Grad School For Dummies

Yoo-hoo! Anyone still there? If memory serves, I last updated this blog about six months ago with an emotionally charged rant written from an airplane. Lest we get all bogged down in the details, I’ll keep the update brief.

Despite my frantic last minute misgivings about heading back to grad school and formally giving up my unemployed supermom position, I went through with it. Which is why you haven’t heard so much as a squeak from me since. Turns out getting a master’s degree wasn’t the vacation I was hoping it would be.

After one semester of a full course load and a clinical internship my worst fears were confirmed.  I was going to have to, like, hustle. If you recall my very busy summer schedule, I try to keep mental and manual labor to less than fifteen minutes a day.

Thankfully, my superhero powers of speed-reading and rapid-fire bullshit production held for one semester. I limped into December with a slight reliance on booze and medication and hefting an extra five (okay, fifteen) pounds. My husband was really shining as a homemaker and breadwinner, but he wasn’t exactly having a great time. Especially when I came home after 50 hours out of the house and acted like a crazy bitch.

I know, you think I’m setting you up so you’ll feel bad when I tell you I failed and dropped out. As if. I got all As, thank you very much. Well, one was an A-, which a friend told me is not really an A. Really? Then why’s it got an A in it? In the interest of full disclosure, in case you’re uptight, too, I got one A-. (And not so much as a certificate in the mail from the dean, I might add. Rip off.) Despite all this wild success, I was sick of hearing myself complain to everyone who would listen, so I begged the department chair to let me drop down to part time going forward.

I felt bad about this little change in plan, as it added a full year to my graduation date. “So what?” pointed out my husband. “It’s not like this degree in Social Work is a money making venture.” Point well taken, sir. I made a lot of noise about wanting to be there for child, hearth, and home, but it really hadn’t taken me long to figure out that this new plan bought me another summer of unemployment. I felt that looked pretty good on me last year, so I’m looking forward to adding more data points to that line of research.

Right now I’m two months into this latest semester, and two classes lighter. Next year is even lighter with a break from the clinical internship hours. Time, precious time! Today I put 9 hours into homemade chicken stock, Thai lemongrass soup, and chicken curry. I took a small time out for an online test. We started mixing cocktails at 5:00 pm. I took a bath with my little monster child. And now I’m talking to myself in this blog and listening to Shakira (on Pandora, for chrissakes, it’s not like I paid for it).

Balance! Love it. It’s one of the many privileges of the yuppie, middle-class, educated, socioeconomic bracket I enjoy membership in.  That’s something I’m learning about at social worker school. But I digress. I’ll get into the liberal politics my newfound career demands in a later blog. Something for you to look forward to…