I'll be getting an MA in Education. All the work has been online, using my classroom as the "lab." No research buddies (beyond my elementary students), no peer gatherings.
Distance Education can be flexible took a bunch of my own PhD classes that way, but it is isolating in a sense...
It's also tough to get the kind of support that graduate students need to go through the process of writing a thesis/disssertation.
good luck to you...stop over to my thread if you ever want to vent! Peace Bridge
Divorced 03/2010 Mom to two amazing kids
Taking the road less traveled because those encountered on the way may be just as unique.
Feeling a bit down because I have a presentation tomorrow and I have nothing to say. Frustrated that I can't will myself into higher productivity. Truth is, I'm sick of work. Have no motivation. Just want to get out and enjoy seeing the world.
Had dinner last night with a colleague who'd coordinated a group get-together to discuss innovative ideas. Turns out it was a bunch of motivated parents with PhDs who wanted to do something unique and interesting for k-12 education. Did they consult the schools? No. Did they know the learning standards? no. They all just wanted to have some fun in the name of education and have another unique thing to put on their resume. I'm sure most schools would prefer not to deal with it and just have some money for supplies instead. Am I pessimistic? Perhaps. I like to think it was being realistic.
But the whole thing depressed me because I felt like I was at a conference - first questions, "Where are you at? What do you do?". And then the big egos turned the discussion into a "muy mas macho" research comparison. And all I could think was, I should be having fun and should be interested in these minds and all these ideas, but the truth is I'd rather be out walking about and looking up at the moon.
Okay, truth is I'd rather be pulling a smokin' hot woman close and breathing in her scent, but ....
Anyway, no reason to post. Still trying to figure out how to channel that sexual energy into other pursuits.
So why can't you go find that smokin' hot woman and pull her close? Sounds like you are wasting your time with these egomaniacs. Put sexual energy into other pursuits? You mean like cross-country mountain biking?
You and I would have both been more suited to work as Rangers in the National Park service. I had the lack of work motivation for a while too, but this last month I have started to get more into it.
Do you have any aspiring GAL goals? Didn't you say you wanted to sled from the top of Mt Hood with me in a little boat? I know of a better mountain boating thrill ride on Mt Shasta with a 50 foot vertical drop added in.
I feel like I've made a breakthrough in really letting go. One of the recurring things I've dealt with was asking "Why?" - I'd wake up early and lie in bed and couldn't help but think it. I know most of the stuff - I didn't help out with dishes enough, I should have bought flowers more often, I didn't make XW feel special, etc. But there was something more and I couldn't figure out what it was.
Well, I finally ventured into the Sex-Starved Marriage forum and read some of the sitches and all of a sudden everything came sharply into focus. What I discovered is all stuff Puppy said long ago, but I couldn't hear it. What a difference time makes!
My XW fits almost perfectly the stages that Michelle Langley describes in Women's Infidelity. Her unwillingness to do ANYTHING with me, her extreme guilt, her declarations that finally she was happy and the previous decade was only a result of her naivety. Her belief that she just needed to find the perfect person to make her happy (she's now on #2). Michelle's stages 3-4.
But what struck me was how my "nice guy-ness" just made everything worse. The times I thought I was showing love and patience, she was disgusted. When I "acted as if", she thought I was weak. When I tried to push the affair onto a back burner so we could deal with the immediate problem of what was between the two of us, she was incredulous. The one time I stood up to her, she lost it and cried to come back. When I let her, she became disgusted again. And that was the end.
At the same time, these "nice guy" tendencies were the things she'd encouraged since we got married. She argued down every opinion until I agreed with her, she complained when I went out with friends or did things on my own, etc. She was a control freak. And I gradually lost the interest in standing up to her.
Nowhere more than in the bedroom. She never told me what she liked, never initiated, never did things to try to make me happy, and I slowly lost interest. Gave up. Too much of a chore.
So, I may have lost the woman I love, but now I finally realize that no woman is worth losing yourself. And in maintaining my own sense of dignity and self-worth, I could have probably saved my marriage. Live and learn. At least I know now.
Not to make it sound like her fault. Some things were - actually a lot was. She made bad choices. But my self-respect is my own thing. Who knows, my "nice guy"-ness probably goes back to my relationship with my mother and there's all kinds of stuff to deal with. But for now I need to get back to the spot I used to be - a strong but loving individual with a love for life and all it has to offer. Which I'm doing.
I think a lot of our WAS equate nice with weak. But I think there are many of us (the kind that post here) that don't do that. Maybe it's a matter of finding the right kind of person that will accept our niceness or whatever personalities we have. Someone that doesn't look for happiness in the perfect guy or girl (b/c I don't think that will work in the long-term). Someone maybe a little less self-focused, more willing to work on an R....I'm probably dreaming huh??? Karen
I think there's a difference between being nice and being weak. I'm guilty of being ingratiating because I was scared of rejection. That's no way to live life.
I agree with you that someone will eventually appreciate us for who we are, but I also think we need to be true to ourselves and not give up our own standards in order to be with someone. Otherwise they'll walk all over us and then leave us anyway.
I'm not going to be Mr. Nice Guy anymore, but go after what I want. Which right now is a beer, to go along with football.
I think there's a difference between being nice and being weak. lodo
I was trying to say that. I think some of our WAS see them as the same, but I don't at all. I think I want to try to be assertive and nice. I'd like to find someone that doesn't feel like if someone is nice, you have to step all over them. I'd like to have an R where I didn't constantly have to defend my boundaries so that I don't get taken advantage of. Where it doesn't feel like constant work to have an R with someone. I don't know if that's possible, but otherwise I think at this point I feel like I'd rather not have an R at all.... Karen
Tonight is one of those nights when I can feel the loneliness pressing in on me from all sides with a metallic tang. I know it's going to pass by tomorrow. I know it's all for the best. I know that in time I'll look back and find it hard to think I ever spent much time thinking about it.
But right now the desire to call her or stop by and spend the evening together is overwhelming. Like an itch. I can't mentally share with anyone else the way we shared. I chose her, and I was rejected by her. And I'm haunted by images of how much fun her life must be while I'm still picking up the pieces.
Ah well. It'll pass. Part of it is work - Friday night and I have to do schoolwork because I want to have at least a few hours this weekend. It all feels a bit out of control right now. Suppose that's part of the process.
No worries - this probably sounds pathetic but I'm just venting on a rainy cold dark night when I have to be alone. lodo
