Let’s address the title - yes, my GPA is gonna be a bit low this term. I don’t talk about grades much, I think these numbers are not an indicator of success. That being said, I’ve been taking a full 16 credit workload, 4 classes that meet twice a week + my 3 jobs, practicing, and more. A dumpster fire was bound to happen. I hit some pretty bad burnout about two weeks ago and it reflected in my midterm grades, but honestly, as a doctoral student this doesn’t bother me. Even reading the feedback made me realize “Oh I actually don’t care about improving in your class. I’m just here to take these credits and get out.”

On that note, one of the classes I’ve been taking (Digital Media + Storytelling) has been such a bore and a pain in my ass. I loathe every assignment, every reading, and every discussion. The professor, simply put, is not very good at their job - I do put in effort to be present in the class, but I can’t wait for this term to be over so I can never see them again lol. I want to clarify that this is not a professor who is old, stubborn, and difficult to get along with. This is a millennial-age professor who actively stifles the creativity of the class with their nonsensical assignments, while wasting our time on frivolous tangents. Bleh.

I do really like my business class though, and I’ve been learning a lot. That professor is chill, and I’ve been well engaged in my assignments and discussions. I wish I could take more business classes but I can’t ☹ not enough time + little to no options for non-majors to take classes. But I have saved all the readings and slides because the information is extremely valuable to me as someone who’s been slowly dipping their toes into running a business and operating startups.

I did find out that my pedagogy professor is leaving at the end of the year, as she got a tenure track job at the University of Arizona. I will miss her a lot, she’s been so kind and helpful, and truly is one of the key reasons for my success here. I’ve been low key panicking on what to do next when she leaves, because she’s tethered to a lot of projects I’m running, but there’s really nothing I can do until they hire her successor.

I have so many things coming up. Next weekend (March 9) is a four-hand piano concert that I put together. I came up with the idea, I wrote grants, received grants to fully fund the project, gathered the performers, created all the digital and print advertising materials, I booked the recital space…I’m even playing in the damn concert. On March 14-19 I will be out of town for a teacher’s conference in Minneapolis. I also have a scholarship (?) recital to prepare for in late March - still getting details on that, TBD. In April, I’ll be going to Seattle for a work/leisure trip - I say it’s both because I’m going to see a concert that is important to me, however, it is also important to my research so…maybe I can write the trip off as an educational expense. Who knows. I booked an expensive hotel though so I could have one luxury to myself.