Tag Archives: finals

Happy Tuesday

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Good friends and gentle readers,

Hello from finals panic!  Things are progressing apace here in Dani-land and I’m steeped in the inevitable mountain of reading, research, work to do, not enough hours in which to do it, library books, and yenning for my social life that comes with the end of the semester.

As such, here’s a completely random list of things that have crossed my mind/desk this week.  I don’t have a single sustained coherent thought to share, but maybe this will serve as a brief entertainment while I struggle to not get run over by the homework truck.

1)    Tea is great and wonderful and everyone should own a French press.  I get most of my tea from adagio, and have even tried my hand at blending my own.  My blends can be found here.

2)    Good god, if I need to explain to another undergrad at the library that no, I don’t want to just leave my returned books in a stack by the door, I want to watch you return them for me while I stand here checking them off my list because I have a giant mountain at home and I really can’t be financially responsible for a lost book, I’m going to beat someone with a bad Hamlet quarto.  I understand that it is possible to leave one’s books by the door.  There’s a giant sign there that tells me so.  I also understand that you’re busy checking your facebook or e-mail or whatever.  I also understand that you’re being paid to sit at this desk, so please just scan these books for me and don’t roll your eyes at me.  In my day, we had to walk uphill both ways to the library in ten feet of snow without shoes on!  You don’t know how lucky you have it!  Harumph.

3)    Knowing that I’m stressed, and knowing that I’m having a hard week, my

Charles and Mary Lamb.... also not particularly attractive individuals...

best friend brought me a copy of Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare.  I cannot think of a better finals gift.  What says “I love you and I am here to make sure you don’t drive yourself crazy with schoolwork” like a well-loved copy of early nineteenth century moralized children’s stories based upon Shakespeare’s originals written by a matricidal kook and her quasi-incesty brother? (…no… I’m serious.  The Lambs were effed up.  Also: I love it).

4)    I got interviewed as an expert for GSAS’ blog post about academic conferencing!  It went live today; you can check it out here.  I love feeling legitimate!

5)    My tweet has made it to the final round of voting for the Tufts GSAS Tweet of the Semester competition.  I managed to win this last semester, and I’m hoping for another win this time.  I’ll let you know when voting for the finals opens up.  The winner receives a gift certificate to the school bookstore (which, for a graduate student, is THE BEST THING EVER).  Go team Dani!

6)    I sat down the other day to begin the pile of research that’s on my desk and, in the first book I cracked, came across an essay by my mentor over at Rutgers.  It made me smile to see his name in print first thing in the morning and, while not entirely surprising since he IS an authority on Johnson and the book WAS about Shakespeare and Johnson, still somehow felt serendipitous.  Also: right or wrong, it gave me a cosmic sense of hope.

Since I can't think of anything else to put here, here's an adorable baby sloth.

 7)    Tally of total library books checked out this semester: 68 and counting.  Books currently checked out: 31.  Books currently unread on my desk: 8.  Days until last final is due: 34.  Number of projects that still require completing in that time period: 7.  Number of projects which require completing in the next seven days: 3 (not counting the one I finished yesterday).

8)    …and miles to go before I sleep.

Idea Time

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We have reached that point in the semester at which one is not only expected, but required, to have original thoughts.

Yes, folks, it’s paper-topic-pitch time.

You see, before you begin work on your final paper, you need to check in with your professor and ensure that you’re on the right track.  You need to ensure that your idea is A) what the professor is expecting from a final paper, B) viable in the confines of your time schedule and resources, C) interesting both to you and said professor, and D) not an egregious example of something totally done before (which you didn’t know about because you’re a lowly grad student, but your professor does because he’s a total rockstar).  To check in with your professor, you need to first formulate an idea, then do some amount of preliminary research to ensure that (should you be given the green light), this is a viable project in terms of the amount of work already done in the field.  In addition, you never want to walk into a professor’s office and sound completely “green”; knowing what you’re talking about (even if you don’t really know what you’re talking bout) is KEY in academia.

For some, this process  occur later in the semester than for others.  I personally like to start

Romantically, I would like to think that he NEVER had this problem. Realistically, he probably had it ALL THE TIME.

as early as I can.  While it is POSSIBLE for me to pump out a research paper in a month, ideally I like six to eight weeks to produce something complete, intelligible, and intelligent.  Especially when I’m working on multiple projects at the same time.

Which means that, now that I’ve done about half a semester’s worth of reading in each class, I now need to have something to say about it… something original, something ready to be backed by research, something that can sustain the breadth and depth of a twenty-ish page research paper.

