Some current happenings . . . My Life in a Nutshell

I just finished and submitted my last PhD Application, and now the waiting begins. I won't know anything probably until April, so don't ask me what is happening after graduation until then, and even then, I may not have a clue.

In a sort of related, but very different direction all together, I have started communications with a religious order about discerning further if I am called to religious life. It took a lot of courage for me to make contact about it, and while I am apprehensive about this it isn't in a bad way, more in an I am not sure I want to admit this could be true sort of way. If you want to know more specifics about this, please do ask, but I am not ready to publicly make any commitments at the moment. ;)

I have become addicted to Breaking Bad, I have 16 more episodes to go, then I will be free of it. Seriously, this show stresses me out. I do not know how people could watch that show in real time, waiting a week between episodes.

My final semester of my Master's degree has begun, I haven't started it quite so much, between finishing my PhD applications and only have one class next week, by some random stroke of luck, I am having trouble motivating myself. But I'll get there. I am really excited about most of my classes, excluding Latin, and it doesn't seem like my workload will be overly stressful this semester. Which is good.

And, that about sums it up. There are a few other happenings, but they're for me to know and you to wonder about. :)

Goodbye 2013 . . .

Well 2013, honestly you kind of sucked, or at least you started out that way.

The year began very sadly, with the ending of a relationship that was overdue to be torn apart. It makes me wonder why we cling to things that are toxic and need to be released.

I also developed some really important friendships this year, and that made things better.

I have grown to know more about who I am and the path I am taking. I've learned to accept myself more as I am, and attempted to change somethings that need changing. I've grown in my revulsion against social injustice, and I am inspired by where to start to make change, but this in itself is problematic for me because I have a fixer complex.

And my heart has grown, even after having been broken (again), it is still full  of love and joy, especially in these last 3 months of the year. Someone is making my heart smile and it can't help to spread to my face. It's a strange thing to be overly stressed by finals and PhD applications and still have a perma-smile on my face.

2013 is the year I started truly finding my voice in my work. Presenting more of me and less of those who I study. I am hoping to continue this and continue school.

So goodbye 2013, all in all I suppose you ended well enough, but I am hoping that 2014 will usher in many great things. I already know it is a year of new beginnings, at the very least with graduation, and whatever comes after. I hope in 2014 to grow in trust and dependence on God, and to seek to do His will in all my endeavors. I want to be less timid, and to remember:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. - C.S. Lewis

But it is worth the risk, would I rather suffer a little now or suffer a lifetime of regret?

So here's to 2014, a new year, a new beginning. 

A Month of Thanks: Day 25

I am thankful the GRE is now over, and with my scores, I made my decision regarding applying to schools. I am just going to go for it. This is what I am really thankful about, I decided what to do, and basically, it involves ruling out a school I was going to apply for because they have unrealistic expectations about the GRE. Your loss CUA cause I am awesome. 

A Month of Thanks: Day 22

Today I am thankful that each ending is a beginning of something new. I think today will always be a little bit of a sad, dark day for me. Because five years ago today, a boy (and yes I feel the term boy is appropriate, if you know us, you probably do too) and I stood up in front of all our family and friends, and he made promises to me he never intended too keep. And while, I am actually grateful now that our relationship did not work out, every once in a while the betrayal still hurts.

But had this not happened, I would not be pursuing my dream of higher education. I would be doing who knows what and probably not very happy. So while it still stings a bit, I am very thankful that "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

A Month of Thanks: Day 3

Today and today only, I am thankful for the time change and getting 10 hours of sleep. I guess really I am thankful for sleep. There is nothing more refreshing than much needed sleep. The refreshment is most welcome after a stressful fortnight, and feeling overwhelmed I am now actually feeling peaceful. I feel like I can make the decision about whether or not to defer my applications to PhD programs.

Choices . . .

I've been thinking about choices a lot the past couple days. It seems that in choosing this we cannot have that. I want two different things very much, but circumstances being as they are, I cannot have them both. How do I choose? Why is it I cannot have both dreams? And what if I give one up only to have the other not work out, then what? This is the 3rd time I have started my life over, maybe not totally from scratch, but moved in a total different direction than the path I was on. In some ways I feel as if this past decade or so of my life has been 3 lifetimes. I am 31, but sometimes I feel as if I have dealt with so much that I could easily be half again or twice that age. 

