Things that happen to people like me.

I'm only taking two classes this semester, with not quite as intense homework loads as I imagined when I signed up for them, and between that and only working 12 hours a week as a graduate assistant, quite frankly, I have way too much time on my hands, and am by no means making good use of it.

So, in lieu of a blog about what I'm doing, since it seems that I'm doing as little as possible, I'm going to write my first blog with a theme: things that happen to people like me.

1) The Newlywed Nine. This is a thing that happens to people like me. I am very happy to report that it has not happened to me. Similar to the freshman 15 some people gain when they first go to college, the newlywed nine is weight that newlyweds often gain. I saw a statistic somewhere that said that people actually do gain an average of about 7-8 pounds their first year of marriage. Why is this?

2) Imposter Syndrome. This is a thing that happens to lots of people, often women, and often in the academy, and often to grad students. In other words, people like me. To be honest, I have to report that this happens to me all the time. Imposter Syndrome is not an official psycological malady. I didn't know that it was even something that happened to other people until my good friend Sara assured me that I'm not alone. What it means is that a person doesn't believe that he earned his achievements. I think almost everyday that I must have got into grad school because somehow I managed to look better on paper than I am in real life. I never think that I am sufficiently competent for the schoolwork I do, and I'm always pretty sure that my mediocrity will be found out soon and then they'll send me home (wherever that is) and tell me I'm not good enough to be among real academics. On the other hand, I do think I'd make a good housemaid. I'm getting good at cleaning all sorts of different surfaces in my apartment, now that I have so much time.

3) Other things that happen to people like me. We walk past the doors of the classrooms we are supposed to go into, and then have to turn around abruptly a few minutes later when we realize we are walking nowhere. We get on the subway going the wrong direction, don't realize it for a few stops, then get out, walk across the street, and get on the same wrong subway. We go to work and hope that the professors have found something for us to do to make us feel important, so that we do not have to sit in a graduate student office, thinking that it would be a bad idea to get on Facebook right now. We think of answers to questions that come up in class, but refrain from suggesting them because surely someone else would've thought of that if it were correct, then listen while someone else laboriously proposes said answer, which is confirmed. We look around frantically for the book we have just finished copying, only to have another grad student take it out of the copyer and hand it to us. We misplace the cellphone into which we are talking. (Really, one day I was talking to my mom, and told her I had to hang up because I'd lost my phone). Sometimes we eat lunch alone and look so pathetic that they busboys feel sorry for us and decide to flirt with us. Our husbands say things to us like, "Ashley, I don't have time for you to get irritated with me if I'm going to be working out everyday."

Maybe that last one only happens to me. I thought it was the funniest thing Sam ever said. We were almost fighting when he said it but then I had to laugh for about five minutes.