7:48 p.m. - October 12, 2002
Saturday
Today, my plans were simple: go restock a few things for my parents, then come home to study. Well, as you well know, life is unpredictable. Simply: I came home and studied for about ten minutes before my mom came home and asked me to go out to buy a few things with her.

Again, that meant I wasted more time. At least it was fun--my mom and I had some good talking going about one of my friends--remember Sarah and Russ, who got married a while ago? Sarah is taking Russ's last name, even though she really doesn't want to. Apparently, it's so seeped in tradition where she's from for women to automatically take the guy's name.

And she said she doesn't feel like she's really a member of Russ's family. So now she's taking his name; even hyphenating her name is too radical.

She's not happy about it. I was telling mom about it and surprisingly, she agrees that it's stupid to take the husband's name. She told me that she wishes she had just kept her maiden name instead of taking my dad's, and I understand. She said, "Men don't have to change their last names. Why do women have to?"

Well, it's something I've been thinking about. What would I do if I end up getting married? I most certainly will not give up my last name. So will I hyphenate or will I just keep my name?

After thinking about it, here is what I decided: if I publish a journal article even before I get married to the man of my dreams, I'll keep my name and not hyphenate. If I get married before publishing anything, I'll hyphenate.

The guy will just have to deal. Do you think that's fair?

And I was talking to my former roommate last night (we, in addition to two other college friends, had dinner together) and while talking to her, I figured out why my classmates are so catty and nosy about their grades. They're not as confident in their own abilities as I am; I think living away from this country for one year helped; not going to school for one year helped, too. I think because I had to change my own expectations of myself and regard everything as a learning experience rather than something I have to excel at makes me more confident. I can make mistakes, and I allow myself to make mistakes, just as long as I learn from them.

And I don't think my classmates have learned that yet. They see grad school as a continuation of their undergraduate experiences where they were the best students in their major (I was the top one in my major at the undergraduate level, by the way) and here they are, on a level playing field. And they still feel like they need to prove themselves--I think that is what it is. So I'm trying to be understanding of that and just be a grad student on my own terms: take it easy enough that I don't feel like I fail if I make a dumb mistake. I just make sure I don't make the same one again, that's all.

So, I think it's part maturity and part confidence--I know what I'm capable of and I cam comfortable with that. So until my classmates grow up a bit more, I'm going to be on my guard. I don't trust them completely; I'm wary of them because as I said, they are really catty and find the negative points about everyone...even if the others are just as deserving of respect because they are comfortable with themselves and their abilities, and they see the environment as their chance to learn and to grow.

So that's my own personal lesson for the weekend...

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