This comes easier in some classes than others.  Sometimes I’ll have an idea going into a class.  Sometimes something will spark when doing class reading.  And sometimes I’ll be left with pen in hand, a blank screen, clutching my Norton fervently and paging through the reading furiously to try and eke something out.  Usually, I’ll have a fairly solid idea for one class, then something more amorphous for a second, and only the barest hint of concepts for the third.

This semester, for whatever reason, I’m feeling extremely pinched to come up with something worth exploring.

It’s not that my classes aren’t interesting or thought provoking.  It’s not that there hasn’t been enough reading to spur ideas from.  It’s certainly not that my professors are sub-par.  I think my current state is simply an immediate effect of second-semester burnout.  My mind has gone so numb with EVERYTHING I AM CRAMMING INTO IT EVAR! that original thought is almost beyond me at this point.

The worst part is that idea conception is probably one of my favorite bits about academia.  The creative spark is something that, as an artist, I’m always excited about.  There’s nothing quite like that moment when the lightbulb flicks on and a single idea snowballs into something feasible, even more interesting than you had initially thought, and something which you’re excited to share with the world at large (or at least your colleagues… or at the very least your professor).  I’ve been fascinated in recent years by the idea of structured creativity; the sort of artistry that an academic can bring to one’s work.

There’s no doubt that creativity is a must-have for my job.  The ability to think laterally is what makes a good researcher, a good idea-chewer, and a good scholar.  The ability to effectively communicate the culmination of this makes a good writer.  In order to be successful in this field, one needs all of these qualities.

Far too often, creativity is suppressed in the graduate student.  As I addressed in my post earlier this week, we are simply force-fed so much information that digesting all of it into one’s own self is simply impossible.  There is no way that I will walk out of this semester able to truly own the majority of what we’ve been given.  The best I can hope for is a lasting memory (aided by good notes) of the Wise Words of Wisdom my professors have uttered, a sense of the dominant theories we’re dealing with, and a few good papers which I can advance as personal projects.

Of course, that is, if I can come up with some brilliant ideas about what I should write.  Or

one of these! That's what I need!

even a starting place.  I’ll take a starting place at this point.

…maybe I just need a drawing board.  It can’t hurt, right?  I bet I could find room for one in my apartment…

To Liberty, not to Banishment!

Aside

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Today is an historic day my friends.

A day, as they say, that will live in infamy.  A day for the books.  A day to be celebrated.  A day of wonder and joy.

Today, I turn in the last two finals of my first semester.  Turn in.  Done.  Can’t look at them anymore, won’t look at them anymore, goodbye, see you next year, adios, hate to see you leave but love to watch you go.

I can’t say it hasn’t been a bumpy ride.  This semester has had its trials, its tribulations, its joys, its sorrows, its mysteriously unexplainable illnesses which the doctors are still scratching their heads over…

But I did it.  And I’m still standing (though barely due to aforementioned mysterious illness).  As of this afternoon, I will be free to enjoy a few weeks of working on other projects and reading things that I want to read before I dive back into the fray in January.

For now, let’s have a look at the things that I’ve done this semester.  A re-cap, if you will; a sentimental journey into the past three and a half months.

I have seen seven plays (not bad, but not great… will do better next semester).

I have read four leisure books (before you start casting aspersions, remember that this is reading I did when I wasn’t in class, sleeping, reading for class, researching, or writing papers.  Considering these books average about seven hundred pages a pop, I think that’s pretty darn good).

At the peak of my book hoarding, I had forty-seven simultaneously checked out library books.  Every semester, I mean to do a count of total books checked out but this isn’t as easy to manage as you may think.  I have a revolving door for library books and sometimes only keep a book for a single day before returning it… I really have to develop a more sophisticated tracking system.

I can’t even begin to approximate the number of pages I have read.  Again, every semester I mean to develop a system to figure this out (either to scare or impress myself, I’m not certain which).  I’m open to suggestions about either of these systems in hopes that next semester I can have an actual counter… and maybe a progress bar or something.

I have produced eighty-two pages of turn-in-able scholarly writing (if you think about that as a breakdown of pages per day I’m averaging 1.17 pages per semester day; not counting the blog or leisure writing.  That’s pretty darn impressive, if you ask me!).

I have conducted my first bit of research based in interviews with real live people.

I have produced my first bit of turn-in-able scholarly research based solely in archive work.

I have narrowly avoided being eaten by velociraptors.

