i have this paper due and it isn't my usual procrastination--i just don't really care. i liked the course and the prof, i just feel like there is no connection. i thought that would pass. it hasn't. i thought i would love grad school. i don't.

i haven't changed my goals but now it feels as if i am just trudging through to get there. sure, i know that that's how most people feel at some point but i have always loved the process, loved the courses, even loved the paper stress (even though i complained!) so what's changed?

i have holds on my registration (administrative nonsense) and i am not stressing. some courses look interesting but i am just filling requirements. i used to get all excited, pre-buy and pre-read texts, get all my geeky note-taking tools ready. now? eh.

perhaps i am jealous of the grad student culture that i don't get to participate in (you know, being "old" and all). maybe i had some romantic vision of me spending endless, uninterrupted hours in the library surrounded by fascinating texts. those things aren't exactly do-able with kids and a husband who, while trying to be supportive, just doesn't understand or appreciate academic pursuits. he just wants to know when money will be coming in instead of going out. and money? let's not even go there.

all of this sounds like (and probably is) a bit of end-of-semester whining but i just really wanted more. maybe it is that they don't assign advisors to MA candidates and i have no one to bounce things off of. maybe it is the commute. i am not giving up. i am just disappointed. and i feel like just being disappointed is some kind of failure after all the build-up. after all, this is what i chose. i want to be teaching. i want to be researching. i want to be attending conferences and schmoozing with the elbow patch crowd. you know that feeling you get after a conference? when you can't wait to start some brilliant project? when all the ideas seem exciting and even though you know you will complain about the process at some point, just getting started feels right? i just want to feel like part of that community and not just a tourist who doesn't speak the language.

sorry for the whiny post. we'll shoot for witty tomorrow.