I feel like an anglerfish.



(Somewhere along the line, I started defining myself through YouTube videos. Maybe I should worry about that.)

I should feel utterly exhausted and stressed out. But, honestly? I think that I've been stressed out and exhausted for so long that I don't even notice anymore. I mean, at the moment I feel a little sleepy, but . . . I don't feel phased. I'm sort of just existing. I mean, yeah, I went into a pretty severe depressive funk this weekend, but . . . dude, depression is the OPPOSITE of stress. It's like the difference between alcohol and caffeine. (Speaking of which, I haven't had any real amount of caffeine in weeks . . . but I have been drinking a lot more wine. Maybe that's significant.)

I mean. Finals always is terrible. It's like saying that root canals are terrible. Usually, this is the part where I completely panic because I don't think I can get everything done in time. If nothing else, it should be worse this year, since I have to have everything done by next Sunday (SIX DAYS). And yet . . . eh. Whatever.

I guess it's possible that my unconscious figures it's got everything sorted, and it just hasn't told me how. But I suspect that the real reason is that honestly? The Honors Thesis pretty much made this ENTIRE SEMESTER into finals. I'm kind of looking around like, "Oh, hey, you guys finally caught up with me!" How can I get MORE stressed out about finals than I was while I was not sleeping for weeks on end finishing the damn thing?

( To-do list, anyway )

You know, I think I can actually do this.

But I might just break my caffeine fast, because I have a paper to write tonight, and I'm pretty damn sleepy.


ETA: Okay, I just accidentally started playing that song in two different tabs at once at slightly different speeds, and it felt like a strangely apt expression of my mental state. Maybe I'm more stressed than I thought.

My thesis defense is over!

I feel like I should feel more relieved than I do. Mostly, I'm just tired, and satisfied. I had a glass of wine before I gave my talk (courtesy of Julia, who is AWESOME), and I think it was just enough of a depressant to keep me from going all jubilant. That, or the cumulative sleep deprivation.

The verdict was High Honors (it goes Honors, High Honors, and Highest Honors--but they almost NEVER give Highest Honors). That's very good. Casey said that they thought I didn't do quite as well on the oral defense as I did in the written version of the paper, which is true, I think. I struggled with my outside reader's questions, mainly because he was asking me about Oedipus Rex, which . . . I haven't read since 2007. (A mistake on my part, clearly.)

However, the defense still went really well--people seemed to think I did a good job with the presentation, and with finding a balance between making the material approachable to a wider audience while maintaining my thesis, which was my goal! Also, my creative writing teacher said she could see how I was applying ideas that I had developed in fiction classes, which is awesome, and something I didn't think much of until today. (It's totally true! I've learned just as much about literature in creative writing classes as in literature classes!)

That was the main discovery for me, actually. I realized that I actually have a cohesive personal philosophy about art and its functions within society. I'm not sure when that developed, but it's cool. I'm always excited to discover I have opinions about things.

I was going to go hang out with the Quad Pod later this evening, but I stopped by the ARC to pick up some stuff, and discovered there was no one here! So, now I've picked up a surprise shift. It's okay, I need the money, and it's definitely a quiet night around here. A perfect chance for me to recover.

Now it's time to get started on everything else I have to do before the semester ends.

. . . actually, THAT'S probably the reason I'm not rejoicing now.

Holy. Shit.

I just realized--like actually REALIZED--that I'm going to be graduating from college in six week. FOREVER.

I mean, like, I've been looking forward to that for a VERY LONG TIME, because a lot of things about college get kind of old after a while, but, dude. I'm pretty sure leaving college means I have to . . . like, grow up! And, get a job, and a life. I'll probably have to start wearing Adult Clothes, and . . . will I have to cut my hair to look like a grownup? I don't feel like I look like a grownup right now.

I mean, I'm totally excited about just taking on the world and making a difference, and kicking ass. And I'm also excited about . . . living in a building that doesn't involve sharing a bathroom with twenty other girls and their boyfriends, and eating food that didn't go directly from the freezer bag into the deep fryer, and maybe being able to relax in the evenings sometimes without knowing that every minute I spend in relaxation is one that I will either have to sacrifice sleep or homework for.

. . . so, I'm not really going to miss college that much. (Except my friends.) But, holy crap, I'm not sure I'm ready to stop being a college student.



* By the way, where did that quote come from? It's gotten buried in my memory, but I can't seem to remember where I picked it up. I'm 90% sure it was from a webcomic, which makes Google essentially useless in locating the source.

