mighty_aphrodite

Can't sleep.  I have no internet access right now, so I'm typing this on notepad at 12:39 in the morning, and planning on back-posting it when next I hit a wireless spot.  My brain won't shut up.  It keeps thinking about GRAD SCHOOL and GRADES and the SHIT that is about to HIT THE FAN with my ADVISOR (the all-caps are my brain's, not mine).  I got a C+ in my Catullus class.   Which means that, unless I get an A in the Greek class (doubtful), I'm not going to make gpa (3.25), for the second semester in a row.  I'm trying to think of how I'm going to talk my way out of this.  I can't very well go to the director of grad studies, who is also my advisor, and my Greek prof. and tell him I'm bombing because: a) my Latin prof grades like an idiot and 2) he, my Greek prof assigns too damn much reading.  Nevermind that every other student in the class agrees with me that his expectations are insane and unrealistic.  Nevermind that all his classes are always like this and no number of student comments on his evaluations have apparentlly affected his approach.  Methinks there is a reason he doesn't get to teach Greek very often. 

So what am I going to tell him?  I mean, there is just SO MUCH SHIT I'm supposed to do, and I can't possibly do it all.  Especially when it all piles up at the same time.  Take these past two weeks: 4 papers, 2 exams, 2 quizzes, half a million lines of reading plus papers to grade for my class.  I can't do it all.  And it seems that I end up doing one of three things, none of which are successful.

            1.  Concentrate on one thing I think is really important (such as a big paper) and ignore the rest for the moment.
                 Result: quiz over the material I didn't read while I was busy writing the paper or something similar.

            2.  Try to do everything.  
                 Result: everything is done half-assed and it looks like I'm an idiot.

            3.  Get so overwhelmed that I never get around to doing anything becasue I'm so busy trying to figure out what to do first.  
                 Result: self explanatory.

Obviously, I'm not academically or emotionally prepared for this.  I love the people at Iowa, but let's face it, it's not a top ten program or anything.  I did it in two years and didn't come out very well read.  I have huge gaps in my education that I don't have time to fill.  But then, I guess I'll have all the time in the world when I get booted out.

I have so much going on in my life these past few months that it's just driven me to distraction.  I mean, you try feeding and sheltering two people and a dog on 600 a month after your financial aid money runs out and see how your mental state is.  Try living with the fact that you dragged your husband to Minnesota, far from family, friends, and any kind of professional opportunity in order to pursue an academic career that you're now flunking out of, pretty much single-handedly screwing over both of your careers.  Then try to sleep at night.  Hell, just try to get through the day in one piece.

I'm totally fucked up.  And honestly?  I've lost enthusiasm for.. everything.  I don't want to do anything.  This degree I wanted to pursue?  The work is just a chore. I don't even want to try to keep up. It doesn't seem worth it.  I don't want to clean.  Don't want to cook.  Don't want to teach.  DOn't want to do my laundry.  I don't want to do anything but veg in front of a computer/tv screen all day and/or sleep.  Nothing is appealing.  Hell, I hardly eat.  I've been dehydrated for days because I don't care enough to get up and get a glass of water.  For some reason I'd rather just pee every ten minutes once a UTI sets in. 

I'll be totally honest:  I've not been taking care of myself for awhile now.  It's just this viscious cycle of apathy.  Apathy breeds poor physical/mental health which only breeds more apathy.  I've somehow gotten through my first full year in grad school.  Not sure just how I pulled that off.  Am I still in one piece?  Not sure.  I feel like I'm just floating around, totally lost.  I don't have anybody I can go to.  I don't know what I'm doing any more.  And I used to be so sure.  I had direction once.  I had ambition.  More and more I start to think that if I could have done it all over, I'd have ditched the grad school idea, let David take a good business job somewhere else and settled down to make babies and live the hausfrau's existence.  If I'd done that last May, I could have 10 pounds of adorable infant and a decent income coming in.  I could be living in a neignborhood where your car doesn't get broken into and people wash their hair (I live near the art school--lots of dreaklocks, female body hair, and right-wing conspiracy theories).  Maybe I could be happy.

Some fuckwit didn't lock the office door and my computer got stolen.  I need a tranquilizer.

My husband left just under an hour ago for his second week in Chicago, leaving me all alone in our crappy apartment in Minneapolis.  My apartment looks like my old apartment vomited all over it.  That is, my stuff is everwhere (in various boxes).  It is a cardboard jungle.  I don't dare prowl around without lights on for fear of serious injury.  I don't know where any of my stuff is.
And I'm a wreck.  I finally had to get out of the apartment before I totally lost my mind.  I'm across the street using the WiFi in an incredibly expensive coffee house, just becasue I'm less likely yto have an emotional meltdown when I am in public.  My eyes and throat need a break from the hysterics.  I just don't know when I became so friggin' emotionally dependent, but it sucks.  Luckily, my WonderHubby doesn't mind my abnormal clinginess. 
it didn't sink in until today that:
1.  I actually live in Minneapolis now.  I do not live in Iowa and probably never will again.
2.  My husband really is leaving me all alone in this totally foreign environment with nobody but two turtles and a zebra finch for company. 

I wish we had gotten a dog before he had to leave.  I am hundreds of miles away from the nearest members of my support network and I feel very alone.