Round two.
I never expected to grow a close bond to 20 people as much as I had the first year of grad school. They’re not joking when they say grad school is simply going to school with your closest friends. Of course, there’d been some girl’s nights and other small get-togethers in between, and there was the small dose of summer school that was the perfect little tease… but week one and week two back-in-action: nothing compares. I’ve missed the camaraderie, laughter, and friendships that we all had in-class. I’ve missed the amount of team work we’ve grown accustomed to. Being back in class has brought back that little spark of joy I had been missing. Yes, I know that last statement makes me sound either crazy or a glutton for punishment… but let’s be real: everyone who knows me, knows that I am in love with being in school.
My internship kicked off this week and I’m in a macro/mezzo placement, which allows me to work on a program level first, human level second. Hashtag: so grateful. I am blessed beyond measure to have this opportunity and I can’t wait to see how much I grow throughout it.
Now to be incredibly vulnerable with my frustration… because naturally - there’s never really a positive experience without a negative somewhere in the mix. In the words of the great philosopher Bret Michaels from his 1988 masterpiece titled Every Rose Has its Thorn, “Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has its dawn, just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song, every rose has its thorn.” And with that, the first few great weeks of school and internship has that thorn. Being in grad school, you relinquish control over your life. If you have prior obligations or commitments, you can (or should) assume that you’ll no longer be committed to whatever they were.
One incredibly frustrating aspect of this social work program is that “self-care”is constantly emphasized, yet the program will make sudden changes in students’ schedules (without notice or forewarning) that don’t allow the student to continue their self-care practices. I’ve heard of professors refusing to give up certain days or times of the week because it’s their established self-care practice days, but when a student has one of those days: it doesn’t matter. But this is on me. This is where I messed up, because I assumed my Monday, Tuesday, Thursday classes, and once-a-month-on-a-Saturday-seminar was an in-stone schedule – after all, I wrote every date in my calendar using pen. But now, that seminar has changed from one Saturday a month to every-other-Wednesday… thus the elimination of my established mid-week self-care begins. I can’t say that I’m thrilled, nor can I say I’m “ok” with this change as I had no opportunity to address my availability or advocate for myself in this situation. But again, I signed up for grad school, so this is what I have. I know everything will work out and everything happens for a reason. I know I need to be patient and I need to not be frustrated over this… but I’m human on most days, so I needed to be openly vulnerable about the frustrations I’m facing in this program. After all, this blog is about my grad school experience. Now I must go cringe my way through covering my schedule in white out as I have another cup of coffee.