I just decided what my favorite moment in my entire college experience is:

It was Easter, so Prothro had a bunch of Easter candy in there, and I had ended up with a couple of Peeps. And I picked up one of them, and I used my squeaky Peep voice, and it was all, "No--no--no--AAGH--" and then I bit its head off.

The horrified stares from every corner of the dining hall made it all worthwhile.


ETA: Oh, also, if you are one of the awesome people who volunteered to read my thesis for me, the reason you haven't received anything from me yet is that a) I suck, and b) my advisor said I'd probably be fine if I distributed it by Friday, not Tuesday. I am still working on shining up this draft, but I'll send it around soon to be covered in red marks and exclamation points. (I guess they're probably digital red marks, since you guys actually only exist inside of my computer.)

Also, it occurs to me that you should probably get a nice reward for trudging through my longwinded thoughts on Greek theater, so those of you who have offered to help can expect a nice handmade something-or-other at some point before I graduate. Rock on!

. . . and now I have to lie in it. Or, not lie in it, as the case may be.

The sun has come up--it's actually startlingly light outside. I didn't go to bed tonight (last night?). It's my own fault for squandering my break. (I slept a lot then, though. It was lovely.) Sent some pages to Casey, along with abject apologies . . . at this rate, I know I'm ridiculous and don't deserve anything but a smack up the head and a "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" Hopefully he'll have pity and leave me to my own self-recriminations, though. Fingers crossed. (The stuff I do to myself for failing myself has got to be worse than anything he could dish out, anyway.)

Still trying to decide whether to try to grab a couple hours of sleep before Latin (11:30). I'll decide once I've finished the homework.

Had a dream last night that Casey was telling me, in his Disappointed Voice, that I obviously needed to work on my Spartan (as in, the dialect of Greek)--the implication was that I had performed poorly on some test or other. I'm not sure how dream-Casey arrived at that conclusion, since the last test we had with Spartan on it was last semester (and that was fake Spartan anyway, not the real thing), but it made me very upset in my dream.

I don't have to be a psychologist to tell where that one came from.

Everybody root for me--tonight I try to finish my thesis. Or at least most of it. It'd be nice if I could also be prepared for tomorrow's classes, but I don't expect miracles.

I wanted to share an example of how majoring in Classics has seriously modified the way I experience the world.

So, after discovering Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, I went into serious immersion. I watched it several times, and I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. And . . . the things I think about while I listen to it are not the things I would have thought before studying Greek and Latin.

The most obvious example is at the end of the song "So They Say". If you haven't watched Dr. Horrible and you'd like to see what I'm talking about, it's the first song on this section. (Spoiler warning: that's the last part, so if you plan on watching the first two, be warned. Actually, this whole discussion will be spoilery, though.)

Billy (aka Dr. Horrible) and Penny sing a few lines in duet, and I find the way they construct their sentences very telling. The lines go as follows . . . some of the words they sing are the same, and some of them are different, and the differences are important.

Penny	Billy
There's no happy ending	There's no happy ending
So they say	So they say
	Not for me, anyway.
Should I stop pretending?	Stop pretending.
Or is this a brand new day?	Take the chance to build a brand new day!

(I hope the table works okay. It's been ages since I've had to use one. I'm surprised I still remember how.)

At this point, Penny is sitting alone in the laundromat, where she and Billy usually get together to hang out, clearly disappointed that he didn't show up. Meanwhile, Billy is locked in his mad lair, missing the chance to be with Penny because he's so bent on plotting destruction for her new boyfriend.

So, look at the last two lines. Penny is in doubt. She thinks this should be a good thing, but she doesn't feel it. And her language reflects that. She uses questions--this is a good thing, isn't it? Should I stop pretending that everything is going to be wonderful and take the next best thing?

Meanwhile, Billy is changing, from the sweet, good-hearted, but rather ineffective villain he was in the beginning, to a more hard-hearted, bitter, and dangerous villain. His language indicates that as well--he's speaking in imperatives. Stop pretending. Take the chance. He's both exhorting himself to do something that's against his nature, and becoming a more assertive character, less of a push-over.

This is a far cry from his language in the first song, "My Freeze Ray", where he literally can't make himself speak. ("Wanna say / Love your hair / Here I go: / [incoherent mutters] . . . mumbling.") As Billy undergoes a transformation as a character, he undergoes a linguistic transformation as well. (Also related: in the first scene, Billy is practicing his evil laugh, and it's pretty pathetic, and very sweet. At the climax, after this transformation, Billy lets out a very long, impressive evil laugh.)

