Update on life: End of the First Semester of Grad School and other boring things

Well it is 5:24 on a snowstorm weekend in December. We are just shy of the holiday week, and I will probably spend the next three weeks reading, writing, playing computer games and doing all the fun things I did all last year.

I am in Grad School, or rather, I just completed my first semester and I am in the time between the next set of classes. 
My initial thoughts were that I wasn't learning a lot and was often irritated by the poor design. I regularly considered that I could be as equally good Teacher as my profs, and I am still fairly sure that is the case. However I have also grown sympathetic to their position of being an adjunct in a stupid situation.
Overall classes were easy. The biggest stresses were the assignments, not necessarily because they were hard but because it was difficult to manage my time and motivation. The small forum assignments were actually harder sometimes because they felt like busy work, where as the big papers felt like a fun challenge.   In general I really appreciate my classmates, but not necessarily because they challenge my thinking, more just that they share values of service. They are good people.  
The design of the program and the direction still irks me. It is one of the things I want to address if I continue in the MSW forum (the student representation). I just think there are better uses of a person's time. How about getting people involved in things? Why cram their heads in books searching for obscure bullshit if you can have them in a meeting making changes?
Why are programs not coordinating with each other? The BSW forum and MSW forum  at augsburg don't talk... why? Where is the macro approach to THIS system?
I am going ahead with the clinical side, but still very wide-eyed about macro systems. In general I feel like I am probably at the top of the class in understanding -but many of my peers have experience that I can learn a lot from. Also I talk, and they don't always.

Internship, sometimes feels like a joke. It is really difficult to feel productive in such a small role. I want to make changes, but don't feel I have the authority. I want to work with people, not tip toe around the edges pretending I know what I am doing. Its not a good  collaborative effort, and that makes me sad. Maybe they need more push to be groupy... maybe they need less distinction between admin and service.  Maybe the thing on the whole, needs a push to be more change oriented and less service. Anyway, its a lot of reaching out for more information, and not necessarily having the connection to make change happen. Part of it is that I like my coworkers/supervisors but I don't necessarily respect their leadership abilities. Also I am not getting paid, but working the equivalent of 10 weeks for free... so thats cool. 

What else... coffee shop. Its.. ugg. I don't know -I feel like the reason I work there is to have access to faces. To feel like there are possibilities. and a tiny amount of spending money. I am not necessarily getting along with my coworkers. They are nice, but I don't feel they know me or care, and I don't care to know them really either.

Roommates... same deal. 

Other than that it is my own thoughts. I feel pretty disconnected from friends and loved ones... not the same as the last few years when I couldn't relate, but rather just don't have the time. People are in their lives, I am in mine. Very little meaningful overlap... plus it is winter. So, even though I am sort of positive and hopeful about the way I can impact the world, I am less connected to it. 

Also fuck trump, am I right?  

I spent a lot of time thinking about possibilities, and then wonder why things don't fall into place more easily. Like so many of the things I want, or think might make me happier/connected/satisfied are actually very simple... but the moment I consider making them happen they seem totally out of reach. Like the beautiful barista at this coffee shop, and all the people who are so pretty they are hard to look at... how does meaningful connection actually happen?

My car breaking down, and buying a new one. That is how it happens, when life thrusts you a situation and you begrudgingly choose a new one. 

Sometimes wonder if I should just run away again... live on the beach. Write a book. Be a bad person.