Jiggity Jig

Is it wrong that I want to have lunch at Panera tomorrow for the sole purpose of scoping out my ex boyfriend, and potentially making him very uncomfortable?

Okay, okay, maybe it's not the sole reason... I am rather fond of their bread bowls.

I just got back from the Best Friend's house, where I watched the Sex and the City movie with her and her remarkably acquiescent husband (who had his ACL replaced today and was therefore doped up on percoset). In the course of providing me with all the local gossip, she mentioned that my First Love served her coffee at Panera yesterday, where he is the manager, and skeezily hits on all the teenaged girls who work there.

It seems that my stellar taste in men stretches all the way back to the tender age of 13. Hooray for me!

Doesn't stop me from wanting to go check him out. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.

The holiday has been lovely, if a bit of a whirlwind. It seems as if I've spent more time in transit than I have in any one place, and tomorrow evening it's back to the big city to work a double on Wed, and then I'm off again through January 3rd. I'm hoping that on at least one of those days, I get to sleep in.

Two of my four grad school applications have been submitted and my MFA auditions are scheduled. I've finally unearthed my writing sample for the PhD applications, which needs to be re-typed, as well as another contender that needs a little work, but if I have time, I may spruce it up and submit it instead. I'm also waiting on two letters of recommendation, which has me more than a little edgy as the deadlines are fast approaching and I can only send so many reminder emails before my head explodes. Contemplating combing the Baltimore newspapers to see if one of my recommenders has died or is in a coma or something, which are the only reasonable excuses I can think of for agreeing to write a letter back in September, and not yet having done so.

At least I survived the GRE and my scores, it has to be said, are stellar. 740 Verbal, 730 Math, and a 5 in Analytical Writing (which, okay, could have been better, but I'll live), just in case you were wondering...

I've also been cast in a play which will be rehearsing throughout January, in addition to getting ready for my MFA auditions, and figuring out how to rearrange my work schedule around all of the above so that I can still make enough money to pay my rent. I will hopefully be worked into an egg donation cycle early in the month, which will take care of my financial concerns, but seeing as I've been waiting since September, that can hardly be counted on...

In other words, life is about to get intensely crazy... but at least it will be interesting.

Happy Holidays y'all!

T.G.I... What day is it again?

Good grief, this month is slipping away from me faster than I thought possible! Which on one hand is a good thing, as my life will feel far less lunatic once November is over... on the other hand, the reason my life is so lunatic is that I've got a million things to do before the month is up and the days just keep disappearing!

Like, just for example, the paper that I realized only moments ago is due TOMORROW. Granted, it's a 2 page response to a storytelling performance I attended--a pittance in the world of academic writing. But I attended it last week. Let's hope my memory and the notes I took hold up until I get a chance to write that paper tomorrow morning.

Because right now? Tonight? I am going for a drink. Or several. Probably several, considering I am meeting the Lovely A, and it has long since been proven that "just one" is not in our vocabulary. Case in point, the last time she and I met up for a casual drink on a Friday ended up with me pouring her into a taxi at 4am, after speaking to her boyfriend on the phone to assure him that yes, she would be getting home okay. Why was I the one to determine this? I'm not sure, as I was certainly in no state to be making judgment calls... but I digress.

That being said, before Tuesday the 25th I need to:

1. Write 2 response papers.

2. Find time to see a play, written in the last 25 years, about which to write the second response paper.

3. Survive Hell Week for the play with the kiddos. (6 days with no less than 4 hours of rehearsal on each given day, oh my lord).

4. Come up with a 15 minute lesson covering some aspect of Shakespeare's plays as, hello! I have an audition for the one company in NYC that I would kill to work with!!. And I have a week to plan for it.

5. Nail that job audition.

Then, after the 25th, there's...

- Thanksgiving

- NaNoWriMo (I past the 25k mark! Halfway there!)

- Oh, right, THESIS!!

- And a play. That I have to write. For a grade.


Needless to say, this little frog is feelin' da pressure. Hence the drinking.

Happy Weekend!