And it's so artfully done, too, because Penny's self-doubt is intertwined with Billy's growing resolve--they balance each other perfectly.

. . . anyway, yeah. I probably should turn that urge to analyze things back in the direction of my theses, but . . . it's sure more fun to analyze things that are so much fun.

My late-night study sessions have gotten MUCH less fun since security started locking the break room in the basement of the Chapel (my go-to place after the library closes, since it's halfway to my room). No coffee! (On the other hand, this enables me to avoid situations like this, which cannot be anything but good.)

Also, an observation: the loud international students who used to frequent the computer lab down here are gone. (Normally, I like the international students, but these could get annoying.) I suspect this is not unrelated to the lack of free caffeine.

I have had a realization.

So far, in the past four days, I've slept in my own bed only once, and racked up a grand total of ~18 hours of sleep. I've dealt with the stress of having to arrange last-minute plans for a cross-country trip. I've submitted a funding request and written over eight pages on my thesis, and I'm scrambling to pull the paper (which should have been e-mailed in weeks ago) into some sort of order so that I can e-mail it to the conference organizers before I leave in three hours.

I still haven't written the oral version of my talk, or looked into putting together a handout or Powerpoint. (I guess it will have to be a Powerpoint, since it's getting much too late to print out a handout.) I'm about to take a 20-hour bus ride, losing yet another night's sleep in the process, and when I arrive (around 8pm tomorrow), I'll need to write up my talk and still be rested enough to present the next day.

If I can be this sleep-deprived, this stressed out, with this many seemingly impossible deadlines hanging over my head, and still be kind of enjoying myself, and not regret the decisions that got me into this, not even a little?

You guys? I think I might be cut out for grad school after all.

PS: Having an awesome support system helps. Casey, Cathy, Julia, Jessica, and my mom all get gold stars for being amazing.

We're reading Euripides' Alcestis in Greek, and Seneca's Thyestes in Latin. Lots of tragedy this semester!

I'm really excited to be reading Euripides again. He's my favorite Greek author.

This is the first time in my memory that I've ever found Greek significantly easier than Latin. (Granted, this is more likely because the book we're using in Greek is more helpful than the one in Latin, but still . . .)

Casey told me I should reread the Greek that we did this evening because I was a little hesitant on the vocab, and rereading it would cement it. This is true, and I know from experience that it would help. However, the reason I was hesitant is that I slept less than six hours last night, and I've been in a fog all day as a result. (My body got used to getting enough sleep over break!)

I'm really, really wanting to avoid that tonight (but won't be able to, because even if by some miracle I do get back to my room by 1:30 or so, I don't have the luxury of just crawling into bed and having the conditions be right for sleeping). I am BARELY going to get all of the homework done, and that's without redoing homework I prepared for today. Also, I have to get up an hour earlier tomorrow, so going to bed at 1:30 would still be the equivalent of last night's 2:30.

I'm really tired.

It's funny . . . usually I'm tripping all over myself to find out what my grades are. This time around, I had to force myself to go check. Twice now, I've connected to our dialup with the intention to check my grades, and just forgot after I opened the browser.

Anyway, I finally made myself check them, and--even though I always start shaking when I go to check my grades--there are no real surprises. I managed to pull a full A in both Latin and Greek . . . for a while, I'd had myself convinced they might drop to an A-. (I got an A- in Greek last semester . . . my first since freshman year.) I imagine in Latin my paper pulled my grade up a bit, but the paper in Greek was canceled . . . I guess my translation skills are improving.

My grade for Good and Evil hasn't shown up yet . . . I knew that my professor was asking for trouble when he told the class they could e-mail in their papers as late as Saturday. There were almost 20 of us! Poor guy . . . he's young. He'll learn. (If I'm ever a newbie professor, will I do the same silly things even though I know better?) I'm not worried about it. If I don't get an A in that class, something's very wrong.

There's nothing showing up for my Honors Thesis either, which worries me . . . I'm supposed to get a Pass or Fail on it, and while I'm sure that Casey would have told me if it was heading towards "Fail", I also didn't accomplish nearly as much as we both knew I should have, so it'd be reassuring to see the word "Pass" somewhere.

