Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I Am Happy


Except when I think about university.

I took all of last week off for no reason other than that I couldn’t be bothered to go. I’m seriously considering quitting my Masters. It’s depressing me: I hate the subject (it’s not what I thought I’d be studying), I don’t really want it for any future jobs (I don’t want to go into academia, which is all my subject’s really fit for), I cannot be bothered writing a 150-200 page thesis on something I’m not interested in (which seems to be what I’ll have to do), I hate attending (don’t like the modules, the lecturers, or anything), and basically it just feels like a monumental waste of time. So I should quit. But this is probably a one-off chance - I don’t think that this is the kind of thing that I’ll have the opportunity, time or will to do ever again. Especially if I quit now.

So, what’s a girl to do?

Go shopping, of course. For chick flicks, specifically. How does this help? Simple: shopping is relaxing, chick flicks always make me feel good - thereby prolonging the feel-good factor from the shopping – and a relaxed me is a lot more positive than normal and better at finding solutions.

My shopping trip culminated in my deciding to do the following:

1) Email some lecturers at other universities regarding my situation and try to get some advice. There’s no point asking my lecturers, obviously, because they all think that they’re wonderful. I will also seek out and ask lecturers at my university who aren’t teaching me.

2) Get back into teaching English again – I stopped in May for various reasons, but I should definitely pick it back up again now. If I do quit my Masters course I need to have something that’ll get me out of the house regularly, and it’ll probably be teaching. Not to mention it’s my only source of steady income at the moment, which is a pretty big incentive in and of itself.

3) I did a freelance translation job last week and earned a considerable amount in a very short time, which reminded me of why I liked translating. Of course, that was after I remembered how much I hated deadlines. But, let’s face it; every single job has deadlines in some form or another, so I’m ok with it. Now I need to put together a portfolio and get more clients.

4) Now that I finally have my own laptop, it’s high time I took on some work online. The mere thought scares the living daylights out of me (I’m terrified of screwing up) but I know that I need to just do it, and then I’ll be like ‘oh, that wasn’t so bad!’

This week, I’m going to start on steps 1 and 2, which will probably take me at least two weeks, and then I hope to take on the rest when I know how that all goes.

At least my university timetable has been adjusted so I only have one and a half days of attendance, instead of my previous 2 and a half, so that’s something.

(Random side-note: I googled the words 'depressed student college girl', whilst trying to find a picture for this post, and a picture of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen came up as one of the suggestions. Google's weird.)

2 comments:

  1. Ha, love the google results thing. Hilarious.

    I think you've got a good task list laid out for yourself. Grad school is so much work, it's even harder when you aren't passionate about what you are studying or if the program isn't a good fit. I started out in a program called International Education, thinking I would then become a study abroad advisor at a college. The program was a horrible fit and I was miserable. So I decided not to return to the program. It was a tough decision, but ultimatel the best one. I took some time away and then figured out that an MBA program was the best route for me.

    Good luck getting it all figured out! :)

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  2. I hope things work out for you! If it doesn't feel like the right fit maybe it would be best to take some time away from your Masters and find something that will be a better fit?

    Good luck!

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