Reviewing the Past

I've had this strange desire to pour over all my previous blog posts. I've been trying to search for meaning from my past experiences. Trying to understand where I've been and where I'm going with the next year. I found some interesting themes. One of the most prevalent themes is my alternation between being egotistical and being unsure of myself. I really enjoyed reading my blog posts from my first year back in grad school. I sounded really sweet and adorable; and I rarely blogged about school stuff. But, I think I might have been a little hesitant. I would guess that was natural, considering I had just come from a difficult job.

Then I went through a time when I started to come out of my shell and find positive reinforcement for contributing to class discussion. I started blogging about the praises and affirmations I received, while still maintaining my surprise that such praises were directed towards me. But, then I just turned egotistical, authoritative, and narcissistic. I tried to rationalize it as a form of joking about myself and the narcissistic nature of academia. But, no, my tone had definitely changed and I was pretty confident in myself. At the same time, I was completely absorbed in school stuff and couldn't blog about anything else.

I noticed that after the first year, I was constantly blogging at 3am or 4am in the morning, unable to sleep because I was so overwhelmed by the amount of pressure and work I had to deal with. I was constantly writing blog posts that would frighten anyone away from becoming a grad student. And then I had to undergo the worst semester yet. Last semester was even worse than the previous semester. Its the first semester I wasn't able to finish everything by finals week and it was the first semester that I seriously considered dropping out of grad school. It was also the first semester that I took up teaching again since the last time I had taught, which two years ago. Teaching made me realize I wasn't as amazing as I thought I was, and that I had no reason to be so egotistical.

So I think the reason I went through those tough experiences last semester was to bring me through another season of reducing my pride. I just had to go through another pride reduction cycle. The last time I went through a pride reduction cycle I actually did quit what I was doing, but I made it through this time. I just really wish I didn't need to constantly go through seasons of building up my self-esteem and then tearing it back down. I really hope that this time I can learn my lesson and next year I can just lay low and get my degree and not worry about what others' think of me or what I think of me.