The Initial Sprint

It's Friday, but I've only been taking classes since Wednesday. Why does it feel like such a long week? The understanding of adjustment here is key. I've begun to realize how wise it is to plan the very first day of school in Kindergarten as a half day. And the first week each year be a half week. There's something tiring in the process of the encounter with something new--just taken all by itself. Nevermind the actual work you have to do--just getting the schedule and "swing of things" together is a project for the mind and body. Funny thing is, looking back the work we do in those first few days and weeks seems so simple. What a challenge for educators to keep it as such in order to allow adjustment to the learning process!

I've already begun to feel what I can only describe as "academic stress." There's nothing like it. If you forget some part of your presentation, or aren't sure about a certain thing that you're going to be tested on, there's no way out. You'd better make sure you did everything and you'd better find out how to understand something. There's no, "I'll talk to my boss and see what I can work out." And now in graduate school, you're never done. You can always research something else. (and this is just the first week!)

I imagine as adjustment settles in, the stress will also find its reasonable boundaries...

There's a queer feeling here stemming from several people already knowing one another from their undergraduate program. Dealing with cliques was never something I had to worry about at my tiny undergraduate college, because at the beginning of the year everyone was new, and then later we all knew each other. I guess that will happen here, too, with time. But for right now, sometimes I feel like the class as a whole has very immature social relations. Maybe I would act the same way, though, if I had a group of people I was already comfortable with. I hope that this will further teach me empathy for the outsiders I come across in life.

Again, the phenomenon with many things starting at one, to assume that the dynamics of today will not change three weeks from now!

Bizarre, waiting for adjustment; knowing that someday, it will all feel comfortable and smooth. Because right now, each moment of awkwardness or hesitation feels like a wide breadth of time.

Wait it out, wait it out.
It'll pass.
Prayer, trust, abandonment to the will of God....