I do not regret any of my past choices because I know I would not be who I am today if I had not made them, and I know I would not be where I am had I not made them. I like the status quo so I am usually slow to make large decisions, that and I am riddled with anxiety about making them, I thought about going to grad school for at least 7 years before I actually got up the courage to apply. Most people are afraid of failure, there is even a name for that phobia, Atychiphobia, my phobia isn't really failure, but success. There is no name for that, except maybe cowardice. I've blogged about that before, you can read it here: Atychiphobia or not. That is not really what I am talking about here.

Yesterday I posted this as my Facebook status: "It's hard when you have two big dreams, and you really want to follow them both, but circumstances being as they are, following one seems to necessitate giving up the other. How do you choose when thinking of giving up either one leaves you really unsettled? Does this mean one isn't really your dream or can we really not have all our dreams? It is really confusing, especially when considered in the light of Psalm 37:4, 'Find your delight in the LORD who will give you your heart’s desire.'"

Is it really so wrong, that I just want it all?

Two Weeks . . .

And I am down almost 7.5 pounds.  I may just make that Christmas goal after all.  :)  Really it's closer to 5 pounds because I weighed myself Tuesday before last (when I started this) late at night after drinking a lot of water, but ~5 pounds in a week and a half is pretty good, and it wasn't hard.  I haven't felt deprived yet.

So if I plan to lose my 10% by Christmas, I have 10 weeks to drop another 17 pounds.  I really think that's doable, and only about 2 pounds a week. I have a dress I'd like to wear for Christmas Eve Mass, it hasn't fit in sometime, but it is one of the only items of clothing I kept even though it was too small.

One Week . . .

. . . and so far, so good.  I started Weight Watchers again last Monday.  I was on WW before my wedding in '08, and I lost like 21 pounds, and since November of 2008, I have gained 30+ pounds, due in part to stress and a lot to laziness.

For a while, I have known I needed to do something about my weight, really since for ever.  I've almost always been on the heavy side.  Dancing almost everyday in HS helped me slim down some, and not having an over abundance of food to snack on my first year of college at SFA helped tremendously, that's when I got down to my smallest, a size 10!   I know that size still sounds big, especially if you have seen The Devil Wears Prada, where they called the girl who wore a 6 fat, but on me that was actually very thin.  I gained some of that weight and then lost it again around 2002, I was a size 12 then, I was thin, and looked really good.  That's my goal, to get back to that size.  I am not doing this diet life-style change just to be thin again, but because I want to be healthier, and right now I am not comfortable in my body.  I am not comfortable sitting down, and I am not comfortable standing up, my lower back has been giving me a bunch of trouble, and when I was working out, doing yoga, for some of the poses, my stomach totally got in the way. 

So I am doing WW because I was successful with it before, and my mom offered to pay for it.  I really like WW, it really is more about a life-style change and less about a diet.  With the points system, you can eat whatever you want as long as you stay within you allotted points, or work out a lot to get some more.  But with it allowing you to eat whatever you want you have to be conscientious about what you eat.  If you choose to splurge on a big meal, you may have to eat salad and fruit the rest of the day, or stick really close to your points for a couple of days to make it up.  I started this diet on Monday, and Friday I went to a wedding and Saturday I went to Greek Fest, and both places I ate what I wanted to eat and didn't go over my weekly extra points allowance.  I mean really, I got to eat wedding cake and baklava on my diet.  That's unreal.

I am posting this for some added accountability.  I really want to lose 70 pounds, and to do that I need some encouragement, and for some one to say, "Susan, put down the cupcake!"  Seriously, cupcakes are my crack!  My first goal with WW is to loose 10% of my weight, so right now I am focused on losing  a little over 24 pounds.  I really hope to do this by Christmas.  So if you can, please offer your support and encouragement.