Etc.

Good Morning Campers!

I may have been sucking at life on my own blog lately, but today I'm published over at Indie Bloggers so at least I'm not a total waste of space...

I am starting to get stressed about my upcoming travels. I mean, come on... this is me we're talking about. A stress-fit is pretty much inevitable.

There's still just so much to do... I went to the travel doc yesterday and got my malaria pills and travel diarrhea meds (fun!), and I was amazed that she agreed to my request to give me Ambien to help with the jet lag! OTC sleep-aids actually keep me awake, and the melatonin I used in Africa may or may not have been useful, so I thought I'd try the prescription route and see if it was any more effective.

She gave me a full prescription too, so that Ambien may also be helping with the pre-travel stress that's keeping me up at night... we shall see.

Also I haven't found a subletter yet. I've been trying to find one through friends, rather than go the Craigslist route, because it feels safer, but it does not appear to be panning out. Also I have yet to a.) tell my landlords that I am leaving for 2 months, or b.) talk about re-signing my lease before I go. Not that I think they'll pose a fuss, I just... I don't know. I have absolutely NO idea why I keep putting it off.

I'll do it tomorrow.

(How's that for not procrastinating?)

I also still have a LOT of reading to do, and I haven't finished my review board application to cut through the 8billion miles of red tape surrounding my research project next semester.

I am extensively glad that I am unemployed. If I had to deal with a job on top of all of this, I think my head might explode.

In the mean time I need to just calm down and remind myself that everything is going to work out just fine.

This is me. It always does.

Knock Wood.

Reflection, Obsession, and all that falls between.

Ignorance, indeed, is bliss.

Also I appear to be developing a nasty of habit of beginning my posts with cliches. I will have to work on that.

At any rate, I know I have been fairly MIA since I returned to the country, but the main reason for that is... this semester? Is going to kick my ass. Hard.

Hence the nostalgic thoughts of ignorance... specifically my ignorance at the beginning of last semester when I found myself thinking "you know, Grad School is shaping up to be much less work than I thought it would be... I am totally going to breeze through this semester..." Ha! Little did I know the various and sundry shitstorms waiting for me just around the corner, and thus I entered into this endeavor in a blissful state of ignorance.

This semester, however, I am painfully aware of just how much work I have to do, and how limited the time in which I have to do it. And I am perhaps just a little bit anxious on that count.

First of all, there is the reading. LOTS of reading. Not that this comes as a surprise to anyone else who has trod this path, but this semester's reading load is perhaps triple that of last semester. This, in and of itself, worries me.

In addition to the the reading load, at least one of my classes requires a generous amount of time spent working--in groups!! of 8 people!!! scheduling NIGHTMARE!!!!--outside of class. I am taking yet another weekend-absorbing class leaving me with virtually no free time until the beginning of March. I also am required to see four shows this semester, two each for two different classes, and unless I can find a show that encompasses both physical theatre and queer theatre, I'm not seeing much chance of an overlap.

And finally there is my inability to give up the search for the perfect pair of boots that clearly do not exist. At least, not within my price range.

What's that you say? What does my compulsive need to buy shoes have to do with being screwed by my workload this semseter?

Oh, plenty.

For one, shoe shopping is time-consuming. Particuarly when you feel compelled to set foot in every single Payless shoe store in Manhattan, convinced that one of them has to have the blue suede ankle boots that you foolishly did not buy in Pennsylvania back in December in your size.

Thus were 2 1/2 hours that could have been spent reading "Theatre of the Oppressed," spent on a fruitless search for grey suede ankle boots (and top-fold, spiral-bound, college ruled notebooks... but that's a whole other kettle of fish), not to mention at least another hour online once I returned home.

Clearly, this behavior has got to stop.

Therefore, I feel perfectly justified in purchasing these...



And these...



And, um, okay... these and these



I can only hope that now both my boot and suede fixations have been satiated, and I am able to buckle down and get some work done.

Provided, of course, that everything fits.

Batten down the hatches kiddos, it's gonna be a looooong semester!