Work is going really well.  I sort of forgot after all this time unemployed that you can really feel happy to be going to work and not be dragging your feet with anticipated misery.  I know that this job will really have no bearing on any veterinary school applications that I submit, which is sort of sad, because I've found that examining the kinds of books that people are reading (and checking out/in) to be so illuminating!  And honestly, it's making me long to read for fun again, a pasttime that my school obligations sadly leave little time for.

The last book I read for fun (during vacation) was a book I bought on a whim to read on the bus ride down to Maryland:  "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman.  I was really looking for an "easy" book, since concentrating on the bus is an easy recipe for nausea, and I never expected to enjoy it so much!  It's a book that's biting and cynical, but really, I felt, speaks to people my age and older.  I've found myself referencing it in conversation several times since, and I'm curious to know if anyone else has read it.  So let me know!

But yes, no time for fun reading. In fact, sometime during my work hours today, I have to finish last week's lab and write up the pre-lab, due at 6 pm.  I've only got 1 class between now and then, from 1:10 to 2:25 so I'm confident that I can finish it, but I've got a problem set due on Thursday, class tonight until 10pm, work tomorrow, and an aching feeling of being trapped in a prison of obligations.

And what's worse - despite my fervent desire to do well this semester, regain my position on the dean's list, and get into my top choice vet schools in several years' time, I'm still suffering from the same problems with going to class and feeling motivated to really push myself that extra mile. I find myself constantly distracted ... by housework, phonecalls, SVU, petting the kitties, taking a bath... really, anything.  When I do finally sit down and commit to it, I can handle it, but especially with chemistry, where staying on top of work is essential, I find that my difficulty with the material makes me want to work on it LESS.  It does not spur me to work harder, or go to more classes.  In fact, the classes I do attend are literally painful to sit through.  The teacher mumbles along, and I'm thrown a mix of things that are obvious and things that are impossible to grasp with the same flair of monotone chalk scribbling and I sit there, sort of comprehending, but knowing that if someone asked me to give a summary, I'd fail.  This leaves learning up to me, at home, but again, with the will!  

So I'm stuck.  In the interim, of course, I've been exceling at work, but this is a pattern that I've discovered before.  Feel bad and unsuccesful at school?  Wow 'em at work! And then... slowly... leave...school.  Which I'm not keen to do again.  In my current plan, I will finish all my extra sciences by the time I am 30.  Graduating college at 30. Could be worse, but in the perspective of all of the other things I want to do with my life...

Anyway,  someone just dropped 25 books in the check-in slot, so I'm going to go and check 'em in.  Maybe I'll write later.