I have landed my first gig writing something to be published (book review, forthcoming, not a huge thing but it’s definitely a start!)

I have, on the whole, survived, more or less intact.  This, again, is a gigantic feat.  For many days, my mantra was “don’t worry, you’re a first year, you’re only expected to survive.  Keep plugging.  Don’t fret.  Just keep going.”  Hey, look, with the strategic application of that mantra, I did survive!

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go turn in my last papers for the semester.  Then I’m going to go read something involving zombies and having no scholarly value whatsoever.  Then I’m going to watch a movie that has nothing to do with my research or area of expertise.

Winter break, she is here at last.

Toy Story

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I have a lot of things on my desk.

Oh of course I have the usual stacks of books, papers, sundry office supplies, pictures, etc. but in addition I have accumulated quite a few cute little desk decorations from one

Liberty Duck, Shakescat, Gargoyle, Cthulhu, and a few other friends in between

place or another.  There’s Shakescat (a gift from an old roommate), Baby Hatching Gargoyle (a gift from my grandmother when I opened my theatre company and she realized that our logo was almost exactly like this sculpture), chibi chtulhu (I made him.  He’s adorable.  Who doesn’t want an elder god on their desk?), statue of liberty duck (gift from my nearest and dearest), and, of course, a few requisite littlest pet shop sets.

Okay, fine, I admit to it.  I, as an adult, have purchased toys that I, as a child, would never have played with.  When we were kids, the littlest pet shop playsets were TINY (and probably all manner of choking hazards).  They also weren’t all that cute.  Have you seen them recently?  Now, they have big giant eyes.  Also, as far as I can tell, a sense of humor.  For instance: on my desk right now are a pirate parrot, a carrier pigeon in a mailroom, a cute little cow, and an owl in a library who wears glasses.

Now, I love my owl.  She’s adorable.  But she has this problem.  She doesn’t like to stay in her library.  She flies the coop at least three times a week, sometimes while I’m sitting at the desk.  I don’t really know what her end goal is other than SWEET SWEET FREEDOM

FREEEDDDOOOOMMMMM!!!

(…which I assume would be acquired if she ever got any further than the patch of desk just below her library… unfortunately, I’m pretty good at preventing owl escapes so she’s never seen the outside world).

I never really understood what her trouble was.  After all, she lives in a LIBRARY.  Why would she EVER want to leave?

…I’m getting to the place in the semester where I’m beginning to see her point.

I turned in my first PhD level paper the other week (in Chicago style, a first for me, and with pretty pretty diagrams!).  The sense of accomplishment I should have felt at plonking that stack on the professor’s desk was, unfortunately, dwarfed by the knowledge that this was only one down…. There were still two lurking on my own desk waiting for their share of my rapidly dwindling attention.

So here I am.  Stuck in this library.  Looking yearningly to the world that I know awaits

my first PhD level paper!

outside.  I leave on Thursday for a two-week vacation and, by that time, all of my coursework for my first semester of the PhD will be completed.  By that time, I will have shrugged the weight of these papers from my back.  By that time, I will be able to sleep soundly knowing that the pages are tucked in to good hands and awaiting critical commentary.  By that time, I will be done done done.

And it will be time to take off my glasses, and leap bodily out of the library.  Alright, owl, maybe you have a point.  There’s a time for reading, and there’s a time for liberating, and right now I smell that beauteous odor of freedom wafting through the open door.  A few more days… just a few more days.

A Plague on Both your Houses

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So I have this problem….(you know, I really wish I could go back through and easily determine how many blog posts I’ve written in the last year which begin with that phrase).

Inevitably, every year, no matter what else is going on in my life, no matter how well I’m handling things, no matter how tranquil I seem on the outside, I get sick during finals time.  If it’s a particularly stressful midterms time, I get sick then too.

I think the worst part is there is actually nothing I can do about this.  I am a healthy individual.  I work out regularly, my diet is bountiful with vegetables and lean proteins, I limit my carb and sugar intake, and I keep a good balance of work and fun in my life (it helps that I consider “going to the library” a “fun” activity).  I’m convinced that I could be the Buddha and still have this problem.  Even reaching a state of complete and utter spiritual nirvana would not save me from the finals crud.

