Greetings

I am back from my hiatus! (Albeit an unintentional hiatus, but that's okay.)

Whew, this past semester was a whirlwind. As graduate students, we hear our predecessors tell us that your first fall is the worst semester, that your second spring is the worst. I'm just thinking that each successive semester is as difficult, or more difficult, than the last. It's like weight-lifting: You won't get better, stronger unless you increase your resistance each time. I am not a weight-lifter, but I am a student, and that seems like a pretty good analogy to me. Our minds don't expand, don't connect further, unless we push ourselves to read, write, and analyze a little more along our individual academic journeys. I wish I would have told myself that three months ago. I also wish it hadn't taken me 17 years to acknowledge and begin to accept the notion of balance. So I've realized some things that I'll break down with some poor examples of figurative language.

The human spirit is a competitive one. It's rooted in biology: Survival of the fittest. Except instead of living in the wilderness and hoping to possess genes for teeth that allow you to eat your meals or for muscles that can protect you from predators, the setting is a classroom or the workforce and the genes you're hoping for are really complex ones which (help to) determine your functioning in those environments.

One such way in which students love to express these genes behaviorally is through complaint. We all know the game. The I'm So Busy and Have So Much On My Plate This Must Mean I'm Smart, Right? game. We play into it all the time. Oh you have 4 progress notes to write? Well I have 5 AND a project due tomorrow. I'll see your caseload and raise you a part-time job and upcoming vacation to plan. This. Has. To. End. No one benefits from this game. The only real prizes are hubris and spiraling self-doubt (ironic) and no one truly vies for those things. Everyone is busy in their own way; one person's hectic schedule does not constitute more worth nor does it diminish your own responsibilities. And until we quit the game, we can't truly open ourselves to interdisciplinary practice--true, effective collaboration anyway. How can you if everyone in the room is worried about how smart they seem?

Understanding your own limits is not a weakness. It's not easy, especially if your general demeanor is leaning perfectionist with equal parts people-pleaser and nonconfrontationalist. But it can be done. (And it doesn't actually kill you when you do it, trust me.) Now I am taking what I learned this past semester-including course content, obviously-and using it to usher in as successful, positive academic year. (BECAUSE I NOW HAVE LESS THAN A YEAR UNTIL I GRADUATE WITH MY MASTER'S AND THAT IS SCARY.)

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