Things are changing
inside of me, always. Usually the change
is gradual and not very noticeable, but this week there was a pretty abrupt
change. It came, not surprisingly, after
a conversation with my parents. We had
been talking about a particular homework assignment, that I felt bad (bad is
rather an understatement of something better described as terrible, depressed,
or hopeless) about because I considered myself two weeks overdue, still having
written nothing and having little to no idea how to do the assignment, paired
with about the same amount of motivation.
My parents were somewhat surprised (perhaps even shocked?) to discover
that I was that far behind on an assignment.
When I considered their reaction, I decided that I also was
shocked. Shocked. That's not who I am, and not what I
want. Sarah does not finish her
assignments late. I spent the next day
or so mourning the loss of my former self, during which time I also took two
personality inventories for one of my classes.
This only compounded my grief, because the inventories asked me to rate
the truth of statements like "I always turn in work on time" or
"I work steadily towards deadlines" or "I am
reliable." I could not honestly
endorse those items, and personality profiles are supposed to be enduring
features of a person's way of being in the world, so it felt like I was forever
changed.
Beauty is born out
of ashes, and out of my grief came a newfound resolve to dedicate myself to the
rigors of graduate school. The first
thing I decided was that I would not play ultimate frisbee until I had finished
the assignment. I decided this on a
Tuesday and I was supposed to play in league that night. I also usually play pick-up ultimate on
Fridays and Sundays. Ultimate is a great
way to exercise; the only problem is that when I play ultimate it rarely takes
less than three hours per occasion. This
led to something that has not happened in quite some time: I spent a weekend at
home, not traveling anywhere, in which I did not play ultimate or hang out with
my ultimate frisbee friends. I also took
a real Sabbath (day of rest to remember that God is the one who provides for
me, and he can do it without my help, so it's appropriate for me to take a day
off) on Saturday. Mine have been rather
lame lately, including travel and days that were scheduled almost to
capacity. This time not only did I not do work, but I also did
not plan more than two activities with other people.
This series of rare
events led to many discoveries:
- Six extra hours on a weekend is quite significant, though it's more like ten extra if you count the amount I usually hang out with my frisbee friends
- Biking is awesome and I love it
- Naps are also awesome
- I like doing homework at a relaxed pace, and I learn a lot more that way too
- There are cool people in my life who I usually don't have time to hang out with
- I am addicted to recognition from groups of people (I discovered this after church on Sunday when I found myself disappointed that I didn't get any invitations to Easter lunch/brunch, even though I knew it would be better for me to come home, relax, and study. Once I got home I truly enjoyed getting to relax at home instead of being in a group of people talking. This is true in many other circumstances as well, but I constantly find myself accepting invitations to hang out with people and undervaluing time I get to myself at home.)
I wish I could write
more because my thoughts related to this topic are nowhere near finished, but
that homework assignment is calling my name ;)
