Just because you don't want to be a quitter doesn't mean you have to be an idiot.

File this one under "lessons learned"

For the past two years I've been taking graduate classes at the college where I also work full-time. I've taken the courses as non-credit, while applying to the Master's program, with the assumption that, due to the quality of my writing samples, resume, and high GRE scores, I would one day get in to this incredibly competitive program.
Last week, after staying up too late too many nights to finish a presentation, I was sitting home with tonsillitis working on a 20-page paper, and I got a rejection letter. Another one. My second.
Surrounded with books and index cards and storylines, and Chloraseptic spray and salt water, and tea, I will admit, I cried a little bit, and I will not even be ashamed of it. And fever tears hurt.
However, there was a nice handwritten note on my rejection letter from the Director of Grad Admissions. The purple felt pen invited me to come by and see her if I wanted to discuss. So, all cured up on Monday, that's what I did. And so started the kind of day that, when all was said and done, felt like a neatly tied up sitcom ending.
I realized, after talking to her, that I had been pursuing the entirely wrong things for me. It was astounding how off the mark I'd been, and how swayed by the low acceptance rate that looked to me like a big red bullfighting flag with the world "challenge!" on it. That's all. All that reading and writing made me miserable. Stressed. Completely unable to write here, or in my other journal. While I absolutely loved my classes and the things I was able to learn, writing & publishing was not my track, not my passion. Re-ve-lation.
The Director relayed that while my GRE scores were "off the charts" (which, technically, is an impossibility) and all my recommendations were "nothing but glowing" that the committee shared the opinion I was now coming to. I was just not a fit for such a specific program. Then, she handed me an outline of another program she and the committee did think I was a fit for. And it was perfect. I'd already been considering it, before she mentioned it. Because writing, just for writing, isn't my passion, but commuication is. Revelation numbero dos.
I talked to a current student in the program, and that only confirmed that this was something I should at least seriously explore. By that afternoon, I'd gone from panicked to excited.
There was still the matter of my paper. I went and visited my professor in his office before the last class of the semester, and told him my situation. While I loved the class, and everything I had learned, the idea of writing a 20-page research paper "just for fun" was extremely daunting, and depressing. And amazingly, he understood. I'd been agonizing over this particular issue since I recieved the letter. I didn't, obviously, want to be a quitter, the person who dropped a class on the last day of classes. But, just because you don't want to be a quitter, doesn't mean you have to be an idiot. And I am pretty sure idiot gluttons for punishment (a category I fall into more than occasionally) are the only ones who would write a 20-page paper for nothing.
My professor, after a spot of being righteously indignant that I didn't get into the program after two tries, said that based on my work thus far and his knowledge of me as a student (I'd taken two classes with him) he would feel comfortable giving me a B without the paper. He said, quite simply, he didn't believe I would learn anything from the exercise, and would possibly leave the course overwhelmed, stressed out, and bitter. That wasn't his intention when he designed the class. And it just made so much sense. I am now totally okay with not doing the paper.
And all's well that ends well. We chatted about my research, which I actually found quite interesting, so it was like a mini book report, in a way. Then I went to the last class of all, and four hours flew by like nothing.
So, I've shifted my goals significantly, and I'm actually much more excited about my education and career than I was when I was relentlessly pursuing this particular goal. It's like a lot of things. I realize that in my running, I kept relentlessly pursuing the marathon goal, because it was the "holy grail" of running, but kept getting injured and sidetracked. I don't think I will ever run a marathon; it's not for me. And even when I say that now, I still feel a twinge of disappointment. But I realize that my goals reflect just as much about who I am than my accomplishments, and just because a goal is an impressive rite of passage that features on myriad Bucket Lists, doesn't mean it should be mine.
I'll be porting my application over to the other program, and should see, hopefully in a few weeks, if I get in.

Anyway.
On the running front, well, nothing. I re-hurt my ankle last night putting on pants, which either means I need to go to the doctor or just stop putting on pants. Today, I went to the gym for the first time since the tonsillitis, and did my usual "back to the gym" routine of 45 or so squats, which will, as it always does, render me completely incapable of walking tomorrow.
But boy, did it feel good today.

I'm still trying to think of what I want this blog to be, what direction I want it to go in. Obviously, it's not really a running blog anymore, and I'm afraid it will continue not to be. I'm too afraid to go to the doctor in case she tells me to stay off my foot, or that I have to have surgery. Without going, I'm not running, because it feels like all the tiny bones on the top of my feet are crunching together a bit. But, I can bike and I can lift and I can do other things, and without this kind of movement, I go crazy. So it's worth it, for now, to continue moving and forget about running.
But, there are so many other things I'd like to write about. It seems that the personal blog has gone by the wayside, and most folks post about one or two things. I don't want to just write a fitness blog or a grad student blog or even a beer blog, but I'd like to combine these things and other interests in a cohesive way that presents a sort of designed energy. I'll have to think on that one for a bit.