Day 18 - Dreaming With My Eyes Open

Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have


Plans-
-buy a bike and ride to work
-go get new contacts
-buy some boots


Dreams
-fall in love
-get married
-have a million babies
- get a PhD
-teach some college
-home school my kids
- be a stay at home mom
-inspire people or at least 1 person
-actually get a substantial following for my blog
-be famous for singing


Goals
-get my place organized
-reduce my possessions
-do grad school apps
-get into grad school
-finish grad school

The Waiting Drove me Mad, or did it?

So this grad school application process is sort of overwhelming, and due to something I had to take care of last fall, I sort of waited to long to get started. I also missed some of the schools' deadlines. So now, I am not so much having doubts about applying in general just the timing of it. It seems to me the most prudent action at the moment is to apply to start fall of 2012, instead of this fall.

Waiting will give me time to retake the GRE and maybe actually have time to study this time. My scores were o. The low end of ok, I don't test well, but I am sure I can do better, I was really sick the whole week before I took the test and wasn't able to study like I should have. Waiting will also give the professors writing my recommendation letters time to complete them and not be rushed. It will also give me time to feel better prepared.

The only big drawbacks I see to waiting are that I'll have to do this job for longer and I'll be another year older when all is said and done.

It seems to me that waiting might be more advantageous to me. I appreciate any feed back anyone wants to offer me.

While I'm Waiting

Patience is not one of my strengths or a virtue that I possess in great quantities.  In fact more than once, my mother has said she should have named me Patience, so I would have some.  Working retail for five years and teaching middle school for four taught me some patience, but I still don't have a lot.  I am a fan of instant gratification, I am not going to lie.  And I of course know, you never pray for patience because God won't just give you patience, he will provide situations where you have to exercise patence.  It is far better to pray for compasson, understanding, or something along those lines.

Since I don't have much patience, I suck at waiting.  And as one of my friends put it, "Waiting on God's time sucks."  I have had a few times, especially in the last three or four years of waiting on God's time.  Which in the long run always provides you with a much better outcome than the one I want right now! Sometimes we have to be properly groomed before we can do things, or the situation needs to be.  It's complicated, you know, "His ways are not our ways," and all that jazz. 

My first big experience of waiting on God's time came when I was finishing my undergraduate degree, here I was getting a degree in theology, with a strong desire to do youth ministry, and no one wanted to hire me, and I only got 2 interviews out of like 10 positions I sent my resume to, hello discouragement.  About those 2 interviews, one of them, my first ever real job interview, was with a search committee.  Here I am, 22, and I walk into a room of 10 people to interview me, it's madness.  Take your normal job interview jitters and multiply that by like 10 million, and there you go, that was my first real job interview.  Needless to say, I did not get that job, which really, is just as well because I realized shortly after that, that I did not want to do youth ministry, I wanted to teach religion, so with no job prospects, and the idea that maybe, just maybe, I might want to teach at the college level some day, I decided to stay at Walgreens and just go back to school.  So that fall, in 2003, I started the MLA program at UST, and as the second year of that program came closer to its end I realized I was once again in need of a real job or career, so I applied and interviewed with several schools to teach.  Once again, no luck.  This time I interviewed with 4 or 5 principals and one thing was a constant strike against me, I had no teaching experience. 

Frustrated beyond belief, I continued working at Walgreens, and was no longer in school.  It was weird, and I had a lot of free time, so I watched a lot of food network and started cooking a lot, but that my friends, is what we call, another story for another day. 

So here I am, 2 degrees and theology, super gung ho to go out and teach the masses about Jesus and stuff, and no one wants to hire me to do any sort of ministry.  Needless to say I got depressed and discouraged and wondered, "What the hell am I supposed to do with my life?"

So I started thinking about grad school, again.  I did the MLA program at UST to beef up my not so great GPA from undergrad, and I was successful, I graduated with just under a 3.8 (go me), which would have been higher if I didn't take the stupid Proust and Shakespear classes.  Anyway, I needed to beef up my GPA because I had a goal, I wanted and MTS from Notre Dame, but I was pretty sure ND would laugh at my undergrad transcript and that would be that.  So I did the MLA at UST and kicked its ass, more or less.  So fall of 2005 rolls around, and I am still running film, and not doing any sort of school, and bored, and partying a little too hard.  So I buy some GRE prep books because that test terrified me, and I started studying the zillions of vocabulary words in the book, trying to plan a time to take the test, and apply to Notre Dame.

