they are more important than they actually are. Tough crowd. They will just want to tell you that you did a good job so they can move on with their day. You don't seem to think too highly of your peers, either. Not many students for your department to graduate only makes it easier. As long as you are in good standing your dissertation is just something fancy to show your dean you learned something. It will end up in a repository with many others. Your defense is just for your department to make sure no one else wrote it for you and/or make sure you can speak English. Have you ever heard of someone denied graduation because of their defense? Departments want to graduate as many people as possible. It makes them look good. Seems to me that being nervous and not sleeping is the only way you could screw that up.
    As for your exams, my masters degree allowed for numerous attempts and covered only first year material. Have you not built upon this? Are the standards that strict? If so, do you think that nobody in the history of your department has graduated because they fell just below these "standards"? Please. I'm sure more than a few have slipped through the cracks. Again, it seems to me that stressing out and losing sleep over them is the only way you will fail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PollyApril 5, 2012 at 9:07 AM

      I actually do have respect for some of my professors, but graduate school is more frustrating than I thought, politics-wise. Learning doesn't necessarily seem to be the #1 priority, which is a little disturbing to me. Your profile is empty too, do you have a Google+ profile?

      Delete
    2. amqzApril 5, 2012 at 12:12 PM

      Professors just want you to graduate. Class is usually for the professor's own agenda. If they want a promotion, they will just want their class to say what a great job they did. If it's a full professor, they won't really care what the students have to say. Students in general are just potential donors in the future.
      I don't really have any use for a Google+ profile. Google lost me after they made it more complicated than image and news article searches. I just had to make this account to comment. I'm starting on a small tadpole pond soon haha. Good Luck! And enjoy being a student, you're really going to miss it one day.

      Delete
    3. PollyApril 5, 2012 at 12:24 PM

      Yeah, it's just a little discouraging when you know your professors (or at least some of them) aren't there to teach and help students learn.

      Thanks for the comment though, harsh and yet true *sigh* Good thing I graduate soon =)

      Delete
  2. twistedByKnavesApril 5, 2012 at 1:17 AM

    Here's a selection from Nicholas Bate, who's good at this stuff.
    3 inspirations and 1 Dreadful Warning...
    http://blog.strategicedge.co.uk/2012/04/m.html (edit the day as required)
    http://blog.strategicedge.co.uk/2008/02/how-to-think--1.html
    http://blog.strategicedge.co.uk/2008/02/how-to-think-li.html
    http://blog.strategicedge.co.uk/2007/12/how-to-think--1.html
    Plenty more where these came from...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PollyApril 5, 2012 at 9:13 AM

      Haha, these are awesome =) I will use these for inspiration.

      Delete
  3. twistedByKnavesApril 5, 2012 at 11:32 AM

    ...and the rather obvious music. Maybe for dancing round on breaks rather than yer akshul studying, though...?
    http://youtu.be/9viJcd_0b9E

    ReplyDelete

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