It is scheduled.

My defense, that is. For Wednesday, January 10th, at 1pm.

I MAY have heart failure before then.

I MAY have heart failure after then, when I see all the revisions I still have to do. :)

I DO, however, see a light at the end of the tunnel, and it looks like it just might be a disco ball at the biggest party of the decade.

I feel sorry for my sisters.

After all, nothing they give my dad for Christmas this year can POSSIBLY compare to what I am giving him -

A COPY OF MY COMPLETED THESIS.

Printed and bound last night, delivered to the committee today - it is ready to defend. And seriously, I am wrapping one copy in a box and giving it to my dad for Christmas. (shh...don't tell him!)

But right now - I'm going shopping. :) Merry Christmas, internets!

P.S. And really, somehow I thought I'd have more to say about this day, when it arrived. But, huh. I don't. Maybe later. Blog out.

Let's revisit...

...this for a second. Just that part right after "Blog out" and before "Blog out, take 2." Oh, and this, too.

'Cause people, I'm freaking out here. I have worked approximately a million hours on the "last few details" of my thesis today, in prep for printing it out and giving it to my committee, and I haven't even STARTED the main task on it that I was going to do today.

And it's 11:37pm and I have to teach junior high tomorrow and so far have no lesson plans written.

And I HAVE to get up early enough to wash my hair tomorrow, because "3rd-day hair in a ponytail with bobby pins keeping any greasy strands from touching my face" is one thing, but 4th-day hair? I'm afraid to even THINK about it.

But all the stuff I DID do today needed to be done.

But there is sOOOOooOOoOoOOOOooo much more to do.

And I HAVE to have it done by Thursday. And I teach all day tomorrow. (Did I already say that?)

And I HATE that that post that I linked to was in MARCH. MARCH, people. That was EIGHT MONTHS ago. Or so. Whatever. And I'm STILL not done, and I have until Thursday.

I'm freaking out here.

I'm frightened...

...at how well this pegged me.

Your 1996 Theme Song Is: Ironic by Alanis Morisette

It's like rain on your wedding day It's a free ride when you've already paid It's the good advice that you just didn't take Who would've thought ... it figures

What's Your 1996 Theme Song?

Thanks, Lauren. I DO feel better knowing.

This does not bode well.

My gChat status currently reads, "frantically attempting to quell feelings of total panic."

AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH.

It's finals week, and I have no finals. But don't be jealous - I am in the throes of "manuscript preparation," as I get my thesis ready to give to my committee next week, so that I can schedule my defense for the beginning of January, and I just found out that I was doing one type of citation TOTALLY WRONG.

AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH. AAH.

And it frightens me to think that there are probably a million other things like that, lurking in the background, just waiting for me to think that I'm close to done so they can poke their nasty little formatting heads up and say, "ha ha, fix me!" like one of those sick sick sick SICK games at the amusement parks and roller-skating rinks where you have to hit the little heads of the chipmunks or whatever as they pop out of various holes and you don't know which hole the head will pop out of next or how many more there will be before you are done with your turn but you HAVE to hit them all to win the game...

That's what this feels like. And I've NEVER been good at that *&*$%# game.

Favorite license plate of the day

It said:

ONOIML8

The best part was that the car that it adorned was going slow. Huh.

If you call your sister...

...and she says, "I really can't talk right now; I'm in the middle of a liver transplant. Is it urgent?"

Just say no and hang up, people. Just say no, and hang up.

"Opine" is the verb form of the word "opinion" (at least according to my dad)

So I recently got offended because I misunderstood something that one of my friends was saying. I asked a clarifying question and got over both the misunderstanding AND the being offended. :) Here's what happened:

What I thought my friend said: Anyone who doesn't agree with her political stance and opinions is gutless and an idiot. (I'm paraphrasing; she would never dream of being that harsh.)

What my friend meant: It's not interesting to talk to people who don't know where they stand on certain key issues or who don't have opinions on important things.

But even after the misunderstanding was resolved, the whole thing threw me, to quote Richard Gere in Runaway Bride, "into at least 15 minutes of serious reflection." I thought, "Do I have opinions about things?" (No comment from you, Jer.)

