Disinterest

One hundred hours of credit completed,
Two more semesters to go,
Three and a half years completed,
Four year degree,
Five different calendar years at ULM,

Spider outside of Joel's house

I know that it is normal to not graduate on time, but it is none the less frustrating. Many of the people I have had classes with have applied for graduation or plan to in the spring.  It makes me slightly envious, and a little bit sad to see people moving on and moving away, but mostly it makes me tired. I am so tired of school, of course work, and of waking up every morning to learn things that don't seem relevant.  I don't know why I am yearning to graduate, probably because I'm just looking for some change in my life. I'm getting bored with: school, library, home, repeat. As soon as I graduate I'll just have to get a "real" job, and my life will be work, home, sleep, repeat for years and years. So I don't know why I want out of school so badly. I think the reason is, I'm pretty much done with my "woah" classes. The classes where I continuously think "Woah, that's really cool" or "Woah, I had no idea that happened". The only classes I have left are lame: English, stats, organic chemistry--BLEK! No woah, no ah-ha, no interest. I miss chasing salamanders, vivisecting crawfish, observing microbes, setting beaver traps, and identifying leaves. Now there is only carbon chains and unobservable operons.  Trying to learn about all these seemingly abstract things is very frustrating, and more than anything tiring. I am tired all the time.

Yesterday, I went to a lecture presented by Dr. Daley-Engle, she gave a fantastic lecture about shark and there sexual dimorphism. It held my interest, I learned a little about sharks, sexual habit in the animal kingdom, and about different mating habits--all very interest, but not the most important thing I learned from her lecture. I realized that even though genetics seems abstract, I need to learn it if I want to do field research, or be successful in graduate school. I always viewed genetics as one of those classes that I just had to get through to get my degree, but I have realized that genetics is something I actually need.  Hopefully, this new outlook of these course will make genetics more interesting to me. Hopefully, it will make it easier to study, and hopefully therefore easier learn. 

So, hopefully I'll be able to stay interested in the next two and half semesters. Or at least interested enough to do well. Hopefully, the weekends and Thanksgiving Break will be enough to get me recharged to finish out this semester without going nuts.  Hopefully, I'll be able to be interested enough to care.