I'm kind of weird about grades, because I've had people jump on me in the past for talking about them--people who think that sort of thing should be private. It hurt my feelings. I get damn good grades, and I don't really understand why I should be expected to hide that. Anyway, I fail at enough other things, and I'm usually pretty open about that too. (Like, it's official--I'm over 170 pounds. How the hell did that happen? Nobody believes me if I mention it, but I've tried two different scales now. I know my lifestyle needs to change, but right now, I can't do that without compromising my schoolwork, and I'm not willing to do that. Is "fat but smart" okay for now, or am I literally killing myself?)

So, it's late November, and I . . . haven't written anything yet. I get bad writing anxiety, which makes it hard to work up to writing, but I seriously need to start writing NOW. I think the final page count needs to be around 70. (I should check on that. 60 would be better for me.) I've got the 20 page essay I wrote two summers ago on tragedy, which will be my first chapter, but it'll need some extensive editing, and I haven't written ANYTHING on the current chapter, which is on comedy. And every time I meet with Casey, he suggests, in his little, "I don't want to offend you!" voice that I really, really need to start writing soon.

My goal is to write the first five pages of that chapter before the end of Thanksgiving Break, and to have 15 finished by the end of the semester. This chapter HAS to be done by January 1, because I'm submitting it to a conference (the same one I went to last year, in Ohio--Courtney's coming this year too!). It's really tempting to leave the writing for Christmas Break, since I have so much other stuff going on, but there's no way Casey would let me get away with that. (Also, he has to give me a Pass/Fail grade, and I'm pretty sure he'll want some work done for that.)

Also, I'm starting to get really nervous about my outside reader . . . This guy was Casey's grad school advisor, and he's been doing outside readings for Classics Honors theses for years. But, mine's the first one that's actually somewhat in his field of study. And, if that isn't bad enough, guys, I just read an article he wrote, and it sort of disagrees with my thesis for this chapter! Which . . . I guess is good in that it'll make me work hard to defend myself, but it's still scary as hell.

In short: paper writing anxiety plus thesis defense anxiety plus vacation lethargy equals stress and low productiveness. Dammit.

This is going to sound crazy to many of you, but today I found out that I actually like reading PDF articles on my computer.

I had a couple of articles for my thesis that I forgot to print out before I left. The main reason I didn't like reading things on my computer was that I couldn't underline and make notes. So, I downloaded a new PDF reader (Foxit, if you're curious) that would let me do those things, and then I found out it was actually EASIER to make notes on the computer than on paper (and faster), and . . . it was cool.

It's not perfect. It seems to mainly only work with PDFs that are based on text (or have at least been run through an OCR program). And it doesn't work at all with the stuff I've downloaded from Textkit (I'm assuming there's some sort of permission that needs to be set in order to edit the files). But since all the articles on J-STOR and Project Muse (etc.) are full-text, it works out okay. And I can easily delete notes, and move them, and make them different colors, and it's all pretty cool.

I wouldn't want to read books for fun on my computer, because the note-taking capabilities are the only thing that outweighs the fact that it's obnoxious to have to read stuff on my screen, but it was a pleasant surprise to discover that I could at least read for school on the computer. Maybe I'll "save a few trees".*

* That's a joke, because honestly? Paper is the thing I feel the LEAST guilty about using. It's biodegradable, a renewable resource, AND easily recyclable. And guys? Rainforests aren't getting turned into paper. That's a myth to get you to feel guilty and hate loggers. Most of our paper comes from pine farmers. At least, that's what an Environmental Studies major told me my sophomore year--not the part about the loggers, but the part about the pine farmers.

If my school took all the energy it spends on trying to get people to waste less and put it on trying to get them to buy less new clothing, or cut down on the plastic dishes in the Bistro, I suspect it would be better for the environment. There are lots of reasons to reduce all kinds of consumption, including paper use--reducing consumption saves you money and cuts down on the stuff that ends up in landfills. And, everything you throw away had to be made somewhere, which involved energy, which probably involved carbon emissions. But that whole "save a tree" thing seems silly to me.

Hm. It's been over 24 hours, and I'm still short of breath, only now I've got a ton of nasal congestion. You know, I think I just might be coming down with something.

It wouldn't be too surprising. I did just go two nights on 4-5 hours of sleep. Plus that whole mess with the asthma attack yesterday.

Today is a day I really wish that I could still make tea in the library, since hot tea helps the congestion more than anything else I've come up with (including Sudafed, which I've taken). Broke or not, I am SO ordering another immersion heater on Amazon as soon as I get paid for this month.

