It's all so sad. Everything in the news, everything on TV. Everything.

That's my deep thought for the day (week?)

It's been a very very long week.

I got a note from the bschool yesterday congratulating me on having made it half-way. It was actually kind of depressing--I keep thinking "only 4 more quarters!" not "half way!" You need 20 courses. I took #s 10 and 11 in the winter, so I'm more than half done. But still.

I think it's the lack of time more than anything else. In theory I should have 2 nights a week--friday and saturday-- where I can just goof off, go out with friends, drink myself into a stupor. In reality, of course, it doesn't work that way. At least one of those nights each week I'm at work, seeing a show. And then the options are either drink with the undergrads or drive home for 30 minutes, by which point I'm usually exhausted. Guess which option wins? I really like all--ok, most--of the students, but I don't necessarily want to spend my weekends with them. It either makes me feel really old, or else makes me feel like I'm trying to pretend to be something I'm not anymore.

I'll be 25 in a couple weeks. I had never thought this would be a big deal, and it really shouldn't be. I know that at 30 if I'm not married with plans for kids (or actual kids, which would be better but grows less likely every day), I'll freak out. I'll turn into one of those horrid shrieking over-dramatic women who tears her hair out. Despite my co-worker's recent comment that she's "so impressed with how in control your life is, how great it is that in another year you'll be ready for anything and still young enough to do it", I usually feel the opposite.

What am I doing? I'm not networking, I never meet anyone new who is over 18 except in class, and you can't make friends during a lecture. I'm pretty much a failure at the social aspects of grad school-I never leave work early enough to get there before class and chat, and the end of class routine is to say good night and rush to the car/train/bus as quickly as possible to get home for dinner. I get to know the people I'm in study groups with, but always in the context of "lets meet at 6 to do the assignment", which never turns into "lets go grab a drink after we're done". This is part my pre-existing commitments (to seeing the shows on campus, to going out with my boyfriend, to going to showtunes, to sleep, to TV, to whatever) and part my group-member's own busy lives. After all, most are married, many have children. The ones who aren't married with kids are usually in the full-time program, and therefore know other students really well, the way you know people in college (minus the forced socialization of dorm life).

I guess it just means I'm always surrounded by people, often chastised for not contacting my friends enough, and still too often lonely.

So turning 25 is freaking me out. I keep telling myself I am being ridiculously stupid and overdramatic, but then I remember that I spent at least 10 years of my life being ridiculously stupid and overdramatic, so why should 2 or 3 years of relative moderation last forever?

Okay, this is way too downbeat.

In other downbeat news, a man was shot and killed 2 blocks from my apartment building yesterday.

but, on the upside, the red sox won and the yankees lost.
- posted by Heidi @ 8:06 AM