Organizationizing

My new goal is to cherish the memory of that month in which I did nothing.

Granted, "did nothing" is a bit of a stretch. I wrote a novel and then started yet another. I explored my bit of Oahu on my bike. I watched an exorbitant amount of tv shows and movies online. I researched the Superferry and community change research that has been done. I made manicotti one day. I read eight books.

Wow. I get a lot done when I'm doing nothing.

Anyway, I have something to do now. And by "something", I really mean "all things". The coursework this semester is a lot. It's... it's a lot.

I'm taking Social Psychology and the readings in this class rival the readings in Cliff's Community Psych class last semseter, which translates to "150-200ish pages weekly". But interesting readings. I'm not dreading them or anything. But it'll just take a lot of time.

I'm taking a "How to work the State Legislature as a Cultural Community Psychologist" class, in which I'll grab some issues, find corresponding legislation that's up for law, research all background information for these bills (including relevant research with those issues and political things that have happened in other states with those issues), testify to committees, and write up reports. This, too, will be very time consuming. Interesting, oh god yes. And informative. Practical experience I will need as I move into policy work in my field. And just a whole hell of a lot of work.

And of course, my research class. I would like to propose my Masters this semester. I have a topic. I have a theme. I do not have a research question. I don't have participants chosen, even. That is what I need to figure out. Cliff has said I should go ahead and start a lit review, so that's what I'm working on now. This will take a couple of weeks if I work full-on (which I intend to) and maybe after that I'll have a thesis ready for design and implementation. That's the goal, at any rate.

I feel a bit overwhelmed when I look at the whole of what I have to do this semester, or even the whole of what I would like to get done this week. So I write lists, breaking it up into small, manageable bits that I can accomplish in these hours, in this afternoon, in this time slot. And then I can scratch things off my list and look back at all the stuff I've got done already.

The good news is that I have an office. Okay, so technically I already had one, ya? But it was down in the basement, and it was a storage closet for furniture. I went in the day I got the key and I didn't go back again for four months. Last week, I decided I would need a place on campus to get all this stuff done, so I went back to the office. I studied it with a critical eye, trying to determine how I could arrange things so that it stopped being a storage closet and started being a place I could work. Then I decided to go see if any offices had come free upstairs. It was a long shot by several miles, but it paid off. I have a second-floor office. It's shared with three other people, but it has a window, and it's spacious, and it's not in the dungeons. My little cubicle is just great. I've gotten a lot of reading done there this week.

The other good news is that I've taken up drinking massive amounts of hard liquor to balance out the stress of grad school. Oh wait, that's next year. Nah, bike riding and novel writing are my stress relief, and they work great.

In the future, as I organize my thoughts for the semester and for my thesis, I'll write more about that stuff. But right now, I'm still trying to organize my reading list.

peace,
kati