So I decided to find out by, of course!, making a list. And you, lucky reader, are about to see today's version of that list. As you read this, please keep in mind that I am NOT stating here what my strong feelings about these topics ARE; I am just listing things about which I HAVE strong feelings, one way or the other. If you want to know where I stand on these issues, email me or post a comment and I'll consider devoting a post to a given topic. :)

So here you go - I have strong feelings about:

• mens facial hair (that was for you, Josh)
• electric blankets
• appropriate usage of cell phones
• how meetings should be conducted
• pornography
• reading
• speaking other languages
• world travel
• teaching in general
• language teaching
• project management
• the right of other people to have an opinion different from mine
  
• loyalty - to family, spouse, friends, country, God, religion, employer, profession, ideals (not necessarily in that order)
  
• chocolate
• raw vegetables
• how a graduate program should be approached
• the position a toilet seat and lid should be in when the user of said toilet exits the room
• germs
• narrow-mindedness
• my family
  
• how men should and should not treat women
• journal keeping
• God
• my bro-in-law's pies
• reusing and recycling of paper
• the "Twizzlers versus Red Vines" question

I'm sure there are more, but this was a good enough list for me to discover that, YES, I opine.

Phew.

I also discovered in this process that there are other things that I feel neutral about. Stay tuned, maybe I'll list them in a future post. People will surely be interested to read a list entitled, "Things I couldn't care less about."

...and sometimes it's even BETTER than you first thought!!

I just went to the link to the program that my aunt is going to France with, and...

!!!

The TOTAL cost of the program is $2800!!!!!!!

That means I only have to save $1400!!!!

Holy cow! I am SOOOO excited!!!

Sometimes prayers are answered before they are even uttered

So I went to France last summer. And I'm planning to go next summer. And I am saving my money so I CAN go next summer. :) But this morning I was thinking, "Maybe I should NOT go back to the same place in France. Maybe I should even go to a DIFFERENT French-speaking country or figure out some way to increase my knowledge and understanding of French-speaking cultures."
AND THEN!!

I logged into my email account and read the following email from my aunt, who teaches French at a university in the eastern US (names and some other info have been changed to protect, well, ME) :

Hey, Very Important Question: would you be interested in coming on a study abroad with me, summer 2007, as my (unpaid) assistant? [ The university] would pay about half the cost ($2800) for three weeks in France - two in Paris, one in [another region] - maybe a little more. The dates are depart June 25 and return July 15. I have 12 students signed up and have been given permission to take along an assistant.

Let me know if you would be at all interested. I wish they would pay all of it for you, but I have created a bare-bones budget to save the students money and the result is there isn't much padding to pay for the leaders. The $2800 covers airfare, TGV, room & board, metro passes, museum passes, trains in [that other region]. Does not cover 3 Paris dinners or any lunches, or personal expenses on free days, etc.

I would LOVE to have you with me! You are The Best.

!!!! Can you EVEN believe it?!?! It's PERFECT!! I was recently offered a new job, that will be part time and last through the summer, and I told them I wouldn't do it unless they would guarantee me time off (2 weeks minimum) to go to France, and we discussed that that might need to be at the beginning of the summer rather than the end...and this is 3 weeks, and I'll get to do TOURING, and see a region that I've been to but don't know SUPER well, and go to ALL the cool places in PARIS...AND get to know my aunt better. :) :)

It's going to cost quite a bit more than I was planning on having saved, but if Heavenly Father can so nicely line up

1. a job that will let me go AND
2. the opportunity to go,

I feel reasonably sure that He can help me line up

3. the finances to make the trip possible. :) :)

So, needless to say, I'm emailing her to tell her that YES! I want in, and I'll be making plans shortly to make sure that I have accumulated that sum of money in time, but kids, I'M GOIN' TO FRANCE!!

This is me until I'm done...

OK, maybe just the last three squares. Or maybe just the last one and forget about even TRYING to sleep.

Seriously, tho, my chair forbade me from having ANY kind of a social life or anything-other-than-thesis-life until I finish. And it is SO CLOSE to being done that I can TASTE it!

And it tastes like...