I have signed up for two courses this summer. The summer quarter is much shorter (6 weeks) as opposed to the regular quarter (16 weeks). So we meet twice a week, for each course and each session is typically 5 hours. We are covering about four chapters every day. I have to hand over twelve assignments, two group presentations, four tests, conduct four interviews, do four observations on young children, eight hours of community service and write two advocacy letters by the end of July. Sounds pretty do-able under normal circumstances. But throw in two toddlers, a four day language workshop (I have agreed to teach tamil for the Indian Community Center and they require me to take this workshop) and house guests coming weekend, there isn’t much time left for doing all the reading. So I am up till the wee hours of the morning trying to finish my assignments and catching up with my reading. The class starts at 8.00AM, which means that I have to leave home by 7.30AM, which means that I have to wake the kids up at 6.00AM and start the much dreaded feeding session. All this does not leave me much time to sleep. In a way, I am enjoying this time. There are no little hands touching me, I am not needed to kiss a boo-boo just when I am desperately trying to tie my thoughts together! All this blah-blah-blah does not form the stressed part. It is the happy part! I love to multiplex, and push myself absolutely over the edge. Guess I must under value myself and have to have some zillion things going on to prove to myself that I am doing something worthwhile with my time!

The stress comes from the group I am struck with for group presentations. Today was the first meeting. I am not bad mouthing them, but I am this high energy crazy lady and they are relaxed……too relaxed for my comfort. There is a temperament mismatch. One of the professors told us that if one person in the group screws up, then the whole group’s grade gets affected. This is driving me up the wall. This is where my stress is coming from.

Okay, to the ancient part. One of my group mates is a 1988 born guy. The kid is 19 years old. A whole 11 years younger to me!! I felt like telling, “Go hide your face some where cos I am going to start wailing” 🙁 🙁 🙁