first day of school part 2 - yoga and m&m's

Waiting in line for lunch, I struck up a conversation with a woman in the landscape architecture program – she seemed pretty clueless as to why she was even there, and after struggling with small talk for awhile, she mentioned where she lived but that there were a bunch of “bums” living in her front yard. Should I have just told her that it was pejorative? Classist? Potentially racist? To say that. I probably should have engaged in a more heartfelt conversation. Instead, I just ignored her.

I started talking then to some fun and funky “art practice” students who were pretty cool, when all of a sudden a woman comes up to me and screams, “Jen Schradie! How are you? What are you doing here?” (hmmm…as if I shouldn’t be there – this is my knee jerk reaction these days) – But it turned out to be one of my favorite (i.e. most adoring) yoga students. She’s at the j-school. It was fun to connect with her. After signing up for the UAW (I’m now a double member, along with the writers’ union) – in line, as well, I sat down to a lame lunch with some of my cohort. The organizers of the conference had us go around the room and tell something about ourselves, based on how many m&m’s we took out of a jar (I’m not kidding). There were a few other people not in our program there – when it was my turn, I considered. Hmmm…should I talk about homebirthing my kids? My trek with rebel guerrillas in the Philippines? I opted for the connection I had with my yoga student, relayed this story of running into one of my students there, and then threw in the juicy tidbit about playing a yoga student in one of Madonna’s (terrible) films. Of course, then, the woman sitting next to me wanted to know where she could practice. Talking about yoga seemed like the “safe” thing to do – but I wonder, was I bragging too much about it?

After pointless ice-breaking exercises of staring into the eyes of the mechanical engineering PhD student next to me, the rest of the day consisted of pretty cool workshops. One was on funding – where I got a little more info about how to make the next 5 years work (we are doing terrible with our finances); then, a workshop on yes, student parents! It was great, actually – out of the 3000 entering graduate students only five people showed up, but it was really great to be really honest – they really wanted to know the challenges we were facing – and everyone offered concrete suggestions for issues – from where to buy used kid stuff to how to get childcare. One of my (many) concerns that I voiced was trying to make functions that were planned at the last minute or during that beloved bewitching hour of 4-8pm. No great answers but at least I felt heard.

But I also went to a workshop about surviving graduate school. All of the advice seemed relatively non-applicable to me – like “Make sure you have something, like a hobby, outside of graduate school, to help you balance out your life.” What a great idea! Maybe I could take up knitting. You know, after I pick up the kids, make dinner, do the dishes, put them to bed, then finally have time to study – yeah, 3am will be the perfect opportunity to strike up a new hobby. Fortunately, though, a mother asked “the” question. “I have a family – and I have the opposite problem of making sure I have enough time for my children.” The one bummer was that the panel, none of whom had kids, actually tried to answer the question – give it up!