Maybe Mike has a point...

So, another Spring Break has passed me by...back to school. I can honestly say that this semester is by far the worst in my collegiate career. The sheer crapiness of it all is not due to my classes, though they pretty much suck; it is due to my incredible apathy towards almost everything. This complete indifference has come at the absolute worst time, because being in graduate school, my classes are getting more and more difficult, and I am caring less and less. Anyone can see...this is not a good combination.

I was feeling bad about my apathy, trying to give myself motivational pep-talks, kicking the seat of my pants...all to no avail. I accomplished several small goals, but none of the big ones that I wanted to finish over Spring Break. When I feel unmotivated, I feel lazy. When I feel lazy, I feel kind of crappy because laziness, at least growing up under my parents' roof, was in no way tolerated. I knew I needed to work harder, but why? I mean, one day last week my options were either: a) Study for my 17th century literature exam or 2) Watch a Project Runway marathon on Bravo. Which one would you have chosen? The decision was easy: Project Runway, a show I had never seen, but immediately was hooked on. I am a horrible graduate student. How has this transition, this utter attitude of anything comes before school, occurred?

I needed reassurance. I needed someone to tell me that being completely burned out is okay, that is happens to everyone. I needed someone to "second my emotion", if you will. Then, as if the voice of someone higher up, someone unknown, was speaking to me...the message came. Sent to me in the form of two consecutive bottle caps. On the inside of the caps from two bottles of Mike's Hard Lime was the message I needed to hear. Two words I had been thinking about all Spring Break.





Oh, Mike...what have I done without your wisdom and reassurance? Why write?! You are on to something buddy! Why do I write? Why do I do this to myself? The answer is simple and it took me all Spring Break to come up with it in succinct terms. I don't do all of this crap for present Melia. Right now it all sucks. Right now I just want to put my books down and have cocktails with Ashley or hang out with my family or see my friends. Instead I do the homework and the papers and the late nights up studying, and why? For future Melia. So that when I am looking for a job in a year and it says, "Masters preferable" (as many positions I have looked at do), I can say, "Hey...I have one of those. The worked sucked, but I have one." And maybe...the extra money I come into by having a MA will make up for the excruciating amounts of reading I have to do. Probably not...but maybe. So, future Melia...here's to you, and the possibility of a better job than present Melia could ever find.