I am going insane

Ok, I’m not really going insane.

what do grad students do when they’re not studying?

I go to endless classes. I played a gamelan concert on friday at a posh private elementary school in West Hartford. It had a shadow puppet play, which went over ectremely well, but I couldn’t really see it, because I was playing the kempul, a set of the second-largest gongs. There are five of them and I sit in the back, so I couldn’t really see the puppets around the gongs, but even if I could, I get lost in the music when I look at them.
I write papers, but of course, that’s also studying. and I eat and i sleep and often I talk to other grad students about classes or homework or concerts or music or professors or whatever. but mostly grad students talk about sex. Everytime I go out to have beers with folks, they end up talking the whole time about sex. Long angsty conversations about sex.
It’s starting to stress me out. I keep having this dream that I get so stressed about classes and homework and my angsty interactions with other highly angst grad students, that my hair falls out. Almost all the men here are balding. There’s only a couple of guys here that have all their hair. Is their hair falling out because they are angsty grad students or are they angsty grad students because their hair is falling out? Could this happen to me? I’ve been checking in the mirror and so far so good. But really, the angst around here is so palpable that I can feel my hair follicles start to tingle.
I am so glad that the semester is almost over. My desire for a break has actually become greater than my near-certainty that I’m not going to get all my projects and papers finished.