Let the Nail Biting Begin!

The online applications for the two California schools have been submitted. Tomorrow the paper portions of those applications will be put in the mail. Now that those two applications are finished, I've basically done everything I need to do for three of the four other applications, so I'll probably try to get those ones in the mail by late next week. And then it's just a matter of finishing the super long shot application, which involves writing an actual paper specifically for the application. Thankfully that one isn't due until February so I can procrastinate a bit longer.

And then it's time to just sit and wait. I have to say, I honestly don't feel very confident and hopeful about all of this. I also know that as much as I say I don't care all that much and will just keep trying until I do eventually get in somewhere, I know that I will be pretty bummed if I don't get any offers. Still, if I don't get any offers I'll chalk it up to my path lying elsewhere, at least temporarily. The world of academia is pretty cutthroat and maybe trying to work towards a tenure-track position is not necessarily the path I take if I want to do the marriage-and-family thing eventually anyway. I don't know. There could be something else out there for me if this doesn't pan out.

That's the frustrating part of all of this, of course. The not knowing. You all should know by now that I HATE not knowing what is going to happen to me. I can deal with whatever the outcome might be, I just want to know what it's going to be one way or the other as soon as possible. I had one of my mini melodramatic fits about the uncertainties of my love life tonight. You know, whining about how I'm going to be alone forever and be the crazy lady with the basset hounds and have to get one of my gays to knock me up just so I can have some semblance of a family. That fit. Which was a nice change from this week's main theme, which has been the "I'm never going to get a theatre-related job and the past six years of school will have been a huge waste because I'm going to spend the rest of my life as a cynical bartender, thank God I didn't actually have to shell out any of my own money for this useless education" fit. The question, of course, is why can't I just chill the fuck out and stop worrying about the future all together? But I can't stop worrying about it. Because apparently that's what I do, I worry. Which is not to say I'm walking around all the time with this cloud of doom hanging over my head worrying about the future and never actually enjoying the hear and now. Because I do enjoy the present very much. Especially lately. But I guess it all boils down to the fact that I'm just too pragmatic to ever really forget that that the future is rapidly bearing down on me and I can't stop it. Besides, I was the girl who started having panic attacks worrying about her own death at the ripe old age of SEVEN, so none of this should be surprising to me.

(I no longer have panic attacks when thinking about my own death, just so you know. I haven't had one for years now. Not because I've actually learned to stop fearing death, but because I've learned how to shut that portion of my brain down when I feel a panic attack coming on. So that's progress, at least. Also, I've always been skilled at confining panic attacks to the privacy of my own bedroom late at night, and I'm also not so sure that these are actual panic attacks in the true sense of the word anyway. Uhuh. Anyway. Moving on before you all think I'm totally crazy.)

Speaking of the future, I have an 8-page paper and a presentation due on Thursday, and have I started writing the paper? Nope. Have I started outlining the paper? Nope. Do I even know exactly what my topic is going to be? NOPE! Seems like every semester I have to push the envelope just a bit more in terms of how much I can procrastinate and still actually complete all of my work. In this case it isn't helping at all that I got a 99 on our last test and can get a 65 on both the paper and the presentation and still end up with an A in the class. So since I'm aiming for like, C-calibur work I don't exactly feel like this is something I need to worry about. But I'm sure I'll be cursing my decision around this time tomorrow night as I gradually realize I'll be staying up all night to finish the damn thing. But hey, Thursday night this semester is over!