Things are busy right now. I made a hard decision this week to not continue my graduate assistant (GA) position into the next semester. Right now, it's just plain difficult to find the time to commit to the hours. In conjunction with the time now, I'm considering what I'm realistically going to need to do to graduate within the time line I want, and I'm also interested in trying to fit in some psychology counseling courses that would allow me to get certified as a family and marriage counselor, or a sex therapist after graduation if the doctorate program doesn't work out. This could be for any variety of reasons, but good to have a back up plan, right? Plus counseling skills can't hurt... can only make me better at my current position at GreenPath and whatever future endeavors take up!
I made the decision to not renew my contract when I realized what my time actually looked like. And it's insane:
Monday: Work on GA stuff in the morning, GreenPath from 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM, work out when I get home for 30-45 minutes, dinner with Ian, a few hours for homework.
Tuesday: GreenPath from 8:30 - around 4:00 PM, class at 5:30 - 8:10 PM, work out, dinner with Ian, homework.
Wednesday: GreenPath from 8:30 - around 4:00 PM, class at 5:00 - 7:40 PM, work out, dinner with Ian, homework. (Notice a pattern yet?)
Thursday: Homework/GA stuff in the morning, GA hours 12:00 - 5:00 PM, class from 5:30 - 7:10, work out, dinner with Ian. But I don't do homework on Thursday nights. Thank the good lord.
Friday: Work from 8:30 - around 4:00 PM. 2-3 hours of GA work, RELAXATION.
The weekends have a little more space in them usually. We do our errands and shopping on Saturday and usually sleep in a little. Sometimes I'll do a few hours of work, but usually I save Sunday as my crunch day. Overall what I realized is that without the GA position, I work on average about 30 hours weekly, have 9 hours a week in class as it is plus homework time. I'm usually going from 8:00 in the morning when I leave the house until after 8:00 when I get home, and then it's more homework and exercise and eating and sleeping. Plus, I'm not getting enough sleep, which means I'm crabby and weepy, which makes me a bad partner for my baby, this (somewhat) perfect man cooks and cleans and rubs my back and says encouraging things, even when I get weepy-mascara goop all over his shirts.
So I sent my adviser and the department head my decision tonight. It's been on the table, and really, the GA position has been the thing to fall behind, my classwork and my job are too important to me to not put full effort into, and I don't always have the energy and time for the final hours. So I'll finish out the last 7 weeks of the semester and then have a little more time to deal with things. At least, that's the hope!
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