Last Night of the First Year

Tonight is my last night as a first year graduate student. When (as I am speaking optimistically here) I finish my paper- I will be done! As Jan might yell "Victory!" Tonight was also my last night of work until I get back from PA. I am so excited to have three full weeks of sheer nothingness; it will be complete bliss. I will be able to sit down and relax and not have to have nearly every hour of my life planned out each day. 

This has been a great year at CGU. I have faced many difficulties and have somehow been able to survive them. I have made truly amazing friends. My memories of my first year of grad school will always be mingled with my friends. There have been many late night text messages, Denny's study parties, library camp outs, crying phone calls and occasionally an injured biker. All to say, this year has been so much fun and I couldn't have done it without you guys! See everyone when I get back!

Sleeping On a Pencil

I decided to take a break from paper writing and psyching myself out with Dracula readings to write my priceless musings of the day. I woke up on a pencil today. I actually slept with it right in the middle of my back. This lead me to consider the various books, pencils, highlighters, etc. I have managed to fall asleep on without noticing. I consider this the true ultimate graduate student status, the mortification of the flesh level dedication if you will, to long nights of reading Sidney, Spenser and Stoker (that impromptu alliteration was oddly gratifying- but I digress). Working two jobs and taking a full time load has been a crash and burn class in ultimate time management, which as a side effect sometimes causes one to wake up with a writing utensil lodged in their spine. I am happy to report however, well two things, first for those wondering I never actually felt the pencil- I found it this morning then proceeded to laugh out loud at myself (judge if you will) and secondly that despite this odd encounter I have been remarkably productive this weekend. I am feeling compelled to list such small victories in response to my previous state of delirium, so please indulge me:  

1) Read 200 pages of Stoker's Dracula  

2) Read 50 of what seemed 500 pages of Sidney's Defense  

3) Read a questionable Spenser article with in addition to about two full pages of untranslated text, shameless plugs to the author's previous works- seriously?  

4) Went through about 10 sources and outlined paper  

5) Actually, so far, complete about five pages of my paper 

Though yesterday I had a Denny's excursion from 7:30 pm to 4:00 am and work up at 8:30 this morning to do all of these various tasks, I am still feeling oddly resilient and productive. Hopefully such luck continues...

Losing My Mind

Ok, so I think I am officially losing my mind which is unfortunate because I really need it for various school and work related reasons. To demonstrate my insanity I would like to offer the following things I actually have done in the past two days:
1) My manager returned a time off request form because not only did I put the dates in the wrong places- I asked for 4/45 off. The forty-fifth of April for those of you who didn't know is apparently a good day for rest. She looked at me frustrated and said, "I don't really know what this means can you please fix it." I had to explain to my manager that I am an idiot and that I really meant to write 5/3 which we all know looks exactly like 4/45. Moving on.
2) Forgot my super easy locker combination at work, twice. My manager walked by laughing at me as I am hunched over my lock spinning it desperately trying to get my keys so that I could go to the car and get my watch which I left in my backpack- which nicely segue into number three.
3) Apparently popped my trunk before I went into work and left it wide open. When I went to the car (God had my back on this one- he rocks) to get my watch I saw to my dismay the trunk of my car about six inches open exposing my backpack and a small library of books.
4) Car issue: Idiot edition. Christian and I went to Chilis for dinner and when we got back in the car I took off the emergency break, put the car in reverse and the car was moving forward. How can a car do this, you might ask? I was screaming and freaking out because it was inching up the car parked across from it. So I put in back in park and try again, same thing. Weird. Right? So I get mad and tell Christian that he needs to drive my crazy car. So I sit down and buckle up and he gets in and... are you ready for the answer to this mystery?... maybe you are smarter than me and already guessed it... He TURNS THE ENGINE ON. Ok, so I turned the car on but did not start it and when i took the break off it was rolling forward because I was on an incline. Seriously??? What is wrong with me? As Lori Anne once tempted, any one with the answer to that question wins a FABulous prize.
5) There really isn't another precise situation- thank God, but my linguistic capabilities have also begun to fail me, as I charge many of the female characters in my 18th century literary papers. I have successfully mangled every date, time, day I work on, where I am supposed to be at what time, etc. - edit- as I spell checked this document, it lit up with awesome treasures such as "packback." Case in point.

Bottom line: I need sleep. Fine print under bottom line: I also need to write 50 pages in two weeks and finish my coursework reading.

I am reading Dracula and I find myself wishing that I could bite some random people and perhaps gain some restorative power, that would be nice.