Category — Academics

So being the time of year it is, I have noticed more and more people posting on Twitter or Facebook or their blogs what they are thankful for. While there are definitely things/people/etc that I am very thankful for, I think I’m also going to use this opportunity to just be totally honest about what things have been like for me lately. I’ve hinted at it to people, and even expressed it to some, but just for my own form of therapy, I thought I would explain it a bit.

Everyone knows that my dad passed away in March of this year, and if you read my blog or keep up with me regularly, you know a lot of the other things that have happened in my life this year. Shortly before my dad passed away, I had decided to go back to grad school at the IU Kelley School of Business to get my MBA. Following that decision came a long process that included studying for the GMAT, getting letters of recommendation, writing an essay, and taking prerequisite classes, among other things. I continued this process after my dad died because, well, it was a decision I made and something that I wanted for myself, so there was really no question about following through with it.

So I submitted everything, took the GMAT and got a good score, took my prereq, and got into the program. School started in August, and I have been on the journey since then. It has honestly been an up and down road the last few months. First of all, grad school is hard. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it is pretty hard at times. If the work isn’t hard, keeping up with all of the work is. I have struggled at times to easily understand the topics we have studied so far. I have had no real business training other than on the job from being in a professional IT (information technology) environment. Things like accounting (other than the short course I had in high school) and economics (other than what I remember from college stats classes) are pretty foreign to me. And a lot of the time, well, I’ve felt pretty dumb. And some days, this feeling carries over into work too, when I’m facing some new task that involves code that I’m unfamiliar with or functionality that I don’t know how to tackle.  This all leads to a lot of feelings of not being good enough, whether it is with work, school, relationships, or other areas of my life.

Now – combine those feelings with the fact that along with the death of my dad and the stress of work and school, I tend to be a stress eater. Sweets are my drug of choice a lot of times when it comes to looking for a pick-me-up. This has led to gaining a few extra pounds that I really don’t want. So of course that doesn’t help with those self-worth issues any.

Only a few close friends really know how much of a struggle this has been for me. And while advice is great, I honestly already know most of the advice. I know my self-worth, I really do. I know that I’m pretty, that I’m smart, that I will get through school and get my MBA, and that I will even lose those pounds if I really want to. But right now – it’s very hard to get that from my head to my heart. Struggling to feel something emotionally where you just don’t can be a very crippling thing, and a very difficult thing to understand, especially from the viewpoint of those that love and care about the person struggling with this issue. And every little small thing that somehow feeds (or even seems to feed) the lie can feel like a complete emotional attack.

So, here’s my admission. These self-worth issues combined with grief have made close, trusted friends suggest that seeking counseling might not be a bad idea, so I’ve decided to check it out via CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) at IUPUI. It’s a minimal fee service that IUPUI offers their students. And I have to admit that having someone to talk to about some of these things, a third party, can’t hurt.

So what does all of this have to do with Thanksgiving and being thankful? Well, as I’ve basically said many times now, it’s been a rough year. I don’t like admitting that, and I don’t like admitting that I need help. But I’m not sure what my year might have looked like without support from friends, for which I’m so grateful. Thank you, Ricky, gRegor, Seren, and Maurice, for being among the ones who know me best and still love me without fail. And thank you to that special volunteer at Outreach who let me know that I’m not alone, that I’m normal, and that grief can take years to overcome. I’m blessed to have so many great people in my life.

I’m also thankful that there have been a lot of wonderful things in my life this year as well. I’ve been able to achieve some pretty lofty goals and that fact makes me know that I can do anything I set my mind to. In addition to getting into grad school and working towards my MBA, I’ve also managed to travel a lot this year and visit some new places (including Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua) as well as getting the next car I wanted, a 2005 Mini Cooper convertible.  Even though sometimes I can’t really feel it, I know I have accomplished a lot in the midst of a hard year.

I know I’m facing some difficult holidays coming up, but there are things to celebrate this year as well.  And I’ve realized that it’s okay to accept how I feel and to acknowledge that I’m not always capable of living up to expectations, especially my own.  But what I have done and what I am is still perfectly as it should be, even if there’s room for improvement (and there always is).  And there will always be those out there to love me and remind me of that, if I choose to let them.

A blog post about blogging.  Novel idea, right?  I’ve been blogging since – well, according to my Xanga page – October 2001.  Next Tuesday is apparently my 8-year bloggiversary.  Yay me!  So yes, I started blogging on Xanga, and later eventually moved to my own site, which you see before you now.  The look of it has changed some over the years, but I am still here.  Where else would I be?  I’m pretty sure there is no other Sheryl Hugill out there to try to steal this domain name from me…

Besides my own personal blog, I have also been a blogger for other websites as well.  In 2006 and 2007, I was a blogger for a local magazine that used to be called INtake Weekly.  INtake has since become Indy.com (sadly leaving behind their Blog Squad), and now is a part of Metromix.  And now, I’m excited to add another entry to my blog portfolio… you’re looking at the newest “BizBlogger” for the Kelley School of Business at IUPUI!

