Sometimes I feel as though moving here to Denton wasn't necessarily the best idea for me. I am now a graduate student taking 8 hrs of classes and all are online. I don't currently have a job or anything. I don't even go to an exercise class or anything. Because of all this, my days are spent mostly inside my apartment attempting to do homework most days and actually doing it other days. Other things about my day include staying up really late at night, doing things on the internet, and as a result getting up late the next day. Most days I don't even leave my apartment except for a brief amount of time. Usually it's to go to Walmart or the library or just to get out and find something for lunch. None of it is very exciting. I don't know if it's because of this that I've become extremely lazy and procrastinate a lot. I have time to finish my homework before it's actually due but yet I still seem to wait until the day it's due to work on it. I don't understand it but I just can't get into a routine regarding my homework. Here I'm almost 2/3rds finished with my first semester of Grad school and I have yet to develop a routine. I think part of the problem is that I don't have any structure in my life at the moment. I don't have any sort of rigorous schedule holding me to do my work at a certain time. To be honest, I know I need a job but I also just haven't really been really putting effort into actually finding one. At first I thought this was all just because I'm burnt out on school. I've been going to school almost nonstop since I got out of high school. I mean, I just graduated in May and here I am again. Sure I've had breaks between classes. This past summer was really my first break from classes and that's only because my degree program is on a strict plan that doesn't offer the classes during the summer. I used to be extremely busy. Semester Y (last fall) was insanely busy and was literally the Semester from Hell (excuse my language please). I had a nervous breakdown at one point and as a result, had to get someone to help me learn to cope with the rest of the semester and it worked. Then came my last semester, Semester Z, which was strictly Student Teaching. That was also busy but not as much as Semester Y. It was the normal teaching stuff: grading papers, writing lesson plans,etc. That sort of thing. Yet throughout both Semester Y and Z, I was also not working. I couldn't. That was one thing my advisor had told me: Don't work during Semester Y because it's nearly impossible. Prior to Semester Y (Semester X), I had been working at the local public library and it began to get too much for me to both work and juggle classes. Yet even though I was busy, I still managed to get my schoolwork finished. I ended up having to quit though because it just got to be too stressful for me. I guess what I'm really needed is a happy medium between insanely busy and near laziness. Don't get me wrong. I still get stressed out with my graduate classes. For instance, I'm writing a blog instead of working on a mid-term paper that's due tomorrow. I'm a little stressed about getting the paper done and also some upcoming projects that are due soon (in about 2 weeks). The difference is that I have time to finish everything before it's due so I don't have to get stressed.
I've also been feeling pretty depressed recently. For the past two weekends, I've driven to see some of my friends in Oklahoma City and we've gone to two awesome concerts at a couple of the libraries. I've had so much fun hanging out with my friends and it's been really awesome. Yet it's also made me think about things. At the wrock show I went to on Sunday, I miracously met someone who is also from Denton. She's a Freshmen at the University of North Texas (my college). I didn't really talk to her much though but still at least I met someone. This got me thinking though. I've been feeling really lonely lately. I realize that I have awesome friends but just not here in Denton with me. It makes me think back to when I first moved to Oklahoma. It took me some time but I sorta made friends in a few of my classes the first semester. I guess I can't really call them friends when I think about it though. I guess I could say they were more just people I got to know through class. There was however, one person that I met and ended up becoming friends with later and that was because she and I were in the same degree plan. Still though, I don't think I actually made any "real" friends my first semester. Once I got into my degree classes my second semester, that's when I actually started making more friends. Then came the Tour de Nerdfighting event in Oklahoma City and I met some people who I later became online friends with and later IRL friends (this is evidenced by the last couple of weekends). I can't say that I don' t have friends because I do. I just don't have any friends here that I can hang out with on a regular basis and such. I should say yet but I don't think that's an accurate description. I don't think I will ever really have friends here. Going back to the fact that my classes are all online, the only time I really see anyone was at the Web Institute at the beginning of the semester and that was only a few days. I met some people and hung out with them but it's been a bit hard to keep a friendship with them when you only saw them a few days and then you don't see them again. You might be lucky enough to have them in other classes and you might end up graduating during the same semester but you don't really know. It's been really hard for me. It's been especially hard to find anyone that's a nerdfighter. Everywhere I've lived, it's been hard: my hometown in New Mexico (pretty sure I'm the only one), at Oklahoma State in Stillwater(there were some but I never found them), and now here in Denton at University of North Texas (or just Denton in general, since there's like 3 colleges here). I'm sure that people are out there, I just haven't found them yet and I really don't know how to find them. It's also been a bit hard to find people that I can relate to. I have no probably being friends with undergrads. It's not a big deal, but I still want at least one friend that can relate to me right now. I guess also because I never really experienced the whole college thing, that isolates me a bit more. I never was in a dorm room and quite honestly never really wanted that experience. I feel as though missing out on these experiences is partly why I'm so lonely now. I could try making friends through my church. However, the church I go to, while I really like it, has very few college students at it. Most of them go to the one on either the UNT or TWU campus which I have yet to actually visit. Plus it's hard for me to go to another campus church when I love and miss the one back at Oklahoma State. I eventually made a lot of friends there and I just liked it.
I wonder if everything that happened back in May could be part of the reason for me being lonely here and everything else. I honestly think I might just need to go talk to someone and get some help. I need something to get me out of this cave of loneliness and laziness I've gotton myself into. Something needs to be done.
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