The beginning of November rolls around, and I get a phone call from the CCE coordinator or something like that of the diocese.  She tells me that a friend of my family gave her my name when she asked if he knew anyone looking for a job teaching religion.  I was just in total shock when that phone call came in.  Of course I told her I was interested, and an hour later, the principal called me, and asked when I would be available to meet with him and see the school. I met with him 2 days later, he chatted with me a bit, walked around the campus with me, and I left with a job, I was in shock, happy shock, but shock, nonetheless.  So grad school once again went off my immediate radar, but it was still there lurking in the back of my mind.

After four years of middle school, I realized that while I loved teaching, I didn't like the other stuff you have to deal with as a middle school teacher.  So I left the job, and then went off to find whatever job I could get while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do, and now everything seems to be falling into place so that grad school is where it seems my life is headed.

So now, I am working on applications and getting ready to do some waiting to see where I get accepted and where I am supposed to go.

As I wait, I am trying to make this my theme song: "While I'm Waiting" by John Waller

Atychiphobia or Not

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same." Marianne Williamson


I think this quote sums me up rather well.  Atychiphobia is the fear of failure, except I am not sure that I am really afraid of failure, I am actually more afraid of success.  Only there isn't an name for that particular phobia or fear.


I have all these aspirations, goals, and things I want to accomplish, but there is always some reason that I cannot do these things. I think this is part of my procrastination problem.  It took me forever to write 2 little pages to say why I want to study theology at UND, and now I am mostly done with it.  Going to look at it tomorrow and fix it, then hopefully a former professor I am planning to meet with can help me with it some.  


I am not sure though which outcome is really scaring me the most.  Am I more worried about getting in and actually moving far away and not knowing anyone, or am I afraid I won't get in and I'll have to figure out some other path for my life.  


Either way, I am determined to try.  I really want to do this, but you know, there is only so much school I can go do, eventually I will have to get a real job.  I think it's just easier to be a slacker, then no one expects anything from you, and you don't have to expect much from yourself.  Whereas if you actually do stuff, people will expect you to do more stuff.  I am just hoping that Homer Simpson was wrong when he said, "Trying is the first step to failure," and fairly more accurate when he said, "Stupid risks make life worth living."


All in all, I am very hopeful that the need for a real winter wardrobe is in my not so distant future. 

I need some inspiration, please!

I am all out of inspiration.  I need a muse, stat.  I have been trying to write a post for like a week now, and I just can't seem to find the words. Or rather figure out how it is I want to convey it.

That's why I haven't been posting a lot lately. Ideally I want to post at least every other day, if not daily, and have the post be of some substance, not like yesterday's.  But I have been so distracted by not being able to write the other post, I have been unmotivated to wrote anything.

I thought I was reluctant to write it because I needed to do my Annulment questionnaire, but I finished that Sunday.  I could blame the fact that now that the annulment paperwork is mailed, I need to work on my CV and letter of intent, but I am not really motivated for that either. You can add to all this I have felt like crap.

But really, it may be a combination of these things, or it could be that I am pretty sure Persch is just the German word for lazy-ass procrastinator.  Procrastination is a plague on pretty much the entire family. Even my mom, and she is not a real Persch, at least not by blood.  I never can seem to do anything until the last minute.  Like the  annulment stuff, I had 60 days to do it.  I put it in the mail 3 days before it was due.

I don't know why I am so unmotivated. Like the stuff for grad school, most of me wants to go to grad school.  I am excited about it. I have been thinking about it for seven and a half years. I put it aside and decided that wasn't wear I was being led, only to be drawn back to it, time and again.  And, finally, everything seems to be falling into place so that I can actually go (assuming I get in). The only part of me that doesn't want to go is that part that hates everything new and unfamiliar, the part that hates change and wants to keep everything the same, even if I hate the situation and I am absolutely miserable.

But, by the end of next week, I want to have my CV done, and get prepared to meet with professors regarding my recommendations, and getting my letter of intent written.  I have until December 1st before the application fee goes up.

I can do this, but I need a little motivation.

Wow, this post kind of segues a lot, or I just like tangents.  Maybe a little of both. :)