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9:06 p.m. - April 16, 2003
The elephant on my chest
I feel like I'm losing focus! I was trying hard to read chapters in my textbook, but my attention keeps wanderin'. So I give up for a few minutes, perhaps I can gather my concentration for another bout of acronyms and words that I really don't care to read.

Anyhow, I keep getting the feeling that my life hasn't been as interesting ever since Europe. I suppose it's sort of like...how do you say? A sort of...humdrum existence after living abroad, experiencing new things, different architecture, experiences. Then I get homesick for Germany, though I know my home is here.

Anyway. I feel sometimes like...well, I feel like I'm still trying to figure all of this out, missing the travel experiences of Germany, missing some of the pace of life there (though I am glad to be able to shop here in US on Sundays). I'm still trying to figure out what it is I miss. It's an essence of something. What that something is, I'm not certain, because I don't even have the words for it, I don't have the words to describe what it is.

But I've been feeling homesick for Germany these past few days, wanting to be with the language and the slang, the bad music, the styles and trends of Munich, the atmosphere of Schwabing and of the Altstadt in Munich, the city itself. The U-Bahns, where I could steal ten minutes to read on the way to school, or perhaps to the grocery store. Just the time and the freedom.

Maybe that is what I am missing. The freedom, perhaps? I mean, I want so badly to take a German class over the summer, and I checked the two local universities for their class schedules. One does not offer a single German class in the summer, and the other offers them during my required summer courses. So that doesn't exactly work out. So I went to bed sort of mad about this, wishing I could just take the class and brush up on my German, just relax. Same goes for Italian and Spanish. I give up. I won't be able to do any of this till I graduate, I think.

Maybe I ought to put some pictures from Germany/Europe up here for you to see. Perhaps the experience made me all starry-eyed.

And today, I was doing relatively well, not too stressed out, until after class, the new graduate coordinator spoke about the transition to the doctoral program, and all of a sudden, it felt like an elephant was sitting on me. That's how I felt for several hours, and I had to force myself to eat dinner (I tend not to be hungry when I get very stressed out.)

Basically, I just got really nervous about everything, about the whole idea of doing this, of going through with this and starting over again in the Fall, with new expectations, new professors and some new classmates. Gagh. I have a weird feeling that the adjustment period will come through again next year, or even as early as this summmer (as we're taking a course with some students from the other university.)

Someone doesn't love me anymore. He took me off his favorites list :(. It's okay, though. I know that the past few months, I've been rather erratic with my diary entries, I think it's just a lot of emotional adjusting and my need to get away from things for a little while before I resurfaced feeling more like myself. Maybe he'll love me again someday ;).

(This, according to my notes from my class, is a type of coping strategy. It's a very physical way of dealing with problems and difficulties in one's life.)

 

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