Incidentally, have I mentioned that I love this school? Witness:

I had a short story due on Thursday night. Now, the library closes at 1am, so after they shooed me out on Wednesday night, I moved to the basement of the chapel*, which is my usual habit. Around 2am, security does a round to check up things. The security guard, a youngish black woman, very friendly, saw me and gave me a, "Don't I know you?" look. I told her about having to leave the library. (Actually, come to think of it, I probably walked past her when she was closing the library.)

The next night, Thursday, my story still wasn't done, so there I was again. Around 2am, here she comes through. She did a double-take when she saw me. "Oh, come on." I shrugged and told her the story wasn't finished.

Hours passed. Around 5am, I finally got to the end of the story, printed it out . . . and realized I hadn't titled it. While I was sitting there agonizing over the title, here she come again . . . and stops dead, hands on her hips. "Are you serious?" I assured her it was almost done and I was just coming up with a title, that I'd be going to bed soon. She didn't look like she quite believed me, and she made me promise that next time I saw her, I'd tell her that I'd slept 12 hours. "I know it's not healthy, but you better."

The title of the story wasn't any good, but at least I got it turned in. I slept about 11 hours last night. I figured if you add it to whatever I got Thursday night (not a lot), I can keep my promise next time I see her.



*Actually, the school prefers the term "Garden Level", but it's just a basement with doors to the outside.

Senior year is crazy. I am working harder than ever before in my LIFE. We're talking 14-16 hour days. I literally get up, go to classes, MAYBE break for meals (I always eat, but I often work while I do), then work in the library until crawling into bed around one am or so. (I am making sure to sleep enough, which is probably the only reason I haven't crashed yet.) I recently consolidated all of my webcomics and blogs into Google Reader, which is very useful, because it means that all the time I used to waste on them (1-2 hours a day) has been cut down to 15 or 20 minutes. That, plus meals, is about all the down time I get during the day.

I've even been working on the weekends, although I'm limiting myself to the hours the library is open. Since it closes at six on Friday and Saturday, I get two nights off per week. This weekend was weird, because it was Homecoming, so I didn't get my usual downtime (there were many meetings and some partying, which is only fun in small doses for an introvert), but I also got less work done than usual.

I have tests coming up in Latin and Greek, and a paper, which would normally not be a problem, because my Saturday workday is meant to be devoted to stuff outside the regular schedule. (I wrote a short story two days before it was due! I like being on top of things!) But there was Homecoming this weekend, and next weekend I have a friend visiting for Reading Days (which I am psyched about, other than the time issues), and I don't know where the time is going to come from.

So, if you were wondering why I'm never on AIM, etc., it's because senior year is the craziest yet, and because I am still kicking ass.

I'm back at Sweet Briar (been back for a while, actually). I kind of have mixed feelings about that. I'll just hold my breath and hope the year turns out okay. So far, so good, anyway. It's going to be the usual high stress, busy schedule, but I'm a senior now, so maybe I'll be used to it? I'm taking 18.5 credits (five classes, plus PE and an Honors Thesis), which is more than I've ever tried before, but I also have less extracurriculars.

I have noticed that I'm more comfortable than I used to be. I move around campus like it's second nature--less awkward hesitations. It's not so much about knowing my way around--that hasn't been a problem since Orientation--as it is about knowing my place in the space around me. I fit now. I think I'm noticing because there's another batch of freshmen*, and I can sense the contrast. They're all full of energy and excitement and apprehension and nerves**. On the other hand, I'm an old hat, and I know all the tricks, but I'm also worn out and sort of disillusioned.




* I don't care if it's a women's college; I think the term 'first year' is silly.

** Not universally, of course. Like, ifeelfinite has carried herself like an upperclassman since her first day on campus.

The thing I hate about finals is the way they just keep coming at you. I did two tests this weekend (Latin and Greek), and now I'm studying for a third (Roman Art & Archaeology). And technically, finals haven't even started yet! I still have two days of classes.

Incidentally, if you're trying to remember the subject matter of any given monument built during the Roman empire, you can pretty safely guess any or all of the following: trophies; barbarian captives; scenes of sacrifice.

Works at least 90% of the time. Especially if the monument was built in Rome proper.

Dear members of crafting and icon communities everywhere:

We have a word for, "text you can click on to go to a different webpage". It's called a link. The term "fake cut" popped up because some people were extra-specially formatting their links to ( look like LJ-cuts ) to divert readers to their personal journals. If you don't use the extra-special formatting, you don't get to call it a fake cut. It's okay. We'll click on regular links too. Unless you mislabel them, in which case some of us will refuse to click out of spite. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, I appreciate your attempt to not be ignorant in the future.

