Seems like I’ve had a lot of deep stuff on my mind lately. One of the things is my relationship with this second degree I am working on, and my view on life.

School in general has been a huge part of my journey.

I have always loved learning. When I was younger my mom would take my brother and I to the library and instead of getting books about princesses and happy endings I would want to get books about whales and oceanography.

Book about dinosaurs were amazing because they were kind of like dragons, and dragons were awesome.

I always wanted to learn how to do new things. I would try something at least once. I played tons of sports and would practice all the time with my dad. Not because I really wanted to be an all star. I just liked being able to do a little bit of everything.

I wasn’t the best, I wasn’t the worst. I could hold my own and I liked that.

Not much has changed in that regard. I still have tons of hobbies and interests, and it grows all the time as I’m exposed to new things. I pick up random facts and apply them to different areas of my life that seem to have no connection at all.

When I was younger my grades were everything to me. I always had A/B honor roll because it made my dad happy. Honestly I didn’t apply myself all that much in school after my parents divorce.

I hurt and hated the world, and no one seemed to understand.

No. I’m not going to care about this sheet of paper. I’m not going to answer your question about “How would I conserve water… blah blah blah,” I’m not going to focus on your voice while you talk about people in history who have no influence over the pain I am feeling right now.

I’m not going to care because no one seems to care about me.

I remember that I should have failed fourth grade because for months I literally did nothing. My teacher was kind enough to work with my mom and let me make up all of the work that I hadn’t been doing. Even then, the only reason it got done was because my mom some how got me to sit down and do it.

It wasn’t because I cared.

The work was stupid, and it was teaching me nothing. It was busy work, and because I didn’t feel invested in it I didn’t do it and I felt no remorse as my grades suffered.

When I got to middle school and high school I started caring again. At least enough to get back to my A / B standard. I did the bare minimum and still was viewed as an amazing student by my teachers.

I should have been in higher level classes. But I wasn’t invested in my studies. I didn’t care about what I was taking, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do afterwards. I did above average with the classes I was in, so I was cool with staying there.

I gave everything I had to band because that, finally, gave me an outlet for what I felt. I had somewhere to go when I needed to be alone. I would go into the percussion room and play whatever piece of music needed to be practiced.

After I graduated I ended up going to a community college for a bit. I was going to get an IT degree because computers were cool-ish. I was good with them and already knew a lot of tech stuff, so the classes, in theory, should be easy for me.

All of my electives were going to be in programming classes because that seemed better than networking.

I still didn’t have a direction. I didn’t have an end goal.

Classes I took sort of sucked. They were crazy easy and I was bored. Again, I could have been applying myself so much more. I should have been in way harder classes, but my college didn’t offer anything like that without getting through the lower classes first. I aced everything I took, but it seemed pointless.

In one of my programming classes my teacher actually told me one time that I was so far ahead of the class that I didn’t have to show up for the next lecture.

I actually met with that professor to figure out a game plan for my life. I was going to transfer to a university and participate in their ROTC program so I could join the Air Force as an officer.

He was the guy who got me the job at the Citadel, which got me exposed to Full Sail University.

When I found out about the school I had been taking online classes for Microsoft Word and Excel.

Basically I was working out of a book, doing exercises and such. So by the second week of the class I had the course done and was waiting for the test to unlock. Super lame, I felt like I was wasting my life and money.

When I heard about Full Sail it felt right. I didn’t know much about the school, other than I had seen a commercial for it on TV when I was in middle school, so I knew I would never end up going there…

Well my co-worker mentioned that they were actually a university and that they had all sorts of different degrees.

I looked into it, and within two months I was enrolled and moving to Florida for school.

I picked Game Art at first. I was going to learn how to make assets for games and how video games actually work.

From day one I loved it. From orientation, from the first time I set foot on campus, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. This was right.

It was the first time I had ever really felt that way.

I very rarely do anything without tons of planning and knowing all the possible options, and planning for disaster, and having 20 different back up plans. But with this I didn’t do any of that. I literally just packed up and came here.

Super, uber big life decision and here I am just sort of winging it… Seems legit. I honestly didn’t really look into the classes I was going to be taking. I came to the ‘behind the scenes tour’ and talked to a few instructors, but by then I had already signed up for the degree. I was just doing the tour so I could have an idea of how the school was laid out.

I did well in all of my classes. They were a challenge. I loved it. I was learning new things, things I was interested in. I was around people who were artistic and who understood that I looked at the world differently.

Halfway through the program I switched to Computer Animation so I could focus on rigging as my discipline.

I obsessed over my grades. My perfectionist came back out. I spend hours on my assignments. I poured myself into all of them. Even the most basic of assignments for the general classes.

I was fortunate enough to have a handful of experiences which changed my perspective on grades. Grades aren’t everything, and as long as you are happy with the work, that’s the main thing.

I’m wondering if that mentality has swung too far, and now I am apathetic to the work that is required of me.

I am still a full time employee while I work on this second degree for Digital Arts and Design.

I am enjoying the classes for the most part. Some assignments more than others, but overall it’s fun.

I do not see it as a priority, or a necessity though.

