Where in the heck did most of April go? Jeez. A few weeks gone in a flash, and now it’s the end of the semester, and even if I’m not presently teaching or taking classes, I’m feeling that all-too-familiar end of semester crunch feeling. The feeling of too much to do– too many different things to do– while times speeds up toward summer. Sigh.
So, not surprisingly, I’ve been busy writing. And running whenever I can. Actually, I could split my days into 3 different times– (1) writing (2) running and (3) other crap that keeps me from writing/running. Oh, and sleeping. A whole 9 hours a night lately. On the running front, I can run a whole 3 miles now. And running outside in the rain is my new favorite thing ever. I’ve actually started to hope that it rains on days when I’m going to run outside. There’s something about having a reason to get soaking wet and splashing through puddles that is wonderful.
On the writing front… well… I’m plugging away! Not that this is interesting to any of you, but right now my dissertation struggles aren’t so much with “omg I have to finish,” instead I’m focused on laying out the entire dissertation argument (or at least the bare bones of it), trying to figure out what pieces of data go best with what I’m arguing, and, well, getting each chapter fleshed out (another, nicer term for writing). I’m happy working in my carrel, or the reading room of the library, and I seem to do best working with paper and colored pens alongside my laptop. That doesn’t seem like a big achievement, but it took me *years* to become this comfortable with the way it’s best for me to work.
But suddenly its the end of April and I need to spend the next month solidifying 2 chapters for the upcoming Job Market: Redux. And I have an article to edit and send out the door. Oh, and there are job market materials to improve, dissertation committee members to keep in the loop, and a conference presentation to write as well. Yikes!
There are two things I’m very excited about coming up this summer. First, I’m lecturing my first class– Research Methods– and I can’t wait. I don’t remember ever being so excited about teaching. I think it’s a combination of the fact I am so much more confident as a sociologist than I was when I taught my first year of grad school (a mere 6 years ago!), and the fact that right now my day job is driving me nuts. I just have one month left there, and it’s taking a lot of energy to keep it in perspective and not let it aggravate me. I’m going to miss some of the people there tremendously, but it is WAY past time to move on. I’m not even freaking out about not have a job for the fall yet. I’m just happy to be moving on to something (anything) new.
The class I’m teaching meets 4 days a week for 8 weeks, so I’m going to have to be very strict about giving myself a few hours every morning for dissertation writing. Combine that with prepping for class and grading, and I don’t see much in terms of “fun” for the summer. But, just when everything reaches the point of complete insanity (the conference and interviews in August) I get to spend a week in San Francisco with my two best friends! So I feel like I can literally get through anything from now to that point.
In other more exciting and Zombie-related news, a friend of mine brought over her Nintendo GameCube on Sunday night and we drank beer and played some game called Resident Evil for hours. Jumping through windows, and kicking/shooting Zombies was fantastic fun– even when a masked Zombie cut my head off with a chainsaw!
With all my busyness I am increasingly aware of how important it is to play and to spend time with people you can laugh with.