The Kelley School of Business showcases their newest blog entries on their main page, found at kelley.iupui.edu.  The link to the “BizBlog” itself can be found at bizblog.kelley.iupui.edu or by clicking on “More Entries” from the BizBlog section on the main Kelley page.  Found here are blogs by several different types of people involved with Kelley, including undergraduate students, alumni, advisors, and of course (like me) graduate students.  If you go to the main BizBlog page and click on Graduate Students, you’ll see my name listed there on the left.  No posts yet, but I currently have one waiting for moderation.

I’m very excited to be blogging for the Kelley School of Business.  I know the MBA program will be a challenge, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experience there.  Interestingly enough, my blog here is what got me the job… someone from Kelley contacted me while I was in the process of preparing for the GMAT and applying to the program, after having seen my post here about that process.  She wanted to talk to me to find out about my experience with the application process, and this later led to my invitation to blog for the school.

What a great opportunity, and a great way to celebrate my “bloggiversary”… with a new blogging challenge.

UPDATE: My first blog at Kelley has been posted/moderated now.  I think they have changed around the graduate students blogs, as mine is listed right now under “Evening MBA Experience”.  Here’s a link to my first post.

So today I had a pretty crummy day. It started with a toothache that just got increasingly worse as the day went on. Various things at work got frustrating. And then I found out that I did pretty bad on the quiz that I took in my accounting class last night. The same quiz that I studied for Friday night, most of Sunday afternoon, and late into Sunday night as well. Typical day, in a way, basically the culmination of a lot of feelings I’ve had lately.

See, lately I’ve been struggling with feeling like kind of a big failure. At work, at school, at home, in relationships, even just as a person. Same old feelings – I’m not smart enough, don’t work hard enough, not a good enough friend, even that my apartment isn’t as clean or as well-decorated as it should be. It just seems like lately every piece of feedback I get regarding, well, everything, is negative. Or at least it’s mostly the negative feedback that I seem to be able to see right now.

So as today continued to get progressively worse – these negative things started to affect me less somehow. Maybe it was just because my day was pretty crummy already, but I started to see some of the negative things as just feedback. Learning experiences. And then I started to look at my failures in a different way. Like my accounting quiz – sure, I failed it. But I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t tried. If I hadn’t decided to get my MBA, if I hadn’t applied and gotten accepted to the MBA program at IUPUI, I wouldn’t have failed this quiz. So instead of being evidence that I was a failure, what it meant was that I hadn’t been afraid to fail. If I had stayed in my comfort zone and never gone back to school and instead let fear of failure keep me from it, it would never have happened. That was a really cool thing to me, as I’ve always been one to not want fear of failure to keep me from living my life and my dreams.

I didn’t lose anything from it – my quiz grade wasn’t bad enough to keep me from passing my class, I can bring my grade up. So all it really was was a bump along the way. And as for my self-confidence and self-worth issues lately… I got to thinking about those and discussing them with a friend today. See, the thing is – I’ve known deep down from a young age (probably about 4 years old when my parents were already bragging about my reading ability to people) that I’m pretty smart and capable. And I think my self worth issues come more from me holding myself to a really high standard than really thinking that I’m worthless. But here’s the thing… I’ve been used to being able to get through my world and what I do with relative ease. I’ve never had problems in school or in life, really… I’m smart and capable and I have always taken on things that I can handle.

But now, here I am. This year has been full of a lot of changes, a lot of new things. A new job. A new boyfriend. Starting graduate school. And losing my father. And I’ve come to the conclusion that a part of my struggle with self-confidence and self-worth lately is really just a part of me growing. I’m taking on new things, bigger things, and they’re not always as easy as some of the other things have been. Sure, I can handle these new, bigger things too, they’re just more outside of my box and I have to learn what it’s like to take them on. It’s not always easy, and I will likely fail along the way. And yeah, it’s definitely enough to shake one’s confidence momentarily. But it also helps me grow.

I mean…

Getting a graduate degree is not as easy as getting an undergrad.

And the job I have now is not as easy as the jobs I have had in the past.

And living life without a dad is not as easy as living life with one.

A phrase that I remember from my days in Beyond Your Best is about being “out on the skinny branches”. It basically just means getting outside of your comfort zone and putting yourself out there. Not being afraid to fail. Letting yourself fail in order to grow. Taking on new things that are harder than the things you’ve done in the past. Not just staying in the same place or in the place that is comfortable. And that’s what I want to do – grow. Mentally, emotionally, and as a person.

So – be it things that I have chosen to change or things that I have no control over that have yet forced me to grow… here’s to failure, as a result of being out on the “skinny branches”.