Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Something's gotta give

Some of you out there might be looking at this statement and saying, "Well, yeah, I told you so." While others of  you might have no idea what I'm talking about.  If you've been following my blog, or our lives you might know by now that I have piled on quite a task load this year.  I made some quite New Year Resolutions, and then I made them public, partially in an effort to keep myself accountable, and partially to make them real goals as opposed to secret goals.  Keeping goals a secret can be useful for instance if your planning a surprise party or are planning on surprise attacking an enemy with water balloons, but when it comes to goal making, in general, telling people helps to consummate those goals into a reality.  The goals I made for myself this year were 1) study for the GRE 2) run a half marathon and 3) finish writing my personal project.  And as is typical in my family, I think it must be genitics, when one of us gets excited about something, we typically have to jump into the pool immediately.  No need bothering with nicities such as learning how to swim, or changing clothes from a sweater to a bathing suite, nope, those things just are barriers to getting to that finish line the fastest.  We get excited, what can I say.  And persistence is a blessing and a curse, depending on who you ask.  Ask my husband that question and he may answer you the later, as he sees my persistence in a different light- aka: annoying  and pestering. Regardless, that is exactly what happened this year.  I got really excited about attaining my goals, and instead of weighing them, and deciding which to begin first, I just dove right into the icy cold pond, and started swimming carrying all three behind me.  There were rocks in the way which I swam around, and blocks of ice with jagged edges, but until I came across the huge polar bear (bear with me on this metaphor, I know its kind of silly) I kept on swimming.  (On a side note, not in a million years would I dive into an icy pond, that is unless someone I loved was drowning, but even then I would probably think twice.  The cold and me, we aren't on great terms) 
What am I saying?  What I'm saying is, that while on the subway, studying the 260 page math section, and calculating how slowly I've made progress, inchworm style, I decided that it was time to let something go. The previous day, we had finished our fifth week of training for the half marathon and had just completed the 7 mile run (or what I hope is seven miles as there isn't really any way to measure the paths we run).  Considering that we run up this one particular hill with an incline made by Lucifer himself which looks like a straight 90 degree rise and I can never actually finish running up it, but have to stop and walk some of the way, it took us about an hour and thirty minutes plus a few.  Studying our schedule, and calculating the amount of time we would continue to have to devote to the training I realized that I had to prioritize and as much as it pained me, I was going to have to postpone the half marathon.  I decided that the half marathon could wait as the deadline for the GRE test was in June before it changes formats and becomes an entirely new test, one that I haven't studied for.  Previously, I discussed whether I should take the new version or the current version and it was recommended to me by advisers that the current one was a known factor while the new version would make guinea pigs of all it's takers.  Therefore the GRE test has a set deadline, where as there is a half marathon in Seoul EVERY WEEKEND, I kid you not.  If I wanted to run in a race every weekend of the year, I could find one here.  You'd never know if you weren't in the runners circle however, as I never see Koreans running, at least outside.  So there you have it, my confession. A part of me feels like a failure for putting the race off, a pansy, but the other part of me, the logical part that isn't such a bully, explains to me in a even toned voice that it was the right move for my/our future.  I'm thankful for Kyle for being so understanding. He's been fantastic at helping to support me in these endeavors (except for posting on the blog as of late) and I can't thank him enough.

P.s. ya'll might send Kyle an email or a shout out as his birthday is this coming Sunday.

4 comments:

sharon said...

I know that it is hard for you to revise your goals, Sweetie, but you are making a wise decision. You are right, it is genetic, our taking on too many things at once and demanding of ourselves quality work. While it is true we get things done, other things suffer. I see myself in you in many ways.

Love always, Mama

Elisa said...

You are smart to make taking the current GRE (which will be available through the end of July) a priority. Your scores will be useable for five years, and you'll take a test that is a known quantity.

I teach for Kaplan, so as you can imagine I'm seeing a lot of people these days who are wrestling with the same issues you are. I can't tell what you're doing to get ready for the GRE, but you might enjoy the free GRE Question Bank that Kaplan has on its Facebook page at http://apps.facebook.com/grad-qbank.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

KaplanElisa

Anonymous said...

What about Kyle. Is he also studying for the GRE? Does he have planms to also go to Grad school? How old will he be on Sunday?

Vanessa Rogers said...

Kyle does not want to grad school now. He plans to work while I'm in school to help support us.