Oh and even better than that; it’s not just normal sick.  Oh no.  That is FAR too maudlin for

Some year, it's going to be the zombie virus. My finals crud will be the start of the zombie holocaust.

this diva body apparently.  Every year I churn out a new and improved illness that is a perplexing case study for the medical profession at large.  I don’t just get a cold, I get the untreatable cold from hell that doesn’t respond to any medication (even symptom-relieving stuff that SHOULD WORK DAMMIT!).  I don’t just get a flu, I get the undiagnosable flu that Persephone got upon her first visit to the underworld and that’s why she had to eat the pomegranate because there was nothing else she could eat at the time and this flu has never since been heard from in myth or reality but oh man will it make some Medical Resident’s year that they have discovered another case of it!
Previous finals-time illnesses have included (but are not limited to): shingles (yes, people do get shingles… apparently the chicken pox virus attaches itself to your brain stem and outbreaks of shingles can be triggered by any number of things including stress), mono (yes, you can give yourself mono… all the bed-ridden splendor and none the fun-yet-apparently-not-required extracurricular activities that are supposed to precede it), and an undiagnosable eye problem which resulted in my vision fluctuating so wildly that I thought I was losing it and twelve (count them, TWELVE) trips to the eye doctor before they were able to figure out what the heck was going on.

So it just figures that, since I’m in the home stretch of finals, since my birthday is on Sunday and I have a full weekend of celebrating planned (including a requisite booze-a-thon which I will hopefully be able to participate in as my meds will have worn off by then), since I was handling things so well before some cosmic force decided to inexplicably add another thing on top of my teetering pile of stuff I’m juggling, I’m on day seven of the apparently untreatable illness from hell.

I’ve been two rounds of meds already for this (one the preliminary over-the-counter, the second prescription) and had my second doctor’s visit this morning (from which I emerged clutching a veritable atomic bomb of medication in hopes that this will clear things up).  I have missed a week at the gym, four pre-planned social activities, one day of classes, and countless hours of productive time at my computer spent otherwise curled up in a miserable ball on my couch.

There are few things more infuriating (and more devastating) than betrayal.  And the worst kind of betrayal is betrayal from the inside.  It’s not even like I can keelhaul my mutinous body for breaking down over something that my clearly superior mind had well in hand.

I’m working through the misery as best I can.  Really my body needs to recognize that slowing me down is doing it no favors as that simply makes me MORE rather than LESS stressed out.

I promise, body, there is a rest in your future…. Just not until after the holidays.  Stay with me for at least two more weeks, then at least you can collapse in a pile of mush for a few days before we sweep off to fulfill family obligations and spend the break making conference papers readable and getting a jump on the comps list and searching for publication venues and fellowship hunting…

….at least we can do most of that in our pajamas.  Pajamas, like muppets, make everything a little more tolerable.

A Special Kind of Hell

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I seem to have hit that special place in finals.

Here’s a convoluted mixed metaphor for you:

Kid's got it right....

Writing a paper is like birthing a baby.  At first you start with your research.  That little niggling idea at the back of your head that’s based on something which you think you know but really have only the slightest idea about.  Maybe you’ve babysat it in the past.  Maybe you’ve flirted with it while walking by on the street.  In any case, you know it exists, you know that other people have done something like it, but you’re ready to try it for yourself now.

So you research and you research and you go along at a fair clip and one day, you realize, this has taken over your life.  This is all you do.  The only thing you want to talk about is your paper.  The only thing you can think about is this thing.  And it’s stressful and time-consuming and you can’t imagine that it’ll ever be done, but there’s so much to do, and at the same time that deadline is looming Damocles-like over your head (no matter how far off it may seem).

And then, one day, you sit down at your desk for hours and you create.  You stack up your research, you write, you attempt to gain some semblance of hold over what it is that you’ve found over the past few months/years.  And at the end, exhausted and brain mushy, you collapse in your chair knowing that this is only the beginning.

Now it’s time to hone, refine, attempt to comprehend what you’ve created.  It’s still in its infancy so it takes some time and sensitivity to really understand the personality of what it is that you’ve made.  You need to listen, but at the same time be a bit harsh with it, but not too harsh because then you’ll just convince yourself that you suck at everything.  You need to know when it’s time to write and know when it’s time to quite for the day and understand that some days will be better than others.

You sit at the forge and hone.  You grind off the spiky edges.  You adjust the awkward bits.  You crouch over your work in the most uncomfortable positions at the most uncomfortable of times because it needs to be perfected and challenged.  It needs to have the right amount of pressure put on it, the right amount of heat put under it, and the right amount of nurturing added to it.

