So for those of you just joining the show, I should explain that this particular blog started up as a way for me to keep in touch with people (mostly my mom and little brother, let's be honest) while I was in Europe this summer. This fact may help to explain the first 15 or so posts, ahaha. And when I decided to start blogging again in general it seemed easier to pick this one back up than to start all over again.

Today was tutorial day. Once a week I teach two tutorials for a second-year class on Greek and Roman mythology. This, dear readers, is a topic that I really don't know a whole lot about. I mean, I know as much as the average person, probably a little more, purely due to osmosis. But I am in no way shape or form anything approximating an expert in the field, so basically I spend an entire morning every week trying to play catch-up so that my large gaps of ignorance shall not be revealed come tutorial time. This week was the Hymn to Demeter, one of the Homeric Hymns (which JUST FOR FUN are not in fact by Homer).

....so, it is now a week exactly since I wrote the above. This is not setting a good trend for my general diligence in attending to this blog, is it. I am presently sick as a dog and dreaming lovingly of the days when I would just dope myself up with dubious and ill-thought-out cocktails of Sudafed and Advil Cold and Sinus and whatever other decongestants/painkillers happened to be sitting around the house. (I remember one day in particular when I went into work at Tims in Saskatoon in the midst of a raging cold and took so many medications immediately pre-shift that I rendered myself high as a kite. In particular I remember making an ice-cap at the ice-cap machine and thinking very clearly that I had better go sit down in the back because I was feeling VERY ODD INDEED.) Anyway, those happy golden days are behind me as I struggle by on plain old Tylenol and the occasional throat lozenge. So it goes.

K, I am going to post this before I forget again. Kudos to you if you have made it this far.

What I look like today.

The Thesis is becoming concretely terrifying now. I alternate between feeling grimly hopeful that I can finish it in time and blind panic over how little time I have left. This latter is usually accompanied by feelings of black self-loathing for having let things get to this point. What have I spent the last month/two months/five months doing? And if I've done nothing up to this point what reason do I have to think that things will magically improve? I'm panicking a little even as I write this. But I keep ending up at: I have no choice. I've got to finish. Even if this is the sorriest, shortest, most incoherent thesis ever to hit a committee, I've got to hand SOMETHING in. I've got to get done. Not just because of the baby (although it would sure be nice to be done with it by the time that happens) but because I've pretty much stacked all our cards on getting accepted and funded somewhere fall. Which can't, obviously, happen if I haven't finished my degree here by then.

And there's also just being disappointed with myself. Seriously. I KNOW BETTER. That's the worst of it. I know better.

Anyway, that's that. The good news is that it looks like we will have a buyer for at least some of our furniture, come summer/moving time. Thank God...I am spared at least from having to parcel EVERYTHING WE OWN off on Craigslist, piece by piece. Now it will just be half of everything we own. Hah. If anyone wants anything in my apartment: please notify me. I'm only half joking. On a related note, I need those people from Hoarders to come go through my stuff/fix my life.

So I think I'm going to start this up again. It occurs to me (yes, now, after living away from North Battleford for eleven years and away from Saskatoon for two) that if I want people to be a part of my life for more than the ships-passing-in-the-night Once A Year Visit, then I should perhaps take steps to stay connected with people a little better. And since I am not really a phone person, and never get around to writing letters, however much I like the idea of them--well, a blog might be one place to start.

The problem is always with thinking of something to write about. Once our kid is here that will be a constant source of amusement/terror, I have no doubt, so I will be able to write lots about that (thereby transforming into the dreaded Mom Who Can Talk About Nothing But Her Offspring). But since it's not doing anything noteworthy as of yet (not even kicking--I apparently have the world's laziest child) I will have to get through at least a few months here on my own steam.

Will be back once I've thought of something to write about.