It's the freakin' weekend!!

Text message I just sent to Kymberli: "According to him we're going to be 'best friends' at Thanksgiving. Naturally, I assume that means we're going to sleep together."
Sometimes I crack myself up!

I'm so glad it's the weekend. I said I wasn't going to do any schoolwork after my scene today, but I actually lied. First of all, I forgot that I actually had to sit through my 3 hour Drama Research class tonight after turning in my paper. And then the class actually got me kind of excited about the idea of submitting papers for conference and publication so when I got home tonight I searched the Internet for calls for papers, and actually found a couple of debut scholar panels that could potentially accept my paper. One of them is for the Texas Educational Theatre Association conference in January in Austin, which would be incredibly convenient, obviously, because I wouldn't have travel expenses. The other one I'm looking into is the Mid America Theatre conference, which would be in Chicago in March. And there's an international theatre conference in Helsinki, Finland in August that also includes a debut scholars panel, but as awesome as that would be I don't think I'll apply for that one since it would put me in Finland right up until the day before Katy's wedding and obviously that just won't fly. It might be stupid to make a decision that could potentially affect my career just to be part of a wedding, but that's just how much I care about Katy. She is more important than Finland!
Of course, this is assuming that anybody actually wants to publish my papers/ invite me to present at conferences, which at this point seems like such a long shot to me. I just can't imagine people reviewing my paper and wanting to do anything more than laugh at me and pat me on the head with a condescending look. Plus there's the fact that I have only actually written one major graduate level research paper so far. My second paper is just a 200 word abstract with a professor's scrawled comments all over it at this point. Oh, and this is assuming my professors here even approve of my papers. Obviously if they don't like them then submitting them to anyone is utterly pointless.
It's kind of scary, this whole paper thing. The paper that I turned in today feels like the first big step down my ultimate career path. I feel like if I don't get a paper published or speak on a conference panel by the end of this school year I'll really need to rethink my goals. And that makes me so nervous. People have always told me I have a talent for writing*, and so far my professors here seem to think so as well. But I just worry that perhaps everyone is lying to me and that after all of this build-up and "Yes, you have the skills to do this," and "You will get a teaching job somewhere," that I'll fall flat on my face. And I won't even be expecting it because ever since I picked this career path I've been told that yes, this is something I'm capable of doing well. So yeah. It's scary. But kind of exciting at the same time.

Anyway, today was fun. I had lunch with my grandparents and with my grandma's sister and her husband, and it was nice. Nothing really notable happened (which is surprising, considering my grandpa was involved) but I enjoyed myself.

Now it's time to eat candy and chill and watch television and be a bum until Sunday. Sweeeet.

*Please don't take this journal as an actual indication of my writing abilities or intelligence because, good lord, have you read this thing?!