Filling in the blanks
Okay, now that I'm rational, here's what's going on. Pete's just finished defending his thesis for his Masters degree, and he's starting into the Ph.D. program. Catch is, they've just changed the way that department structures cirruculum--he did the Masters under one set of guidelines, but a different set is in effect for the Ph.D. He and a few other folks are in this group that's kind of caught in the middle, and it seems like his department is trying to work things out so that they get the pieces they're missing and don't have to repeat pieces that they've already done.
Every so often . . . it doesn't work out quite that well. Wednesday, he told me about some of his travails trying to sort this out . . . including the fact that his advisor just told him that while it's possible to finish all your actual classwork for the Ph.D. in three semesters . . . she really wouldn't recommend it. Four semesters is recommended.
Now for those of you who know how I tend to tie myself in knots over planning things, stop and think: The first thing people have said to me about the engagement after "Congratulations!" is "When's the date?" So I'd started thinking about it, and I knew (or thought I knew) that he'd finish classes in December 2007, so I'd mentally begun to work around that with the idea of dates.
People keep telling me it's not wrong to have expectations. I try to have few, because I get all bolluxed up when things don't work out that way, but I'm only human. So when he told me it might be more like two years than one-and-a-half, I had to re-align my way of thinking. I usually handle this kind of thing a bit more gracefully, but I was on the tail end of being sick and kind of feeling wrecked from work, and, well . . . I didn't.
I'm feeling much more equaminious now. My stressing out was certainly not helping Pete. He's looking into working his schedule so that that last semester ends up being most or all guided reading courses, where he only has to physically attend a class once every couple of weeks. And I've managed to convince myself that there's not much difference between March and May, if it comes to that. May is hotter and there's more competition; that's kind of it.
I won't try to tell you I'm mellow--mellow is not my natural state. But, like I said--it's not the end of the world. And this one's worth waiting for. ;)
Every so often . . . it doesn't work out quite that well. Wednesday, he told me about some of his travails trying to sort this out . . . including the fact that his advisor just told him that while it's possible to finish all your actual classwork for the Ph.D. in three semesters . . . she really wouldn't recommend it. Four semesters is recommended.
Now for those of you who know how I tend to tie myself in knots over planning things, stop and think: The first thing people have said to me about the engagement after "Congratulations!" is "When's the date?" So I'd started thinking about it, and I knew (or thought I knew) that he'd finish classes in December 2007, so I'd mentally begun to work around that with the idea of dates.
People keep telling me it's not wrong to have expectations. I try to have few, because I get all bolluxed up when things don't work out that way, but I'm only human. So when he told me it might be more like two years than one-and-a-half, I had to re-align my way of thinking. I usually handle this kind of thing a bit more gracefully, but I was on the tail end of being sick and kind of feeling wrecked from work, and, well . . . I didn't.
I'm feeling much more equaminious now. My stressing out was certainly not helping Pete. He's looking into working his schedule so that that last semester ends up being most or all guided reading courses, where he only has to physically attend a class once every couple of weeks. And I've managed to convince myself that there's not much difference between March and May, if it comes to that. May is hotter and there's more competition; that's kind of it.
I won't try to tell you I'm mellow--mellow is not my natural state. But, like I said--it's not the end of the world. And this one's worth waiting for. ;)
posted by Journey | 4:25 PM
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