Ack!

I've reached a point where it's obvious that I won't make the deadline for my thesis to be on-time. Even if I finished tomorrow, it would be unreasonable to ask my readers to read the thesis and finish the paperwork by the end-of-January deadline. So I had a meeting with my advisor where we discussed this, and I did my best not to pull out my hair or bite off my nails in his office.

After all, that's what my office is for, right?

And now I'm trying to avoid Total Panic Mode. I can sketch out an adapted timeline for the "maybe it's still on time [if administrators in two offices are very kind to me]" deadline. I can make a list of secondary activities I do that won't suffer too much if I give them zero time for the next few weeks. I can make some kind of plan for what to do if my funding is suspended until May, which is the worst case scenario. TPM! I can write this completely frivolous, waste-of-time blog post, while trying to breathe deeply and slow my heart rate. So that I can get back to work on the thesis.


This post's theme word: weal, "a red, swollen mark left on flesh by a blow or pressure."

Snowy productivity!

I've been back and working for awhile but it took until this morning to really click back into productivity. It was snowing thickly, and the new semester is beginning. Things are piling onto my plate: there's my usual big serving of "finish the thesis!" and also now TAing, changing my cell phone plan, swim practice, budgeting time for my various interlocking systems of organizing my life. B. once told me that he was only really productive when he had a lot to do; in low-demand times, he couldn't get anything done. It seemed nonsensical to me at the time (strictly from a logical, job-scheduling point of view) but now I understand.


This post's theme word: semasiology, "the study of meanings in a language, especially the study of semantic change."