Public Service Announcement
The short version: I am almost certainly taking a leave of absence from Bryn Mawr as of this weekend. The deans and/or the health center did not force this on me. I'd like all of your support, but there's no need for sympathy-this was my decision, and I'm confident that it will be helpful.
Last month, I ended up in the emergency room of Bryn Mawr hospital with what turned out to be an ovarian cyst. Ovarian cysts generally fall into the "annoying but harmless" category, so that in and of itself isn't too problematic. However, I had a whole mess of stress-related symptoms afterwards, which were only exacerbated by falling so far behind in my work. Every doctor I go to makes notes about anxiety on my chart and tells me to go get counseling. At this point, they're probably right. At the very least, if there are any physical problems going on in addition to the cyst, it'll be easier to figure out what they are once I calm the hell down, and Bryn Mawr isn't exactly conducive to that.
The more sick and stressed I make myself here, the more dining-hall phobic I get. I dread going to the dining hall, because it's way too much sensory stimulation-all the noise and echoes and crowds. Dreading the dining hall means I don't eat enough, and not eating enough means I just feel sicker. Nice little feedback loop there.
So, between all the stress and anxiety and medical foo, I can't concentrate on my class work at all. Which in unfortunate, because there's rather a lot of it. More than I've ever had at Bryn Mawr, actually. I had buttloads of reading even before the medical foo, and I haven't really been able to catch up since. I've cut down on organized extracurricular stuff lots since I got here-I don't do much now besides two folk dance classes a week and all my homework. But even still, I have no time to do other things, like do enough library work to undo the damage of the exchange rate or apply for the nifty museum internships I want. Not having time of course creates stress, and then the whole ugly stress cycle starts over again.
I could just drop a class here and stay on, but that would still put me in an odd place credit-wise, and really it doesn't help any of the underlying problems. I want time to calm the hell down, and learn to operate on schedules/manage my time, and apply to do the nifty things I really care about in a non-half-assed manner.
So what will I be doing with this time? Well, the first order of business upon getting home is to get a mindless job, maybe two, that are public-transit accessible from my house. From now until May or so, I will mostly do that job (those jobs?), learn to drive, send off museum internship applications, and find a good psychologist. In the effort to get better at making and sticking to schedules, I also want to dedicate my blocks of free time to specific goals-reading anthropology books, writing quality SWAPae, working on the lessons in my learn-biblical-Hebrew book, doing something to make sure I don't forget my Russian. If they fit with my work schedule, I'd like to go to Lunacon, NEFFA, Bryn Mawr Mayday, and as many Georgian singing workshops/roundsings in New York as I can.
Presumably, I will get an internship somewhere at the end of this process. When this happens, I will look for housing, a roommate, and a similar mindless job in the city of my internship (Philadelphia, Boston, or somewhere near New York). Over the summer, I will somehow balance the internship, work, and doing things with friends in the city.
Because of the way the anthropology thesis schedule works, it makes more sense for me to take the entire year off than to come straight back to Bryn Mawr in fall. Ideally, I would be able to keep up both museum work and money-making work through the fall, and possibly take one or two courses at a school near wherever I'm living. In the more likely and less ideal situation, I'd go back home at the end of the summer and spend the fall working and taking a course or two at Rutgers.
I'd come back to Bryn Mawr the following spring as a second semester junior again.
It sounds like a plan to me.
Last month, I ended up in the emergency room of Bryn Mawr hospital with what turned out to be an ovarian cyst. Ovarian cysts generally fall into the "annoying but harmless" category, so that in and of itself isn't too problematic. However, I had a whole mess of stress-related symptoms afterwards, which were only exacerbated by falling so far behind in my work. Every doctor I go to makes notes about anxiety on my chart and tells me to go get counseling. At this point, they're probably right. At the very least, if there are any physical problems going on in addition to the cyst, it'll be easier to figure out what they are once I calm the hell down, and Bryn Mawr isn't exactly conducive to that.
The more sick and stressed I make myself here, the more dining-hall phobic I get. I dread going to the dining hall, because it's way too much sensory stimulation-all the noise and echoes and crowds. Dreading the dining hall means I don't eat enough, and not eating enough means I just feel sicker. Nice little feedback loop there.
So, between all the stress and anxiety and medical foo, I can't concentrate on my class work at all. Which in unfortunate, because there's rather a lot of it. More than I've ever had at Bryn Mawr, actually. I had buttloads of reading even before the medical foo, and I haven't really been able to catch up since. I've cut down on organized extracurricular stuff lots since I got here-I don't do much now besides two folk dance classes a week and all my homework. But even still, I have no time to do other things, like do enough library work to undo the damage of the exchange rate or apply for the nifty museum internships I want. Not having time of course creates stress, and then the whole ugly stress cycle starts over again.
I could just drop a class here and stay on, but that would still put me in an odd place credit-wise, and really it doesn't help any of the underlying problems. I want time to calm the hell down, and learn to operate on schedules/manage my time, and apply to do the nifty things I really care about in a non-half-assed manner.
So what will I be doing with this time? Well, the first order of business upon getting home is to get a mindless job, maybe two, that are public-transit accessible from my house. From now until May or so, I will mostly do that job (those jobs?), learn to drive, send off museum internship applications, and find a good psychologist. In the effort to get better at making and sticking to schedules, I also want to dedicate my blocks of free time to specific goals-reading anthropology books, writing quality SWAPae, working on the lessons in my learn-biblical-Hebrew book, doing something to make sure I don't forget my Russian. If they fit with my work schedule, I'd like to go to Lunacon, NEFFA, Bryn Mawr Mayday, and as many Georgian singing workshops/roundsings in New York as I can.
Presumably, I will get an internship somewhere at the end of this process. When this happens, I will look for housing, a roommate, and a similar mindless job in the city of my internship (Philadelphia, Boston, or somewhere near New York). Over the summer, I will somehow balance the internship, work, and doing things with friends in the city.
Because of the way the anthropology thesis schedule works, it makes more sense for me to take the entire year off than to come straight back to Bryn Mawr in fall. Ideally, I would be able to keep up both museum work and money-making work through the fall, and possibly take one or two courses at a school near wherever I'm living. In the more likely and less ideal situation, I'd go back home at the end of the summer and spend the fall working and taking a course or two at Rutgers.
I'd come back to Bryn Mawr the following spring as a second semester junior again.
It sounds like a plan to me.