Love,
Emma

By the way, this is going to be the week from hell, so starting this evening, I'm going on a semi-Internet withdrawal. Feel free to keep e-mailing or leaving comments or whatever, and I'll respond, but otherwise, I think it's time for me to set some limits. There's way too much to do this week. Here's how it'll break down, if I can stay on track.

Monday:
Greek test due (Turned in. It was a train wreck.)
Latin tutoring, 6-8pm
Study for Roman Art & Archaeology Midterm
Get head start on Christianity thesis

Tuesday:
Nothing due!
Study for Roman Art & Archaeology Midterm
Write Christianity thesis

Wednesday:
Roman A&A Midterm happens
Christianity thesis due
Get topic for Ancient Philosophers in Context paper (Aristophanes?)
Start application for Honors Scholarship

Thursday:
Nothing due!
Tutor at the ARC, 7-9pm
Finish essays for Honors Scholarship
Study for Greek vocab quiz
Start A-Phil paper

Friday:
Honors Scholarship application due at noon
A-Phil paper due at midnight
Pack for Spring Break

Saturday:
Get up early in the morning to drive to DC with Courtney

(Of course, this isn't including normal homework, of which there is much. At least I'm ahead in my reading for Speculative Fiction, so I don't have to do that tonight.)

I had a very good Friday and Saturday. Mainly, I worked on crocheting little amigurumis, because I have ambitions to open an Etsy shop to sell them. I finished two, and they both look very good. (Eventually, there will be pictures on my other blog, but I'm kind of holding out until I can get the shop set up.) I also worked on my speculative fiction homework for Tuesday, because it's a sci-fi novel, so I don't mind reading it, but it's good to get ahead on my homework.

My spirits are much higher than they had been for a while, but this week is going to be just a killer. I have my regular essay in Christianity due on Wednesday, a reading quiz for Ancient Philosophers on Thursday, and a paper for Speculative Fiction due on Friday (and I still need to come up with a topic and clear it with my professor). And somewhere in here we'll have a Greek test, though I don't know if that's this week yet. Also, Courtney and I finally worked out our readings for our Honors Variant in Christianity (go us!), which means I'll have to actually start . . . doing them.

So, basically, I have even more on my plate than usual (especially if you take into account that I've picked up extra hours at Latin tutoring and the ARC), but while it may reduce me to a quivering pile of stress by Wednesday, right now I'm mostly okay.

Another Tuesday night . . . another invisible thesis. I'm pretty much resigned to not sleeping on Tuesdays for the rest of the semester. It's even worse this week, because the text I have to write about is this Gnostic text called the Apocryphon of John. This is some seriously wacked out stuff, guys. I barely UNDERSTAND the text--how'm I supposed to write about it?

This week is a particularly hellish one for me. Things that are nagging at my brain:

I'm reading an excerpt from a short story I wrote last semester at a reading tomorrow night. (Which would be fine--I don't usually get very nervous about presenting--except I'm so much less confident in my fiction than I am in my scholarship.)

The CPR* department is hiring a tenure-track Philosophy professor, so every Tuesday I have meetings over lunch and after class. (And Tuesdays were ALREADY hell.)

I'm attending a lecture about Evil on Thursday night, by a guy who wrote a book I'm reading for my Honors variant in Christianity, and I really should finish the book before then (though I doubt I will). Also, there's a dinner with him on Friday night which I'll be attending.

I'm presenting my summer research at a conference in Ohio in March, and my world is full of deadlines to make that happen--apply for a travel grant (done! remind me to post about that, because the Honors department was really great), edit my paper and send it to the conference by Monday, get my transportation arranged, prepare my presentation, remind my professors I'll be missing class . . . it just goes on.

Oh yeah, and I'm really supposed to be organizing another knitting charity project this semester. I keep putting it off because life is so crazy.

And all this is on top of my 18 credit hours, which includes two upper level language classes, two classes with EXTREMELY heavy reading assignments, one class with slightly lighter reading assignments but weekly papers, and one I-really-should-read-the-textbook-but-I-just-don't-have-time class. I'm still doing great on the whole "preparing for class" thing, but . . . is it any wonder I feel like I've got a dozen shrieking television in my brain?




*Classics, Philosophy, and Religion are all one department here at Sweet Briar--they mesh really well.