schmoozin' - even with the nannies

I'm kind of lost in this blog - my perfectionist self tries to cover every event happening in this blog - though probably what will be more interesting to me 10 years from now - and perhaps to you, is what I'm feeling, thinking, etc., but I grew up in an environment where it was all about what you accomplisehd (you're great, wonderful) or didn't accomplish (oh, bad girl, you'll never get into a "good" school."

Anyway, last night's adventures were watching the 2nd episode of Lost - and the last few days obsessing about what to do about grad school. I keep going in and out of interest with Berkeley's iSchool.

So my strategy has been to try to meet with a few professor-like folk every week to maintain a high schmooze ratio to help with recommendations down the line - it's a lot of work! And I don't always like I'm doing enough of it (back to the "shoulds" and accomplo-meter).

Today I met with Kthy Edn, my qualitative professor who I adore - she's a sociologist that writes about inequality issues. I keep hesitating around asking about the whole grad school/family thing, but I decided to jump in when she asked how the application process was going - she didn't seem to want to go there - maybe I don't know her well enough or maybe it's a taboo subject or perhaps it's just not an issue for her - sounds like she had already gotten her first job out of grad school before having kids - but did mention she got a job first before her husband whom she had met at school...

She was very helpful with my qualitative research project - which I just need to go ahead and work on - her advice was just to start and not to worry too much about setting it up - that's what the class is for.

Then, after my NB class Chris picked me up for a complicated day - at least in terms of scheduling. I've been trying to make it to various evening events - so I end up hanging out with the kids in the afternoon, instead of the evening - it works out well - for me, at least. We drove over to West Cambridge - note, when you read that you need to emphasize the italics. It was mansion mania. Old new england estate homes - for, of course, a birthday party for a classmate of Liam's. The mom is very sweet, and I really like her, but the house was gigantic - four stories high - each floor was at least 2500 square feet. I wanted to go, among other reasons, to get to know the other parents - uh, oops. Didn't know that I was supposed to send my nanny instead. It was mostly nannies and Chris and me - it was amusing, good pizza and cupcakes and a nice party for the kids.

Oh well, and then back to campus.

I also met with Mrshll Gnz, a professor here at the K school, who was a longtime civil rights and farmworker organizer who went back to school himself and got a sociology degree. He seemed ever so slightly annoyed that two very sweet mpp1's let me go ahead of them on his master signup sheet for office hours. They offered - and I had waited almost a month for this appointment. Kind of annoying...more on all of this later. Anyway, he was very helpful, as I predicted, in putting me in touch with local activist groups for my research project.

I also asked him about the grad school thing, and he, of course, asked me why I wanted to do it - I knew I'd get that question from an organizer. He also said with an air of experience, as well as advice, that family always needs to come first. Hmmm...duh - but also the tough part of all of this. It's depressing, though, not to be able to follow my kids. I guess I might have to follow that mantra, instead, that Michelle once told me about - as a mom, you can have it all - but not at the same time...do I need to wait til I'm 60, then?

Then onto a review class for my exam and then off to studying...