I think part of that has to do with the fact that I’m not paying for the degree. I am part of the Faculty Scholarship Program. I have signed a contract saying I will earn a degree from the school, for free, and as compensation I will work at the school for three years afterwards.

I wonder if that has anything do to with my mentality for the degree. Because I am not really sacrificing anything for it, paying for it, it doesn’t seem as important. Or maybe because I already have one, it doesn’t seem as much of a goal or accomplishment.

I think another big part is that I view it more as a hobby. I do not need this degree. In fact I’m really only doing it because it seemed like fun, and something that would compliment the degree I already have.

This degree was never a priority for me. It was never something that I had to do, that I had to be the best in. It is an interest, one to go along with cross stitching and aikido.

It is not my life.

Currently I have missed one assignment completely. I wasn’t very interested in it, and with trying to catch up with everything else in my life from being sick and helping Ashley I was never able to get to it.

I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not.

I know how frustrating it is as an instructor to have students who don’t care and who refuse to apply themselves. Their work ethic sucks and sometimes you want to ask how they are breathing. They don’t take notes, they play games and scroll through Facebook during lecture. They do nothing to try to help themselves but ask for their hand to be held through the assignments.

It drives me insane to have to work with those students because there are so many others who could benefit from my time.

I’m worried that I’m one of those students. The slacker, the wasted potential.

But I don’t think I am. I do the work, and I do the work extremely well (when I actually do it… ). I do all of the reading and I enjoy most of the articles I am exposed to.

I love the concepts and theories I am learning, and I have already begun to apply my new knowledge to the critiques I give. I am able to more confidently comment on design and support my statements because of the classes I am taking.

I give feedback to my classmates and help push them further. I try to be present and active in my classes.

I guess I’m bothered by this week because since school isn’t a priority, this week sort of sucked school wise.

I missed one project worth 6% of my grade. I was late on my brainstorming for the final project, which I will get docked for. I missed the discussion replies as well, which means I’ll get, at most, a 75 on that assignment.

And what bothers me is that almost all of me doesn’t care. There’s a part of my brain that is a little disappointed because I’m sure I could have at least gotten the discussion reply done.

But I didn’t like the Illustrator assignment that much, so I don’t feel bad about missing it.

I did great work on the info graphic and I learned a lot with it. I got to play around with a few things and I’ve already gotten some awesome feedback for it on Facebook so I plan to make some tweaks and see how I can push it further.

I liked that assignment. It was fun. I felt it was worth it.

I didn’t like the other one, and felt it would be a waste of time.

I’m not looking to be a graphic artist. I’m not looking to use this degree to make me a professional. I’m doing it because it’s fun. So I don’t care that I missed an assignment that I didn’t want to do.

I still don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not.

Is it bad to be a student, but not to be dedicated to your studies? Am I giving students a bad name and feeding into the misconception of being a slacker?

Is it wrong to think of myself a student? Should I find another word, one that implies less dedication?

Should I reevaluate what I want out of this endeavor?

I guess I should identify what I want to begin with. Knowledge would be cool. Experience. Which you get by doing the assignments… Contacts, which I already have a few in my class, and from the instructors I have been interacting with.

Stress relief since it is something art related. The creativity gives me something to counter the tech side of my job and personal projects. Which is actually a benefit that I never though of at the beginning of this endeavor.

I guess I really don’t want much out of this degree. There is no ‘end goal’ for it. It’s just something cool. It’s more of an ‘just because’ thing for me.

The real, main, reason I am doing it is because I get student status while still earning a full time paycheck. Completing this degree is making my loans so much easier to handle.

I’m not doing it for the grades. Never in any of my thinking about this degree did I ever care about the grades.

I feel like I should though. There is still part of me who thinks I should care, and so I keep jumping back and forth on the topic.

Is it right, or wrong? Should I be harder on myself or am I on the right course? Does it matter? Am I really losing anything?

And it’s only one week where I’ve been super bad, and I’ve been bad in all areas of my life because of circumstances.

Should I just wait and see how next week goes? Now that I am solidly back in my routine (even went grocery shopping already).

I don’t know what is right for me I guess. And maybe that is where the issue is coming from. What makes me happy?

Doing the assignments as long as they don’t interrupt anything in my life and cause me stress.

That makes me happy.

I enjoy the assignments as long as they don’t make my life harder.

Is that unprofessional of me? Is that shallow? Is that selfish?

There are so many people who would give so much for this opportunity, and here I am not doing the work.

How does that reflect on me?

I have so many things floating around in my brain right now, but this is the biggest one, more than the mild discord from Sir.

I’m worried that I am becoming something I don’t want to be. I’m worried that each month I slip further and further into apathy and I will begin to learn nothing from my classes, staking by just for the sake of keeping my student status.

Maybe my worry is what will keep me from becoming what I fear. Maybe my worry is unfounded. Maybe it is a survival instinct.

All of these maybes. All of these questions.

Blah… I don’t know. I’m unbalanced because this is unresolved. I’m just going back and forth, over and over.

Maybe I’ll figure it out. Maybe, one day, in the near but not right now future, I’ll figure out what my brain is trying to tell me.