And one day you think you’ll never get through it and god why did you even start this

Ah yes, mister Greenblatt. Someday I will have your career. Somehow.

project it’s so inane how could you ever think this was interesting you suck you suck you suck.  And the next day you realize that this isn’t half bad, in fact, it’s quite good.  It could really turn into something.  And the next day you realize maybe it has become something.  Maybe it’s worth something.  Maybe this is the elusive bit of “work” that you’ve been striving after for your whole career.  Maybe this is what makes you the next Stephen Greenblatt.

And, at some point, you need to let go.  You need to say “I’ve done everything I can” and, even though you know your little fledgling paper isn’t perfect, it needs to go out into the world and prosper.  Well… at least you hope it’ll prosper because an entire semester’s or year’s or years’ worth of work is on the line here and if it doesn’t prosper then it’s just a giant waste of time and your time really means something and can’t the professor/the professional world see how important this is to you and to the academy at large?

I’m thick in the drafting process of two papers, the third is still broiling on the back-burner and will need to be drafted in the next week.  As such, I feel like I’m riding a roller coaster of textual uncertainty.  The highs, the lows, the long nights with the firm knowledge that my martini glass is the only thing in the world that understands me.  It really makes me feel alive.  And by “alive” I mean exhausted on every possible level; physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Just a heads up, if the world has something important or potentially spirit-crushing or even slightly unpleasant to tell me, it should wait a few weeks.  Telling me now will only warrant a sure-fire over-reaction resulting in shouting, tears, physical violence, or potentially all of the above.

At the same time, that ever-creeping light at the end of the ever-narrowing tunnel keeps getting closer.  I can almost feel it on my face.  Oh the glorious resplendence of a break!  The conference preparation, the fellowship applications, the book reviews I’ve been putting off writing, the search for CFPs, the revision of publishable material, the preliminary tackling of the comps list, the… oh hell who am I kidding.  Breaks don’t exist.  I’m a grown-up now.  I’m lucky if I get a few moments to glance mournfully at my knitting basket.

I guess my comfort lies in the fact that, despite all of this, I’m still happy with my life choices.  I guess I am doing something right.

In Which Our Hero Begins to Make Headway on the Deadly Homework Beast (and does so while looking fabulous)

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Annnnnnnddddd we’re back.

I hit the ground running this week as I spent about half of the long weekend working on finals and the other half doing a bit of relaxing.  As a result, I feel refreshed, invigorated, and in a great place to start the final finals crunch.

It’s funny, but in past years Thanksgiving break has never meant being on top of things.  Historically, it’s been a time where (if anything) I feel even further behind the giant homework snowball than usual.  This may be for a variety of reasons…

1)    I’ve never not worked before.  Ever.  This year, my fellowship is generous enough that I didn’t have to face the first-year-hell on top of viable employment and, being nothing but an opportunist, I jumped at that opportunity.  As a result, I actually had five solid days of not needing to be anywhere (except for obligatory family stuff).  As a result, I had time both to get work done and to relax.

 2)    Tufts, bless their bureaucratic institutional soul, allows us to turn in our finals during actual allotted finals week as opposed to on our last class.  The last class is usually around the second week of December.  Allotted finals time bumps right up against Christmas (my last final is due on the 21st).  That is a significant portion of time in which you no longer have class reading, you no longer have to be physically present in class, and you can simply devote to writing your finals.  Rutgers was a “last class final paper” kind of institution which did mean that my semester ended earlier, but also inevitably meant that I was a) working through my birthday and b) panicking at the tail end of Thanksgiving.

 3)    The liberal consumption of pecan pie and martinis.  Not necessarily together.  In past years, the pecan pie has (of course) been a staple of the thanksgiving table, but the appreciation of a good dry dirty vodka martini has eluded me until this very year.  Now I’m not entirely certain how I lived without them.

 4)    Disney movies.  Enough said.

 Oh, yea, and I attended Mostly Waltz (Boston) yesterday.

Let me take a moment to expound upon the wonders of social dancing.  My experience is in ballroom which, while not entirely out of place at Mostly Waltz, is very different styling from the folk/country/general social dance that most of the dancers there were versed in.  What this meant was an afternoon of, while being comfortable and confident on the dance floor, learning something new and exciting.  Social dancing is the essence of communication.  Without words, two people come together and create something.  A lead needs to be clear in his signals and a follow needs to be able to listen to those signals.  Moving together, the dancers need to understand what to give and take from each other so as to not find themselves in a giant mess.

There were fascinating people at this event; experts (of all ages) in Scandinavian dance, English country, Scottish country, contra dance, folk waltz, blues, all kinds of swing… and they were all there just for the sheer love of dancing.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a ballroom, but I’ve never felt more welcome or excited to be back.  People were gracious and generous with their time and knowledge, and I didn’t (even for a minute) feel judged about my lack of experience with their particular dance style.

