''Back in school'' dreams

Working home home today, on my joyous, joyous Dissertation.

Hopefully, when I finish my Dissertation, I’ll stop having these “back in school” dreams. The problem is, even though I’m 35 (no, wait -- 36!!!) I am, in fact, in college. Essentially.

Last night was the most recent installment: I’m in college, and it’s about four weeks into the semester. I’m enrolled in three classes -- a reasonably full load -- and I’m sitting down to do my English homework. For some reason I glance at my remarkably faded class schedule printout, and realize that my English class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays -- I’d only been attending Tuesdays!!! Because that’s what I’d read off my schedule.

So, I visit the professor’s office, who hands me an armload of extra reading I missed, and a whole wad of in-class exercises and take-home exercises that I hadn’t done. And it’s all due in three days.

That’s about how I’m feeling right now. Slugging away at my Dissertation, but I’ve just realized that it’s mid-November, and I need to get a finished draft -- as ‘’finished’’ as it can be, prior to the final round of feedback -- out to my Chair by mid-December. And considering my pathetic, pathetic rate of progress over the last month, I’m just not sure if it’s gonna happen.

Hard to believe I actually thought (as of early October) that I’d get the draft to my Chair by the end of October: here it is mid-November, and (it feels!) like I still have miles to go.

But -- I’m in too deep to give up. And the process, in and of itself, isn’t too bad. It’s... just... taking... sooooo... loooooooong....

O.k. -- end of boo-hoo.


--GG