deadlines

deadlines: lines drawn around prisons. if the prisonners go beyond those lines, they're dead.

this phonology class is taking up all my time and energy. I spend about 2 hours every single day working on it and i'm just not getting it, dammit! yesterday we got our homework back and the teacher said "if you got an A you're fine, if you got a B you didn't get it, and if you got a C it's not too late to drop the class." basically. i had done my homework with karen and we had excatly the same answers, but she got an A and i got a B! so I complained and said that it looked like i hadn't got it simply because my homework didn't look as neat and nice as karen's... and got an A. it's a true story! and i didn't get half of what she explained in class, and now we have no class for 3 weeks and then the midterm! and curiously, this morning i had my first indiana panick attack... tried to have 2 hours of conferences with my students but finally gave up. couldn't breathe. couldn't stand up anymore. even had a hard time speaking.

i don't know what it is with my time, but i never feel like i have any. i only go to two classes, work on a third at home, teach 1 hour a day, and have to work on the prospectus, so what's the big deal? where does time go? i always feel like i'm running, i'm always late everywhere, i forget to do half of the stuff i have to do, and in the end, i never feel like i've actually done something with my day.

so, summer 2006 is the goal. let's try: defending the prospectus in the fall of 2004 (in 2 months, basically); starting the first chapters and working on finding schools, writing the questionnaires/interviews, and translating the whole damn thing during the spring/summer 2005; doing the actual study in the fall of 2005; analysing and finishing it all up in the spring of 2006. well after all, God created the earth in 6 days, so why should i need more time than that??

so yeah i'm pretty good with deadlines in general. i set easy ones so that i'm pretty sure to achieve the goals i've set, because otherwise i'm too easily discouraged by my failures. i don't like to procrastinate and i don't like to be told that i can't do something. now i can't think about anything beyond the prospectus defence. one thing at a time. i have 2 weeks between every new draft: i write stuff one week, send it to margie, she reads/comments/sends it back, i look at her changes/suggestions/comments, and the following week i meet with her and discuss the stuff, work some more on it, and then send it to her the following week. if i can keep up that schedule, i can manage with the november defense!

next time i MUST talk to her about B.'s suggestions + the statistical consulting thing. thanks scott :) so next draft needs to be sent on tuesday. huh, yeah!