it's a sign

when i lose patience with my cats, it's a bad sign of stress. that's when i smoke the year's only cigarette and have to go outside even though it's 80 degrees fahrenheit to try and breathe again, for a minute at least.

finished revising my chapter 7. now i just need to re-send my chapter 6 to margie, write 8, and revise 1 and 8 and i'll be done. i started writing chapter 8. it's very hard. plus i realized that i completely forgot to calculate one very very important thing and it's going to take me a while to do it. i looked at the influence of students' first languages on their answers but did not look at the TEACHERS' first languages! you'd think that students taught by a japanese teacher would not give the same answers than if they had a teacher, say, from england. i'm not even sure how i'll analyze this. the influence of all the other variables was easy to calculate: 3 groups of students x whatever variable. but now i don't have the 3 groups... i have many groups of teachers: north american, english-speaking but not noth american (england, etc.), and all the other languages (russian, chinese, etc.). and i don't know if i can use the 3 groups of students, it looks pointless... i'll try with and without... i have a headache just thinking about it already.

got an appointment with the director of the writing center to discuss stuff i can do and read over the summer to get ready for my new job. also have an appointment with the "format" guy on thursday because i'll have to leave the country right after my defense in june so i need to get started on the revisions as soon as possible.

i am very, very tired. not physically. mentally. very dead, even. i keep working but it's like i'm a robot. as soon as the semester's over (in two weeks), i'll go spend a weekend at my sister's and just vedge in front of the tv for a few days.