Ummmm... what's your name again?

I know, I know. It's been a very long time since I last blogged. But I have a much good reason. I've been writing my comprehensive exams. This is a week long set of exams that I need to get an A on in order to get my Ph.D. Because apparently getting straight A's and scholarships for the last NINE years isn't enough proof for them that I am smart. Apparently, they need me to sit down and write 5 essays in a week to prove it one... more.... time. Gug. Anyway, that's what I've been doing. I've had four panic attacks, two of which occurred in public. And a had a half a panic attack when I was handing my work in. I started frantically checking my essays to see that I had all the pages, that the pages had staples, that I was wearing underwear, that it was actually Tuesday and not Monday, that dog was still god spelled backwards etc. The elderly woman next to me on the subway was sort of looking so I said "I'm handing in my exam and must check it obsessively." She smiled and said, "yes, I know, I was young once too." I said, "I go crazy checking it over and over." and she said "You're not the only one who does it." I love that lady. She made my chest stop pounding for 4 whole subway stops and made me feel slightly less alone in the mad, crazy universe of the subway panic attack.

Anyway, during the last week, I've spent about 12-14 hours a day writing the essays. Saturday night, day 5 of the exam, I decided that at 8:00 I would stop and not do anymore work for the rest of the night. Mark and I tried to rent a movie but there was nothing good out. And nothing good on tv. So I thought, hey, maybe I'll read a book. And then I threw up a little in my mouth at the thought of stuffing anymore knowledge into my head. So then I thought, I know, crossword puzzle. And I pulled out my word puzzle book (yes, I have a word puzzle book. Several actually. Yes, I'm a geek). I flipped through and was feeling vaguely panicked by the challenging stuff so I decided on a nice simple word search. You know, where you find the words hidden in the random letters. They used to have them in Chickadee magazines when you were five or sometimes you'd get them at the dentist with words like "floss" and "toothbrush" hidden amongst a page of q's and z's. My point is, it's as easy as the word puzzle gets.

Anyway, I lasted TWO WORDS before my brain threatened explosion and I had to stop. It turns out, I had pushed the old computer to the limit and it was heading toward the picket line (Hey, I like to mix my metaphors!). The only thing I could handle was tv. And not even watching a show. Just flipping through the channels. For two hours. Just me and the remote while Mark sought refuge downloading music online. Two hours of flip... flip...flip... Then I was tired and I went to bed.

Anyway, my brain is coming back today. Enough that I realized I wrote in my paper that the case study woman was emotionally liable instead of emotionally labile. I'm just going to have to hope the examiners don't read it too closely. In case I haven't written about this in the past, I should make it clear here, I HATE SCHOOL. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
GAA! GAA! GAA! GAA! And yes, that is the way I'll explain it once I'm Dr. Ross, too.