Grad School Dichotomies

Funny how grad school has brought out both my extreme overachiever-ness, as well as my extreme underachiever-ness.  Since December 2009, when I quit the retail management job I got after graduating college, I made varying levels of commitment to being healthy.  Sometimes I'd be really good about cooking my own healthy food, and sometimes I'd be really good about working out five days a week, and occasionally, I'd be really good about both.

Now, however...not so much.  Between classes, student teaching, and working at night, my diet mostly consists of Chick-fil-A, cereal, and froyo.  Here's my dinner tonight at work:

Unless sodium and MSG have been added to the food pyramid recently, this is a bundle of unhealthy.  Welcome to grad school, fellow health underachievers.

I guess the good news is that on the other side of the coin, I'm such a major overachiever when it comes to school.  I consistently make assignments into a much bigger deal than necessary, taking fifteen times longer than my peers.  I can only assume this will be a good thing for me in the long run, but for now, it sure is a pain.  It's just not in me to turn in something that isn't my very. best. (How type A am I?)

Basically, last night we had to create a one-page handout of pertinent info about our special education research topic.  At a little after midnight, when I left the library, I had a solid handout typed up in Word, like any normal student.  I don't know exactly what went through my brain after that, but it must have gone something like this:

"Stephanie, when did you last waste hours playing around in Photoshop?  When you were teaching the other week, weren't you jealous watching all the Digital Communications majors at the high school?  Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity to make something fun again?  And you have plenty of time to kill now, at 12:30 am!"

Fast forward to 4:30 am, when I finally finished my handout... for my 8:30 am class.

So maybe I do need to learn to leave well enough alone, but tell me this doesn't look way cooler than something typed up in Word!

Anyone else out there an overachiever?



xo.