Oh and music.  Did I mention live music?  LIVE MUSIC!  Incredible live music!

Waltzing is a bear necessity

I can’t go so far as to say that I’d recommend this event to dancers who have never danced before, but if you’re good at picking this sort of thing up (or brave, or have friends who would be willing to show you), you should definitely give it a whirl.  Unfortunately, they only dance once a month and the next won’t be until January… but it is totally worth the wait.

So my feet are aching like I forgot they would ache (it’s a different ache from general sore feet due to the parts of the foot which you use while dancing.  I’m just really glad that I have a pair of well-broken-in shoes so I’m not suffering dance blisters as well).  I seem to be winning the fight with the homework beast and, while it is not completely vanquished yet, I am definitely making headway in pushing it back into its cave to hibernate for the winter months.

And now for your viewing pleasure….

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOWC5zf8YMw]

Happy Monday, folks!!

Turkey Trot

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Ah Thanksgiving.  A time to relax, ponder those things in life which we are grateful for, eat some delicious food, take a nap after dinner, and spend time with the family.  It’s the little break before the last leg of the race.  Just a breather before we launch into the final stretch.

Almost there.

So close.

It’s dangling right over my head, I can see it, I just can’t quite reach it (even if I jump).

Panic?  … …. …. PANIC!!!!

At the end of the semester every semester (and sometimes at the beginning depending on

Desk avec whiteboard. It literally looms over me as I work.

how overwhelmed I’m feeling), I dig out my giant whiteboard.  I list all of the assignments standing between me and the semester’s end.  I list their due dates.  Then I make a big check-box for each of them.

The whiteboard’s been out for about a month now and, while I can see that I’m making headway on all of these things I have to do, the big three (namely: papers) are beginning to loom ever-more-menacing.

It’s funny because I kept telling myself that, since I didn’t have class this week, I could get SO MUCH DONE and be in the BEST SHAPE EVER for that final push.  Well…. It’s Thursday.  So far I have managed to chip away at things, but no great or drastic improvement yet.  I don’t feel armed for this fight, I’m still waiting for them to alter my chain mail to fit me since I’m not amazonianly proportioned and, oh wouldn’t you know it, they stopped making chain mail in “short and stumpy” so they’re going to have to custom it and can’t fighting that dragon just wait another week, because they’ve got all these backorders due to black Friday and nobody gets work done during the holidays so it’s either go out there unprotected or wait a bit longer to get suited up and darn doesn’t it look like whatever pivotal equipment they need is going to fail horribly just in time to make my life incredible inconvenient?

Anyway, enough about that.  Let me take a moment and bow to the wishes of today’s holiday spirit and put some positive juju out in the air in hopes that it will come back to me when I need it in these coming weeks.

Let’s start with a heart-warming Thanksgiving story.

I wasn’t going to go home for Thanksgiving.  Driving down to New York to have dinner with my family, while appealing, was simply going to take too long.  I couldn’t spend what would amount to three days away from my work at this critical time in the semester.  So I regretfully tapped out of family dinner and went to start making arrangements as to how I could find some turkey to eat at my desk with my man Will.

My family is pretty much the best, because they decided that this meant (since I couldn’t come to them) they would drive up to Boston to spend the holiday with me.  My mom’s bringing a full turkey dinner.  My dad’s bringing bags and bags of high quality whole-bean coffee that he can’t drink anymore due to health reasons.  My sister is bringing her lovely self.  I’m really excited to see them.

So, while I still got up early to bang some things out today, as soon as they get here I’m putting the books down for the evening and taking a mental vacation for twelve hours.  I don’t care how far back it’s going to set me.  I have a lot to be thankful for this year and that pumpkin pie isn’t going to eat itself.

Ah the turkey. Nature's ugliest animal. Eating them is like beautifying the world, one drumstick at a time.

If you, like me, are still sitting at your computer frantically trying to put your affairs in order, I hereby give you permission to set it by a while.  There’s nothing you can accomplish in this twelve-hour span that’s going to be more important, or more rejuvenating, than a good turkey dinner, some booze, and good company.  Think about how lucky you are to be in the program you’re in, thank the fellowship gods, and then forget about it.  Life’s too short to let finals stand in the way of enjoying dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  I’ll catch you on the flip side with tales of the bloody battle to come; honor and glory; valorous victory; crushing defeats; injurious blows; and how to avoid death by library books.

Stay tuned.