I just need a break (quitter!)…

I worked from home my first day back to work, so it was bearable. Most of the day was spent going through e-mail, and taking care of a few things that needed finishing up before the ISO audit tomorrow and Wednesday mornings.

I was prepared to go to NCSU today to “withdraw from school,” as that’s what happened when I dropped the only course I was taking over the summer.

However, when I used “Pack Tracks” to drop the course, it responded with:

Successful Drop of ENG 507 sec 001 – 18 minutes left as of this transaction.

You are not registered for any courses at this time. If you feel this is an error, please contact Registration and Records at (515-2572).

Aside: Rhetorically, one wonders why the programmers of that message felt the need to put the phone number in parentheses. They add no rhetorical value to the communication.


I worked on my vacation blog entries, filling in information where, during the trip, I had notes like, “Add event x description here,” or “Add photo y here.”


I’ve spent a lot of time today thinking about “dropping out of school” and still find myself very ambivalent about the whole decision.

In one sense, I feel like a quitter.

In another sense, I feel anger toward Dr. Katz for making the comments he made about my taking two of three allowed “excused absences” so early in the semester.

And, then again, immediately, I’m disappointed in myself for not doing the reading I should have done during my cruise, and not getting notes from folks in the class for what I missed to at least try to complete Thursday’s assignment before dropping the course.

I also feel some angst, since I’m an ESFJ (who are people who like closure), about not knowing whether this dropping of the course is all there is to it, and if it will trigger a prorated refund to me, and eventually something that will make me go down to “withdraw from school for the semester.”

I also don’t know if there are any implications with regards to the program I’m in about just stopping courses for a semester, how often you can do it, if at all, and if you’re supposed to discuss it with anyone, etc.

And, it can’t be good that I’m not at all motivated to find out the answers to any of these questions to “settle it” in my mind.

Probably most disturbing of all, is that I’ve actually had the thought in the back of my mind of just quitting the whole program. How can I go from considering the CRDM Ph.D. to dropping out of the Master’s program in the course of a month or two. That makes no sense.


I met Joe for coffee at Helios at around 9:00. I wasn’t a very good conversationalist, as Courtney was AIMing me in the midst of it. Eventually, I told her I had to go.

I also had a short AIM conversation with Robert, and then showed Joe my vacation pictures.


We couldn’t resist the draw of cheap drinks at Flex, so stopped by there. We were surprised at the number of people there. Eventually, we got a pool table, and I played a few games with three Joe’s.

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