Insomniacs

Spring semester: day forty-four

Today is the "last" day of the university's spring break; however, I still have four more days off -- today, tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday -- and in that time I still have a lot to do.

Break has gone quickly because I've been burying myself, daily, in my readings and studyings -- emerging for but a few hours a day to be social with Daisy (or anyone else) and take care of stuff around the house. I am, however, happy to report that I am on schedule with those readings and studyings, though it's come at the cost of me being able to enjoy my free time or be able to get any real, normal sleep. As I write this, it is 4:49 AM, and I am just now beginning to be able to wind down enough to go to bed. I don't like this pattern; in four days, my sleeping schedule is going to come back to bite me in the ass, and that I can't really avoid.

I think I look like hell, though Daisy says otherwise -- my eyes are sunken into my head, my hair is raggy and stringy no matter how much I sleep or shower, and since I've shaven it's taking a long time for the stubble to grow back in thickly, so I look like a bum. I am, however, in mostly good spirits -- I'm glad my studies are coming along well, and if I get a burst of energy over the weekend I'd like to finish them early if at all possible. That would allow me to be able to fully relax and recharge my body and mind before returning to campus on Tuesday morning.

I left the house today for the first time since I'd returned home last week from school (or at least I think it's the first time, I can't remember; over break, nights and days all blend together) and got some groceries and gas in the car this evening. It wasn't absolutely necessary to do so today, but since Tuesday the weathermen here have been rumbling about a snowstorm that's supposed to hit sometime over the weekend, and I wanted to get what I needed (cigarettes and cat stuff, including their food and litter) while I had the chance. I'm glad I did; earlier tonight they've finally confirmed that we're going to get some sort of major winter storm tomorrow afternoon all the way into Sunday, and are predicting snow totals for my area (as well as Wichita) of anywhere between 3 and 8 inches. I've not been paying close attention to it, of course, because of my studies, and it doesn't affect me much anyway -- I'll be doing nothing but those studies all weekend, and have plenty of food and supplies here at the house now. By Tuesday it should all be cleared off enough to go to school, so...really...I don't care. I know that may sound weird from me as I'm a weather nerd of sorts, but I have more important shit to worry about and take care of right now.

My parents didn't get to send me my box on Monday, but my mother did confirm to me that it went out yesterday and should arrive here by Monday. I told her that was good, as the weather's been nice and there shouldn't be anything to hold it up. And then, twelve hours later, we get the forecast for a snowstorm. Oops. Who knows. What I do know is that it's spring now, officially, and I washed/changed the bedsheets and blankets to reflect that. If I can finish my studies with time to spare, I'll switch out most of my wardrobe as well by the end of the weekend. Screw snowstorms; it's almost April, and that means it should be 70-80 degrees here every day, and soon.

There is some news on the school front, however; we have gotten our schedule for comps. I will be taking mine on Friday, April 5 (which means I don't have to cancel classes). Jay takes them at the same time I do, as well. The comps last all day, and we're to be at the testing center by something like 8:45 in the morning. That's not a huge deal, but it means the night before I basically have to come home from classes on Thursday afternoon at noon, go the fuck to sleep for as long as possible, then get up and cram/refresh myself on all of my notes (once more, as I will have been doing that for a good three or four days prior) before heading to campus to spew it all back out onto an exam for the majority of the day. But, after that, I'll be done. I'll be done with my Master's degree education. And the month remaining in the semester can be focused on my students and on trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with my life after I get that very expensive and time-consuming piece of paper that says I have a Master's degree. Going into that exam, though, I'm either going to be a crazy nervous wreck or I will be incredibly calm and Jedi-focused. Again, I've been told numerous times that the comps are made out to be much harder than they actually are, but I don't know whether to believe that. Though I consider myself quite intelligent in a large number of different fields, I hate exams, and especially hate essay exams. I'd so much rather be allowed to write three different twenty-page papers, each comparing two poets' works and/or styles, than go take a blind essay test.

As I've told Daisy, and as I've mentioned here, my comps work has consumed me -- all of the days are blending together, poets and readings and notes are all blending together, and I'm getting fatigued of reading hundreds of pages every day to fulfill a requirement that is incredibly outdated and unnecessary anyhow, especially for MFA students. If I wanted to read hundreds of pages per day, I would've been a lit major. But I'm not; I'm in a program that's supposed to strengthen and fine-tune my writing, not my studies of dead white men and their lamentations on life, death, nature, religion, and mythology (read: the continual, and mostly universal, running themes through everyone's poetry I've been reading this week). And really, all I want to be doing in my last semester of grad school is to be wrapping everything up, getting enough sleep, paying the bills and taking care of my students' grading and papers, and enjoying myself a little bit during what may be the last spring break I ever get, as teacher or student.