I Think I'm Making The Move

To wordpress that is. Or at least I'm going to give it a try... So my blog is now found here...http://mycheckedbaggage.wordpress.com/

Hard Work DOES Pay Off...

This has been the hardest year of my life to date. School is becoming increasingly more difficult with the pressures it brings and work is always a complicated finessing of different personalities. BUT there is a glimpse of sunight! I knew that a paper I wrote had been accepted competitively at The Eastern Communication Association's annual conference. Today it feels official since I now have a date and time. I'll be trecking down to Baltimore in April to present my paper entitled "An Exploration of Why People Participate in Second Life Social Support Groups". (You can download the program...I'm on page 17)!

Truthfully I'm overwhelmed and overtired which results in a deadly combination of inappropriate emotions... but it feels like all the hours and all the sacrifices I've made to get here are all worth it. It still doesn't seem perfect and I will always feel like I should be spending more time on school work and with friends and family. But I've decided to take the advice my rhetoric professor gave our class in regards to feeling like we should be online discussing and commenting on our ning site all the time ... I have to make decisions on what time each thing in my life deserves and realize that I will probably feel like I'm not giving enough time to anything. Unfortunately I think she's right. I'd like to think that someday I'll feel as though things are in balance but it just isn't looking like that will happen in the near future. Maybe never.

But today I'm going to let that all go and revel in the fact that I have a date and time! And that I got an email from my Mom telling me that she and my father are proud of me :) A girl can't hear that enough....

Thank You World For Your Concern

I have to admit that I think I can do it all and do it well. My founding principal is that anything is possible as long as you try hard enough. So, that being said it is upsetting that it appears that people question my ability to do it! I'll admit, full time work and grad school is hard. I miss doing things with friends and spend not nearly enough time watching tv and relaxing, but the hard work is worth it. I love school and I like doing the reading and writing that it requires. I think I'm good at it. But as is the case with most things in my life, I tend to go overboard. I'm not content with just getting my degree...I need to have an A average. I need to publish, go to conferences and graduate in the shortest time possible, at least in my mind.

Clearly this would put stress in anyone's life, especially for someone with a hard core type A personality. And it appears that others are noticing that I may be under a little bit of pressure right now. I've gotten the are you okay? You're quiet and not acting like yourself. To which I answer, I'm fine...just got a lot going on that's all. Unfortunately that wasn't sufficient for some people. They decided that my weight is now a problem. Apparently in their eyes I don't weigh enough. Now, I'll admit I'm not a stress eater. If I were then I'd be the girl reading journal articles while the forklift came to get me out of my house. Instead, I tend to not want to eat if I've got a lot on my mind. This inevitably leads to weight loss. I probably went down 2 sizes over the summer and quite frankly I didn't think it was even noticeable to the outside world. But apparently it is. As of now I've had not one, but two coworkers comment on my weight. No one would bother me if I put on a few pounds....but loose some and your fair game.

Perhaps others wouldn't be bothered by this. I'm within my BMI range, albeit on the low side. I'm a healthy person. What is most upsetting is not that they think my body isn't right...it's that it implies that I'm unable to handle what I'm doing. People suggest that I cut back on classes saying "what's one more semester". Well, one more semester is significant in my eyes and will not be happening. Perhaps for someone not as type A as myself, this would just roll off their back. Perhaps I need to be more that way, but if I were then the motivation to get me through school could perhaps fade as well. Maybe lack of sleep is making this all the more upsetting. Maybe a good night sleep would make the world seem so much more in line and everything would be perfect. But I'll never know because until August, a good night sleep is simply unobtainable.

In the meantime, maybe all concerned individuals will join togather and invite Jeff VanVonderen over so they can tell me how my problems have influenced their lives in the following ways.....

Now that I would take an afternoon off from studying for!