Bit of Ivory

Why am I nervous? Because I’m taking the GRE Literature Subject Test tomorrow, that’s why!

And it’s up on the University of Utah campus, which I don’t know AT ALL, and I’m so freaked out about parking regulations up there (the longer I looked, the more confused I got) that I decided to take the light rail instead, which means I have to make sure I make it to the train on time. And I’m not a morning person, so the idea of trying to think that early in the morning is making me nervous. And I’ve studied a little, but how in the heck do you study for a 270-question spot-the-quote kind of test that covers all of British and American literature plus the Bible and selected World Literature? You can’t.

If I don’t do well on this test, well, I can probably kiss my PhD aspirations goodbye.

So. Wish me luck, folks.

For the first time in 5 years, BYU beat Utah! In a last-minute (literally, we had 3 seconds left to run our last play) come-from-behind waaaaay-too-close-for comfort touchdown pass, BYU BEAT UTAH, 33-31.

I’m so happy, I could cry.

Do you know why I’m so cool? I just replaced the keyboard on my laptop that had a broken shift key with the new one that Dell sent me (I only requested it yesterday afternoon, and it arrived at 8:00 this morning!) all by myself. Me! Through my own unaided efforts, I performed surgery on my laptop! So now I have a shiny new keyboard (the typing action is a bit different, will have to get used to that), and my shift key works just great, so I don’t have random 1’s showing up where I mean to have !’s. So life is good.

Except for still being crazy, crazy busy. Even with this whole week off from school (whoot!) I’m still scrambling to find enough time to get stuff done. So, that’s why I haven’ t been posting. Of course, it doesn’t help that I keep getting distracted by adorable babies. Anna turned 4 months old yesterday, is now able to roll over from her back to her stomach, and has the cutest little personality. here’s a link to a video I took of her a month ago (on her 3 month birthday, actually). It’s short, so go take a look and die of the cuteness.

I haven’t been able to see Thomas as much as I’d like, since he lives in Provo and we’re in Murray. I have dropped by after my classes are done, but 20 minutes twice a week is not enough! He’s such an adorable little boy. I still haven’t had time to upload the pics I took of him on his birthday to the web. In an effort to reduce the space I’m taking up on my laptop’s harddrive, I’ve migrated my pictures to my desktop. This is a good idea in theory, but it practice it isn’t so great, because I spend so little time on my desktop. I’ll try to do it after Thanksgiving. In the meantime, here’s a pic of him that my brother-in-law took. Look at how tiny his mouth is! It’s so cute!

Not going to London. I’m not too extremely disappointed, as I made it a point not to get my hopes up. But still. Yet another instance of “you’re good, but not good enough.”

I’m getting really sick of this.

With taking the lit GRE on December 5 (luckily they had space for me at the Salt Lake testing center, so I don’t have to drive to Cedar City) and continued writer’s block– December graduation is not happening. So I was aiming for April instead, until–

the graduate secretary sent an e-mail around listing the TA and RA opportunities for Winter semester and Spring and Summer terms. And I saw that there’s a TA position open for London Study Abroad this summer.

GAH.

The stipend wouldn’t cover the program costs, so it’d still be $3000 to do it. But dude– I’d get to spend almost 2 months in London. The professor going from the English department is Dr. Mason, my Jane Austen teacher and one of my biggest supporters and mentors. There’s also a professor teaching British History, and if I got the job, I’d be TAing for both of them. I’d be leaving the end of June and coming back middle of August. Which would be tight if I’m starting a Ph.D program next fall (which I hope to). I’d also have to delay my graduation until August. It would also mean that it’d be more difficult to get a job between January and June. Which I desperately need to do, because I’m pretty darn broke.

It’d be crazy for me to do it. But I want to SO BAD.

I will anyway, though, I guess. The gist of the matter is that I’m buried under schoolwork (both thesis and assignments from class), still suffering from the writers block that has plagued me for the past, oh, year and a half, praying I’ll get everything done in order to actually graduate in December, and seriously reconsidering this whole grad-school thing.

