How Grad School Is Helping to De-clutter My Life
April 12, 2011 § Leave a Comment
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I’ve been taking a graduate class for four weeks and I’m already starting to see how being in school is helping to de-clutter my life. Since I work full-time, I have to immediately start studying when I come home if I’m going to get all of my reading and assignments done. This leaves me with little time for other activities and prioritizing has become an important skill to me.
One of the most noticeable ways that my life is becoming de-cluttered is that I no longer have time to watch tv because of my school work. I’m sad to admit this but in the past, I would watch a lot of tv. My routine was to come home from work and turn on the tv as a way to de-stress which wasn’t healthy. Now I come home and study a subject that is exciting to me and that I’m passionate about. As stressful as school can be, it’s a stress reliever in a way since it takes away my focus from the stress at work.
Lately, I’m not as pre-occupied with my job as I was in the past. There are days that I have stress but I’m more focused on school than anything else. Even when I’m at work, I’m thinking about school and reflecting on what I’ve been learning.
I’ve started appreciating my alone time and my hobbies even more now since I’ve been in school. Since my personal time is limited, I’ve become even more interested in my hobbies. I can’t wait until Fridays and Saturdays when I’m able to take personal time for myself.
Another aspect of my life that grad school has helped to de-clutter is that I’ve been able to disengage myself from broken relationships. I don’t have the mental space to absorb my studies and then deal with the broken and misguided friendships/relationships in my life. This is freeing because my spirit is no longer being depleted by these issues.
Five Ways I Procrastinate
April 4, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Normally, I am an organized person when it comes to balancing work and school but there are times I procrastinate and I put off something until the last minute. There are five ways that I procrastinate: surfing the internet, watching TV, running errands, reading a book, and taking a nap.
Surfing the internet- Whenever I want to procrastinate, I can always find something to look at one the internet. I frequently check Facebook and Twitter and there are times when I feel that both sites are a time waster. I also get caught up in reading my favorite blogs and time passes quickly.
Watching TV- Whenever I don’t want to do readings for school, I will always turn on the TV and start watching something. I tell myself that I’m just going to watch for 30 minutes and I end of watching for an hour or more which leaves me with less time to finish my readings. I always feel guilty about this so I try hard not to even turn on the TV.
Running errands- I normally run all of my errands on Sunday morning unless it’s something that I really need. However, I’ve started using this as a way to procrastinate. Instead of coming straight home after work and starting my studies, I will go grocery shopping or run to the post office just to kill time.
Reading a book- I have a lot of reading to do for class and yet I still love reading literature. There are times when I will come home and start reading a novel as opposed to my readings for school. While I enjoy the time spent with a good book that was time that I should have been working on school assignments.
Taking a nap- This is a huge one for me because I love to sleep. I could honestly take a nap just about anywhere. I tell myself that I’ll take a 30 minute nap and then I’ll get up and do work but that never happens. Usually I sleep past the 30 minutes even though I use an alarm clock and I don’t get any work done.
Graduate School: Intercultural Communication
March 22, 2011 § Leave a Comment
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This week I started a graduate class called Intercultural Training. The purpose of this course is to prepare us to be able to develop and to provide training for intercultural communications in different areas such as education, non-profit, and corporate businesses. I’m taking this as a course to prepare me for an international career. In the Fall of this year, I will start taking courses for a graduate degree in Spanish Translation.
Our first exercise is to share four cultural identities that define us. From the four cultural identities we choose, we need to pick one identity and explain positive and negative experiences associated with that identity. The exercise is meant for us to dig deep and to reflect on our own personal cultural experiences.
I don’t think that digging deep will be a problem for me because I’m an introspective person. I’m just not sure how much of this process I want to share with my classmates. I don’t know them and we haven’t established trust with one another. Trust, empathy, and understanding are needed when dealing with cultural experience because issues of race, ethnicity, social class, religion, gender, and sexuality can arise. Not everyone has the ability to deal with these issues in a sensitive manner. I hope that the fact that all of the other students are interested in intercultural communication will mean that people will be civil to one another.
