Earlier today I was thinking – what am I really good at. I think I’m best at being a student. But facing this milestone, I keep thanking my lucky stars for the opportunity to be at school again, yet wondering what it is I should really do with the rest of my time. Priorities are crystallizing almost by themselves. I am also learning how to let go of some of the countless ambitions. It’s intimidating to think that I have to really focus on a few successful endeavours but it’s also a significant relief to feel comfortable with letting some things go.

Yeah, it’s a rambling kind of night. I feel a little uncertain of how to feel. I’ll check back in tomorrow – let you know how different 30 feels.

Later, challenging myself meant going out of my shy shell and trying my hand at the school newspaper. Writing was fun, learning about it in this style was eye-opening. But the biggest advantage was going out of my comfort zone and interviewing people – strangers, or even popular students and intimidating administrators.

In college, I took a public speaking class. More fears overcome (these, of the stage-fright variety because it’s different talking with one or a handful of people in a small group and talking to a large gathering).

But to this day, I struggle to implement all of these carefully acquired skills into a holistic, practical approach to life.

For example, today I was in a slightly intimidating situation (well, maybe two) and I did many things well. They were pre-planned, pre-prepared, intentional and thoughtful.

But I also screwed up two little things – one I realized in the moment and decided it to be too small to be worthwhile amending. But the other, I kicked myself about later for not thinking of it in the moment.

I guess it means we all continuously grow. Yet, I can’t help but wish I was a little smoother in my flow through social (real) life. (Digital social life is a little more forgiving – there’s usually at least an opportunity to compose your thoughts together before making them public; and there are some built-in, even if not perfect, save-face tools.)

But the other thing that’s been swirling around my brain lately is how rushed our lives are! This second quarter of grad school has been whizzing by way faster than the first one. But I also remember my work days and those were just about as hectic (though my nights weren’t usually quite this late; for contrast though, I manage to sleep in quite late in the mornings now). I know – intellectually – that on the net as a society + all this technology, we are more productive than ever before. However, I can’t help but wonder sometimes – what are we sacrificing (trading off/opportunity cost) in terms of quality when we rush through every project, every task, every endeavor, even (and especially) the personal ones. How much true quality time do we spend with one another?

Not that it’s the end of the world. It’s not at all a significant fraction of my overall grade. But it’s the principle of it. I am falling behind and I hate when I fall behind. I feel like I’m sort of holding on in my other two main classes and it was at the expense of this one. That and I didn’t really need to full-on catch up, all I had to do is review notes from class a little more closely and try some of the homework problems, and I would have been fine.

What happens when I fall behind, though, is a phenomenon that I have been trying to fight for years now – both as a student and as a professional. I tend to want to catch up in a linear, systematic way. It just isn’t practical. I need to cut my losses (aka my sunk costs) and move on from there. But it’s against my nature. And in this case, against teh way I’ve always been taught math and related sciences like econ – it’s all a chain, so you ahve to follow step-by-step, if you miss a link, you’re lost. Well, I wanted to go back and retrace all individual links separately and deliberately. There just doesn’t seem to be time for that in this incredibly fast-paced second quarter.

I knew getting into this that it would fast-paced and it would be a lot of studying on my own, vs. more hand-holding and class-time intensity at the undergrad level. Everyone told me so. I believed them. But I didn’t know just what that meant in practical terms until this second quarter when we’re building on concepts from the first quarter, which were also taught at neck-breaking speed and with assumptions that we either already knew a lot of econ, or that we would be comfortable with just not quite grasping some concepts as we raced along. Well, neither is the case for me, so I keep struggling – at least now with my eyes wide open to the problem.

Life has been going in slow motion for a few months now. I keep thinking I’ll slap out of it, but I just keep floating along.

Maybe I need coffee today.

And to think that a week from today I turn 30. This 30-day blogging challenge is somewhat symbolic. I think it is high time I started taking on more challenges. I have been, a little so far this year. And I have started rebuilding my confidence after a rough 2011. But there’s always room for improvement it seems.

And a curious side-note – I’ve entered into a whimsical phase again, seeking out classic novels (from all periods and countries), city + nature landscapes, and PBS/NPR entertainment. I wonder if these can all be characterized as age-related melancholy. The things missing – leisurely walks though beautiful parks and writing old-fashioned snail-mail letters. The former I took with my partner in life during the snow storm. But the latter – there’s a stack of cards and letters on the side of my desk. I haven’t pulled out my stationary out of the drawer yet.

In the last two days, I’ve spent more time on Facebook than I can ever recall doing before. And I took forever doing homework because I kept pausing to look at the snowflakes and check for new snow photos online.

Thing I am most grateful for? Electricity. We’re among the lucky ones that still have it.

Thing I am most wistful for? The German pub that was across the street from our previous apartment. Unlike other local businesses, that pub didn’t close when there was a night’s snowstorm and we spent a proper dinner + beer there last time we got white-out.

The best thing that can happen now is for tomorrow to be a snow day too so that I can catch up from today’s catching up.