Dear Internets,

I would like to easily pass my exams. Thank you.


I've gone from obsessively checking email to obsessively checking blogs. You people do not update enough to allow me to properly procrastinate out of pre-exam anxiety.

Exams start Saturday and last for a month. I will pass, and it will be way easier than I am dreading. I will be pleasantly surprised and happy with how well I do. No one will ask me about any of the texts I didn't read; they won't even be relevant.

I can so do this.

That is all.

Highlights

I'm back from my conference and not too terribly jet lagged, but I did sleep a bunch yesterday after getting home from class. The conference was very good and the two days in London beforehand were fun. My exams, however, start this weekend, so I will not be blogging much at all in May. At some point I will post pics of the trip, but here are a few highlights:

• There were bunnies everywhere on the conference campus!
• I got held up by customs upon returning to the US as there is a wanted felon with my name.
• My paper went over really well.
• I saw a castle.
• Buckingham Palace has very gold gates.
• I found out just how well-connected in my field I really am.
• I met cool colleagues.
• I traveled by various means: cab, tour bus, city bus, coach, tube, train, and plane--all in 7 days.
• I drank coke made with sugar! not HFCS!
• Tea in England tastes better.
• I could totally live in the English countryside.
• I saw a mouse at my friend's house.
• I only got one migraine; it was horrible, but it was only one.

Three Things

1. Holy fuck people! I do not work at a soap opera. Colleagues, chill. Obviously, I can't go into work drama details, but the last two days have been intense. Shit got worked out, but damn.

2. Dates have been set for my exams. The short list of texts has been chosen. When I'm through with all of this, I'm going to do a post about how I should have studied. I made some mistakes, so I will impart my new knowledge unto others. Once I've passed, anyway.

3. In other news, I'm going to England on Saturday for a week! I'll be at a conference. In England! For a week! Woo-hoo! I'll take stuff to upload pics, but I'm not promising any posts until I get back. I'm not taking a laptop.

The Interdiction

Before going to bed last night, I told my husband that I was not allowed to use the internet after breakfast today. Once I was done eating, no internet until dark.

Do you know how hard that is!?

Clearly I failed and checked email twice in the middle of the day. And there was nothing that needed my attention. I am an obsessive email-checker. I need to quit that. I did get more reading done, but I have piles to read before I sleep. So back to that.

reading, reading, reading

Theory overload. Must take break. Very few blogs updated because of Easter. Eat lunch then read more. Me read. Me think. Grrrr.

Aside from the lapse into caveperson speak, things are going swimmingly. I'm making all the connections in the reading that I can. I'm a little worried about recall . . . but I'm always worried about recall. I get concepts, now I just have to be sure to attribute them to the right people. Also, I'm much better at pointing out complimentary positions than tensions. So much left to read though. Must keep going.

Oh, my conference paper is only half a page too long now. I'll give it a few days, then try again.

Work Update, Brought to You by ProcrastinationTM

So I'll be starting my qualifying exams (or whatever they call them at your uni) soon. And I feel ready for two of the three areas. The third, well, I'm going to work my ass of this week. We'll see how I feel then.

In other news, my conference paper isn't ready. I'm revising a seminar paper I wrote, so it won't be too hard, especially since the prof and I decided that my seminar paper should be my conference paper, so it's really just a matter of judicious cutting--the tone and audience is already right. And she advised me on the abstract and the paper, so I have a good place to start. It's a really good paper--I'm proud of it. I'm nervous though because I make a point of disagreeing with the biggest name in my field's most recent book--and he'll be at the conference. And I'm assuming that he'll come to my panel because my adviser (his friend and a big name herself) will make him. She's done that before. She's a very, very good adviser. He's a nice guy; he won't be hard on me or anything, and I'm not disagreeing about a really MAJOR thing or anything. It's just a big step. I feel like a real scholar and not just a grad student by doing this--like my opinion is just as valid as his. 'Cause it is, I just haven't really felt confident about that before. Oh, and my adviser hasn't read the paper yet.

Bizarre Bizarre

So I was reading PZ's blog thinking it was Tonks' and going, "what the hell?" 'Cause PZ and Tonks ain't alike. I was really, really confused until the end of the 6-paragraph post when I figured it out. That's right; it took the name tag at the end to clue me in. I was so confused I can't even describe it.

Then I was reading one of Heebie's comments on Tonks' blog thinking Heebie was Tonks, and going "why is she sympathizing with herself?"

I am losing my freaking mind. I think I need to go to bed.

Weird Sensation

As someone who has had migraines since she was 9, I've had all kinds of odd head sensations. But right now I'm having a new one. The skin on my head is crawling. It's a normal skin-crawling sensation, but it's on the right side of my head (and only the right)--from my eyebrow over my scalp to behind my ear. Bizarre.

I went to bed last night with a slight headache and woke up at 6am with a MIGRAINE. I hunted for meds and went back to bed, waking at 10am with no migraine, but the area that was in pain before was still sensitive. It's like a migraine echo--it's doesn't really hurt, but it's tender like a bruise (which is really weird, I know, since migraines are not physical--and yes my brain is fine).