Which, of course, is why I just registered (and paid $130) to take the GRE Literature Subject test on December 2, in preparation for applying to Ph.D programs.

. . .

Yeah. I’m completely nuts.

At least I get to play with my Utah HP peeps tomorrow, including (for a short while!) my favorite cricket, JiminyC. Can’t wait!

Thanks to all for the good advice! I’ve been doing much better the last couple of days. Although I’m still hungry sometimes, it’s not overwhelming, and I’ve been better at budgeting my points so that I have a few left over at the end of the day for when I inevitably get munchy. Although last night, I took a different approach. My mom made spaghetti (she halved the amount of meat she usually puts in it, which lowered the sauce by 2 points and didn’t change the taste at all!), and I budgeted points for two cups of whole-wheat spaghetti instead of just one. It was a nice, filling meal, and I didn’t need a snack the whole rest of the night!

Tonight, by contrast, I’m snacking like mad. I had 5 points left after dinner, so I’ve had a bag of 100-calorie Pop Secret (pretty good, actually) and a Blue Bunny Healthy Smart Fudge Pop (which calculated at 0 points, but I’m counting half a point just to be sure, and it’s made with Splenda and so is nummy!). That still leaves 2.5 points I get to think of a way to consume, plus I’ve got 2 Activity Points from doing 30 min. on the elliptical this morning (I did 30 min. yesterday, too). And I’ve still got 27.5 points left in my weekly allowance! I’m saving that for the weekend, though. I’ve got a baby shower on Saturday and I want to be able to eat whatever goodies my family cooks up for it. I’m also drinking more water and taking my multivitamin.

In non-weight-loss news, today in my class (which is Rhetorical Criticism, incidentally) we talked about the Neo-Sophist Rhetorical critics. It’s so funny to see how much all the disciplines are really coming together and influence each other. For example, my friend Kat is getting a Ph.D studying what she calls Stylistics, which from what I gather is studying literature from a linguistics point of view. Of course, rhetorical criticism studies literature from a rhetorical point of view, which is obviously language-based. So the two disciplines are actually doing the same thing, they’re just calling it different things.

In any case, it was fun to discuss ideology and its influence on rhetoric (and vice-versa) and shocking my class with the news that I’d written a 13-page paper on how the Sorting Hat is an Ideological State Apparatus. You’ll be able to read that paper in the October issue of Scribbulus, incidentally. I think I’ll have a whole-wheat English muffin with peanut butter. Or maybe raspberry jam.

Oh! I know! Peanut butter on one half, raspberry jam on the other. . .

So. I started Weight Watchers yesterday. I’m doing the online version ’cause I hated going to the meetings the last time I tried it. And. . . I’m hungry. I always get munchy late at night, and, of course, it’s a carb-kind of munchiness. But I’m determined to stick this out. I weigh more now than I have my entire life, and considering the fact that my relatives are getting diagnosed with diabetes right and left, I definitely need to get this under control.

In other news, I got my car back on Saturday. My parents had to drive to Beaver at 7:30 in the morning in order to pick her up, but she’s back, and I love her! *hugs Lizzy*

I uploaded some pics that were taken of Anna yesterday (I took some of them, my SiL took the rest). Just so you can see how cute she is.

All of the pics can be seen here.

I should write about how my car broke down on Sunday leaving us stranded in a gas station for three hours and how it’s still not fixed, and still sitting in that gas station 250 miles away.

Or maybe I should write about how school started this week and how my class is going to be difficult but fun.

Or how about I recap my efforts to do research for my thesis, and all that I read just tells me how much more I should probably read before I actually do much more writing.

Or I should write about my adorable niece and how cute she is now that she’s 7 weeks old, posting pictures to prove my point.

Or maybe I could talk about the first BYU home football game tomorrow and how excited I am for football season.

But all I really want to do is surf the internet, reading meaningless drivel or playing stupid games.

Sometimes, I hate myself.