PhD or Bust! (lame title, but I'm really landing on nothing good here)

You must love that after my enthusiastic and optimistic entry over a month ago, I have entirely left you in the dark regarding my grad school adventures.  I do most sincerely repent.  But I also must explain.  After the "it is doable" post, I have been most anxiously engaged in "doing" it.  I knew it would be a wild semester, and I knew I had bitten off more than I should have when I took 4 classes, almost doubled my working hours, and then had to add PhD applications into the mix.  I knew it, did it anyway, and now I'm choking just a bit.  But I haven't died yet!  Good sign.

I also can't think of a good title for this entry, so even the one time that I did sit down and try to write a few weeks ago, I quickly got annoyed at the time I was wasting trying to come up with a good title, and got back to homework.  As I'm writing this, the title box remains empty.  I hope some inspiration comes! (none did)

So, yes, things have been very busy.  But good.  In the mean time, I had a quick, re-filling visit with my family for my birthday.  I have now completed my 31st year, and I did, in fact, memorize 31 new scriptures (ones I had never memorized before).  I thought about listing them all for you, but that's just a little overkill, don't you think?  But I wanted to report that I had memorized them.  I do, however, have to report that I'm still working on the Old Testament.  Alas, I did not make that one.  But I guess in this case, I'll plead quality vs. quantity.  I wish that argument would work when my professors assign upwards of 500 pages (EACH!) of reading per class each week, and I only get about half done.  I'm all about quality, baby.

I'm nearly at the breaking point in stress.  I chuckle a little as I write that - those of you who know me well ask yourselves when that has not been the case.  True, it seems the overwhelmingly stressful times do outweigh the non-stressful ones, but this time's right up there with the best of them.  So much rides on the next few months.  I've felt out of my league since I started this whole grad school thing, and I'm still feeling it, in new and overwhelming ways.  PhD programs!  I'm applying at a time when schools are having to cut back funding for all levels of education, but especially ones like PhDs where they pay for you.  And to add to the difficulty, the state of the economy has also flooded graduate programs with unemployed but highly qualified students hoping to do something productive and ride out the storm.  So, in addition to feeling somewhat outclassed, I'm in the midst of greater competition, and less opportunity.  And I still don't know how to network as well as I should and make the connections that would help me get into the programs I want.  So, trying to figure that out, write 8 statements of purpose for all those applications, research and write 3 final papers (talking 15-20 pages each), do the regular homework, research for the Thesis, and make a Thanksgiving dinner.  AAHHH!  Christmas will not come a moment too soon.

To top it off, things are never dull back at home with the fam.  I won't go into details, but it does take its toll.  But hey, James is coming out for Thanksgiving, and I'm very excited to show him around my favorite city.

OK, after all my complaining, I'll end on a funny note (I am glad that one of my ways of dealing with stress is to see the humor in life).  I was walking up to campus the other morning, and as I was going up the steepest part of the hill, lost in my thoughts, I became vaguely aware of a guy riding a bike down the hill.  He began steering off to the side, off the path, into the deep leaves, which caused me to now wonder what on earth he was doing, and if he was going to stop before running into the light pole.  He did - sort of.  He fell over awkwardly in the leaves, right as his bike ran into the pole.  As he got back on, I noticed he was holding his cell phone up to his ear, and even more awkwardly got back on his bike, still talking on the phone, and immediately fell again, still talking, and never missing a beat!  I hope whoever he was talking to was worth it, because he was ridiculous!  I smiled sympathetically, but laughed heartily on the inside (perhaps because, let's be honest, other than the stupidity of talking on the phone while trying to guide a bike, this scenario could totally be me!).

I wish you all a very blessed Thanksgiving, one worthy of all the thanks you will surely render.