Graduate students should stick to graduating

I am so beyond screwed. I haven't even finished my third week in the semester and I'm already getting comfortable with the idea of a premature death. I'm not taking 18 units and working three jobs like I was last semester, but I am taking 15 units, auditing a graduate level class, working on writing samples for grad applications, studying for the GRE and filling applications, and attempting to understand what a statement of purpose is. I'm not even in graduate school yet, and I'm already reconsidering it. This isn't supposed to happen! I'm not supposed to drop out before I even get in. Today, one of my professors expressed vehement disapproval with my lack of progress. I had nothing to say but, "You're right." Pathetic. I'm so overwhelmed with a general sense of academic malaise that I can't even raise my hand to flip the guy off.

In that 15 minute discussion, I learned that unless I cut all things fun out of my life and fill it with all things not fun, I will not succeed. This is why I have put myself on Social Probation for the next 75 days. I'm allowing myself three nights of "fun" during these next 2.5 months. Other than that, I need to get into the graduate study mindset. It's very different from undergraduate study where you do approximately 40% or less of the assigned reading. The only people who really survive in grad school are those who understand that there is no room for anything but reading and eating. It's absolutely a binge-purge process. For two to seven years, all you do is read and eat. Consume, consume, consume. And then at the end, there is a significant amount of writing and probably shitting. Catharsis!

I really don't know if I can do this. I don't know how I overcame the torpor and summoned enough energy to write this blog. I'm not even proactive enough for suicide. I wish someone else would do it for me. I really wish someone would roll me in batter, breading, and then deep fry me. I think I just got an idea for my statement of purpose...