I Should Be Writing...

but I need to vent.

I tendered my re-write to my friend Kristi last night. I told her that it wasn't COMPLETE, but I wanted to get her thoughts on it before I went completely down one road, only to find out that it was the wrong damn road. About half an hour later, she emailed me back, said my rewrite was much improved, made some suggestions, and had made a few edits.

I made supper, watched some television, and then I sat down to work again. Of the four things Kristi wanted me to work on, I worked on two of them. At 3:00 a.m., I finally called it quits, decided to sleep on the other two and finish them this morning. I figured I could do them today, she could review it today, we could polish over the weekend, and I could send everything in on Monday. Done!

So, right before I went to bed, I looked up the application checklist. And I discovered that the essay question has been changed from when the chair of the programme emailed it to me on 03 November. So... that's exciting. I had a dream about it this morning. In my dream, I went to the school to talk to the chair about it. But I ran into one of the deans instead. And she asked me about the Olympics. And I ranted about Team ROK getting screwed by the judges in speed skating.

Anyway, first thing this morning, I drafted an email to the chair, and then I called Kristi to read her the email. I wanted to make sure it didn't sound hostile or whiny. Basically, I'm just stating that I've nearly finished the answer to the essay question she emailed me, but just last night discovered the new question. So do I need to reposition the essay to fit the new question. I got an immediate response: She'll be out of the office until next Tuesday.

So Kristi said I just need to suck it up and start re-writing. We worked on an outline, and she gave me a deadline of Sunday to get her a good draft. We have a goal of getting this in the mail by Tuesday.

I'll start working when I finish crying. Mostly it's just sheer exhaustion at this point. I asked Kristi if getting the actual doctorate is this difficult every day (yes, I know it's difficult overall - duh), and she said it's different because if you miss on a paper, it's not as if they won't let you back into class the next day. This is to get in; thus, more pressure. Right.

UPDATE: I just received an email back from the chair. "The website is wrong. Please use the question I sent you."

I need a drink.