* This session proves more difficult than the previous one. The problem seems more logistic than material: while the coursework for these two classes combined to form Voltron are not significantly greater than last term's -- mostly it's the amount of reading, not the production of work -- I went into this term with my fuel cells depleted. The amount of energy I was able to (and did) marshal towards term 1 was prodigious, but it's not a level I have been able to maintain. The fear is that I won't be able to live up to the bar that was set previously, of course: I'm harder on myself than pretty much anyone else could be.

* Despite insomnia, both forced (caffeine) and involuntary (psychological), the amount of time my body tries to sleep continues to increase, seemingly unable to grasp that it won't stay asleep when it gets there. This, and the knotting of my muscles over the past week or so, convinces me that my stress is finally beginning to enter feedback stage. How this will affect me, given I seem to have pretty much no outlet for said stress, remains to be seen. I doubt it will make me rich and handsome.

* Speaking of which: there's no progress to speak of in terms of prospects for attractive company. Those tentative hopes I had have been swallowed by school. One of my cohort-mates, an older woman with whom I've had three of my four classes and who is part of the study/discussion group I started for the summer, has taken it upon herself in her own (misguided) fashion to spruce me up. The offer was made to take me for a haircut this weekend. This, folks, is an object lesson in What Not To Do When Trying To Help Neal. See, I couldn't care less about my hair, or much else appearance-related. I am who I am, and I think I do a better job of being who I am than most people do. (Either at being themselves, or at being me. It's a qualification issue.) My polite explanation of why I would be declining her offer went along the lines of, "Anyone who wouldn't pay attention to me the way I look now, but would pay attention to me with some sort of makeover, isn't someone I'd want to have around anyway." And it's not as though I look bad. Really: for all the self-esteem issues I have ever had, that's actually not much of a problem at this time. I look the way I look because I want to, and because I really don't give a toss. My classmate offered, by way of introduction, that as far as she's concerned, my personality and other ephemeral qualities are "perfect", and she thinks I just need to be more presentable or something. And I understand why she says that - it's the way the world is. There are plenty of people out there who succumb to shallow or superficial when they ought to pay closer attention to the person and not the package. But it's all academic (ha ha) anyway, since anyone around here who's caught my eye already will be gone by next month. Timing has apparently become my nemesis over the past couple of years.

* Once classes are over (after the first week of August), I'll be back in Ashland/Huntington to pack up belongings still in storage and schlep them up here to my new apartment. The address is forthcoming - while I now know exactly where I'll be, that information isn't particularly relevant for another couple of weeks, so I'll hold onto it.

* I've discovered a new, unexplored territory within my depression. If I go far enough into it and poke around, there's this one little corner where I just don't want anything at all. I believe the clinical term is anhedonia; while it hasn't been much of a symptom of previous episodes (other than the general dulling of sensation that occurs with cyclo/dysthymia; I typically crave sensation and seek more), this intrigues the purely analytical portion of my brain. It seems to be telling me that the ability to shut off desire for physical sensation could be useful. And I can't argue with it, except to say that since I don't quite know how it works, I would like to know if I could turn it back on again afterwards, since I probably would want to do so (as troublesome as it tends to be).

* "Two more weeks" is the constant mantra around here. I prefer to think, "I only have two more weeks to do everything?"

* The comprehensive exam workshop yesterday was a disaster par excellence. The outgoing and incoming directors of the program were both gone, as was the secretary, so the largely unqualified faculty member in charge of the information session didn't have enough copies of the handout for everyone (nor could he make more - I had to run to the library and make several more on my own dime for people I knew who didn't get it), especially given that we were promised free food (the sure-fire way to get graduate students to do anything) which showed up forty-five minutes late. After the session, while everyone went to chow down, I did my boy scout routine and made the extra handouts; when I returned, most of the food was already gone and people had sectioned off into their own little cliques. There weren't even any chairs left to sit in. I just handed out the papers without saying much and then walked back to my room to have a sandwich. I'm too damn nice for my own good, really. Not to mention the session was an hour-long jazz improvisation on the phrase "everyone's exams are different". Brilliant. I could have stayed home altogether if I'd known how uninformative this information session would be.

If you're in need of a subject line, you could do worse than pulling a line from a song by Hum.

I'm going to be in Huntington this weekend. The plan is: arrival sometime tomorrow afternoon, spend some time at Danzig Corridor before going to the Atkinson domicile. Saturday, there will be retrieval of materials from storage with the family (and, probably, the inevitable family interaction), but I will be mostly free for food and hanging out and the like. Sunday morning I make the return drive.

Begin emergency preparations now.