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I'm definitely not writing enough lately. I went back and read some entries from last summer, and my writing style has degraded quite a bit. I was much more eloquent a year ago. And much more coherent...
I feel like grad school has aged me. I feel much, much older than 22 these days. I think I knew this would happen if I came to Yale; I think that's part of why I was so deathly afraid that I'd made the wrong choice. I posted last June that I was afraid I wouldn't feel alive in Connecticut, and I really don't. I haven't felt alive in the last few weeks at all, and the last year seems like it's gone by too fast for me to have actually lived it. The three years at Santa Cruz took up eons because I lived, sometimes painfully, through each and every second. Sometimes now I feel like I'm just trying to push the seconds past and get to the end as quickly as possible.
I'm not the person I want to be right now. I'm not as good or as intelligent as I'd like to be. I think a lot of that has to do with willpower; I've never been good at self-discipline, having been able to get through high school and college on sheer intelligence and not by studying hard. There were times that I DID study hard, but that was because I wanted to, and not because I made myself. My few low grades in college were in the classes I simply couldn't force myself to study for. I think that's catching up to me now; I find it very very hard to motivate myself to do anything I don't want to do. Maybe I just need to practice. I'm looking forward to qualifying--I actually want to qualify, and I want to work hard to do well in qualifying, and I'm hoping that two months' worth of solid studying insanity will help me keep working hard after I pass the exam. Until then, though, I think I really need to work on being the person I want to be. Like I said, I'm not as good or as intelligent as I'd like to be right now. I feel out of control and uninformed. I feel like I'm living each day based on present desires and without any attention to consequences.
Also, I'm very very lonely, and I no longer know how to reach out in real life. Maybe I've gotten too used to reaching out through livejournal (does it seem to you that every entry here is a cry for help? sometimes it seems that way to me). Didn't I used to ask real life friends for help? Didn't I used to have actual conversations about my problems instead of writing about them over and over and over and over again? Or, if not "instead of", then at least "in addition to"... It seems like I've become, again, the person that everyone talks to, but no one ever asks how I'm doing and actually waits to hear the lengthy depressive answer. Maybe they're all just sick of my depression too.
Please forgive me for a second while I quote Grey's Anatomy: "We're adults. When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?"
Growing up seems to be one of those things they should have given you a manual for in middle or high school. You know, like dating, and applying to colleges, and grocery shopping. It's one of those things you aren't prepared for, even though you've watched other people do it your whole life. No one tells you that, the older you get, the more alone you'll feel. Or that eventually, you no longer have to worry about what other people think of you, but that you'll worry a lot about what you think of yourself. Maybe I should write up a manual for Elena.
I feel like grad school has aged me. I feel much, much older than 22 these days. I think I knew this would happen if I came to Yale; I think that's part of why I was so deathly afraid that I'd made the wrong choice. I posted last June that I was afraid I wouldn't feel alive in Connecticut, and I really don't. I haven't felt alive in the last few weeks at all, and the last year seems like it's gone by too fast for me to have actually lived it. The three years at Santa Cruz took up eons because I lived, sometimes painfully, through each and every second. Sometimes now I feel like I'm just trying to push the seconds past and get to the end as quickly as possible.
I'm not the person I want to be right now. I'm not as good or as intelligent as I'd like to be. I think a lot of that has to do with willpower; I've never been good at self-discipline, having been able to get through high school and college on sheer intelligence and not by studying hard. There were times that I DID study hard, but that was because I wanted to, and not because I made myself. My few low grades in college were in the classes I simply couldn't force myself to study for. I think that's catching up to me now; I find it very very hard to motivate myself to do anything I don't want to do. Maybe I just need to practice. I'm looking forward to qualifying--I actually want to qualify, and I want to work hard to do well in qualifying, and I'm hoping that two months' worth of solid studying insanity will help me keep working hard after I pass the exam. Until then, though, I think I really need to work on being the person I want to be. Like I said, I'm not as good or as intelligent as I'd like to be right now. I feel out of control and uninformed. I feel like I'm living each day based on present desires and without any attention to consequences.
Also, I'm very very lonely, and I no longer know how to reach out in real life. Maybe I've gotten too used to reaching out through livejournal (does it seem to you that every entry here is a cry for help? sometimes it seems that way to me). Didn't I used to ask real life friends for help? Didn't I used to have actual conversations about my problems instead of writing about them over and over and over and over again? Or, if not "instead of", then at least "in addition to"... It seems like I've become, again, the person that everyone talks to, but no one ever asks how I'm doing and actually waits to hear the lengthy depressive answer. Maybe they're all just sick of my depression too.
Please forgive me for a second while I quote Grey's Anatomy: "We're adults. When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?"
Growing up seems to be one of those things they should have given you a manual for in middle or high school. You know, like dating, and applying to colleges, and grocery shopping. It's one of those things you aren't prepared for, even though you've watched other people do it your whole life. No one tells you that, the older you get, the more alone you'll feel. Or that eventually, you no longer have to worry about what other people think of you, but that you'll worry a lot about what you think of yourself. Maybe I should write up a manual for Elena.
