Ack!

Last night as I sat in Most Hated Class half-listening to the inane questions coming from my fellow students regarding our culminating research project ("Are our interview transcripts included in the page-limit?" ...are you shitting me?!), I began idly flipping through the syllabus.

Awesome! Only 2 more classes left! That was certainly something to celebrate.

Then my eyes strayed over to the requirements for the research project... and there it was:

Due Date: 12/03/07

Holy Shit.

That is only... (flips over to Outlook calendar and counts...) a little over 2 weeks away! One week of which is consumed by Thanksgiving and Cousin's Wedding.

Oh... FUCK.

I really thought this project was due during Finals week... NOT the last week of class!

And suddenly I realize that in the next 2 1/2 weeks I need to:

1. Finish (okay, okay, START and Finish) Research Project, including but not limited to: Refine my research question, which is currently very vague; Conduct and transcribe 3 half-hour interviews; Analyze data from said interviews through an ethnographic lens; Generate a reading list; Write the beginning of an ethnodrama based on information gathered; Determine what is still missing (which will be quite a lot); and Write up a plan of how I plan to continue this research in the future.

Phew! Oh, but we're not done yet. There's also...

2. Complete journal for Weekend Class (due Monday after Thanksgiving)

3. Shit, before I can do that I need to re-read the book for Weekend class.

4. Catch-up on and finish journal for another class, for which I have not journaled in, oh, about 5 weeks. At least I've been writing down the prompts.

5. Papier-mache giant head and half-mask for masks class.

6. Paint all masks made to date.

7. Start and Complete final project for Masks class--which will include 2 masks and a small puppet, even though we haven't actually been shown how to make a puppet yet.

8. Hmmm, right. Go to the library and actually check out some of the recommended books on puppet making.

9. Get travel vaccinations for Uganda (happening tomorrow).

10. Go to Ugandan consulate and get travel visa.

11. Get haircut so I don't look like Cousin It at Cousin's Wedding.

12. Find pet-sitter for Thanksgiving Holiday.

13. Travel to PA, attempt to work on psychotically crowded holiday train if I am lucky enough to actually be sitting down, eat turkey, see family, have breakfast with The Girls, go to llama farm with parents, travel to Nowhere PA for Cousin's Wedding (do school work in car), attend wedding, get drunk, go back to motel and attempt to work on WC journal while intoxicated, travel back to parents' house (try to type in car while hungover), get on train, do school work (if I'm still awake), Return to NYC, get back to apartment around 10pm, sniff around the house to see if the cat's peed on anything (oh, damnit... 13a. find a way to piddle-proof the couch cushions), reassure the feline that I still love her before passing out from the sheer exhaustion of my "vacation," get up early the next morning and back to business as usual...

...all while working 30 hours a week, attending classes, and rehearsing for Outreach project, for which we have our first performance 1 week after we return from Thanksgiving Break!

*Thump*

Huh, what? Sorry, I think I blanked out for a minute there...

I am flashing back to a conversation I had a few months ago with another girl in my program, both of us saying "It's really weird, I thought Grad School would be harder... like, I thought I'd have more work to do, and really I don't..."

Do me a favour. If you happen to run into the Me of Two Months Ago, give her a swift kick in the ass.

And tell her to get started on that damned journal.