subtext

I turned in my last test for Ed. Psych earlier today. So now, except for reading ten more adolescent novels, I am through with grad school for the summer. Perhaps for good. While I love the readings and the class discussions, for the most part, I am still caught up in the question I had after my first semester: Why am I doing this? Every semester since I have started this, I go through this same questioning: why am I doing this? Perhaps my inability to come up with an answer is reason enough not to finish. The tests and papers, where I have to perform in order to prove myself, create stress because I am such an over achiever and obsess over my “failures” if I make a B. Then when I make my A, I wonder if I really deserved the grade and criticize the work I did do. What kind of sick psychology is in play there? I feel as if I am missing my children’s adolescence by spending my time reading the reams of articles required for each class. ( I was stunned when someone in class last week admitted to not having read one of the two articles we were supposed to read. This in a relatively light reading load.) It was interesting taking two classes this summer, because it seemed as if I had lots of time because I was not working full time teaching high school. Yet I had more than one classmate looked shocked that I was taking two classes in one summer session. I am acquiring debt at an alarming rate, just as my oldest child is beginning to apply to colleges, none of which are cheap, and all of which I will do whatever I can to help him go to if he gets accepted, which it looks like he will based on their student demographics. I don’t see a lot of benefits to finishing, other than I hate quitting anything. I like the idea of being able to say I am working on a Ph.D., and the idea that I will get one if I continue, but is that just my egotistic vanity that is at stake; my insecurity in my intellectual ability trying to justify itself with yet another piece of paper? One of the four truths of Buddhism is that suffering is caused by desire: perhaps I should rethink my desires? OM.