Well it's finally hitting me; the reality of my endlessly sleeping little friend. Somehow thoughts of her are hopelessly intertwined with my cockatiels and a trip to see them today set off the first wave. I had to pull over to the side of the road I was sobbing so hard. My young friend is gone, but she's not gone. I can go see her whenever I want, but she's not a part of my life anymore in so many important ways. And my little feathered friends are also gone but not gone. I can visit them, too, but they are no longer mine in the way they were.
They knew each other; she often took care of my birds for me when she lived nearby. Her cockatiels remembered mine when they met at our vet, after a separation of 6 years! Her birds say my birds names. I can't imagine she would approve of my bird trading this past week... and it happened within 24 hours of her fall into slumber. What does that mean?
I find when I feel sad about them it triggers my grief for I. I even caught myself toying with the thought that I could take them back and then... then what might happen to I? Would she come back too? Magical thinking. Or is that the B in DABDA?
Do I need to let go of both them and her, or is it the opposite? Or is her negative loss compensated by the positive gain of their loss, since theirs was for everyone's well being? But their loss to me doesn't feel all that positive. As a matter of fact I feel like a lump of stinking shit for giving them away. I have no idea if this is the right choice. It was a choice, and maybe it was a better choice than staying together when we were less than happy. What choices will be made about my young friend? Will they be the right ones? My kingdom for a crystal ball...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Freaking Out.
This is SOOO horrific I'm not sure what to do with it. The daughter (I) of a friend of mine (M) just dropped dead in a parking lot at 16 years old. No drugs, no health history, just ran out of the sandwich shop where she was working to catch a guy who'd left his gameboy and didn't come back in. When they went looking for her she had no pulse or respiration. Her hands were blue but her face was still normal color. The paramedics got her heart started just as they got to the hospital, but she's been unresponsive since. Truth be told, I don't even know if she's alive today.
The whole thing is like some sort of nightmare I can't wake up from. I cannot even imagine what M and her husband are going through. They already lost one child to a congenital heart condition (not genetically based) so it's just frigging WRONG that they might lose another child when she was completely healthy as far as anyone knew.
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UPDATE: I spoke with M this morning and learned that I has been been moving around and making some vocalizations since this happened; more and more as time goes on. She's opened her eyes a few times, mostly when she coughs, but is clearly not seeing anything. M says she seems to respond to friends and to music the most. Her movements are strange and not like what the medical staff has seen before, but M has been told that there is no reason I cannot recover. That said; there is no guarantee that she will, either.
M says the more people who visit, the better as far as she's concerned, since I seems to respond to people she knows. She's had a veritable parade through all week and people have been coming forward to watch her at night so M can sleep. M is unwilling to leave I's side in the event she wakes up and is frightened and confused.
I'm going to go over in a little while and pay a visit.
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UPDATE #2:
Went to see her yesterday and found an amazing number of people there. She appears to be coming 'out' of her coma a little more each day. Not all of her movements are involuntary now, and when I was there she opened her eyes at a time when I was very animatedly telling a bird story. She definitely tracked my voice and movements. They said she'd done that before, but this was the most focused and the longest yet. She acts frustrated, periodically kicking her feet or pushing someone away with one hand. Non symmetric movements like that the medical staff says are definitely voluntary. She has quite a devoted following of boys, though she has no boyfriend. One young man has been by her side the entire time and by now looks as if he must be a trained nurse! Another boy just heard yesterday and insisted on spending the night last night, just holding her hand. But she has made herself loved in all walks of life it seems, because there was a steady stream of adults coming to see her as well, many of whom her parents didn't know. her dad is good about meeting each new visitor in the hallway outside ICU and preparing them for what they will see. I can see how it would be very disturbing to someone unfamiliar with how 'active' a coma state can be.
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One more UPDATE:
Well the news is grim. The CT scan done when I first came in didn't show anything, but just yesterday she finally stabilized enough to do an MRI. It showed that she had suffered massive strokes on both sides of her brain due to anoxia. Based on the statistics available, which are pretty much entirely about adults, she has almost no chance of recovery. However I is NOT an adult and the local neurologist, as well as a consulting neurologist both suggest that some change my come with time as her brain attempts to heal itself. her parents want to take her home once she is prepped for long term care. M is already talking about looking outside the United States to see what is being done with stem cell research that might apply here. The consulting neurologist said she would help them with that.
I won't post more here unless something significant happens, but I really appreciate the support this week. Thank you!
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Update #4: (8/8/8)
They moved her down south to a place near where her half brother lives yesterday. M went with her and her father is staying here to remodel the house (he's a carpenter) in anticipation of having her there in the long run. No change medically.
The whole thing is like some sort of nightmare I can't wake up from. I cannot even imagine what M and her husband are going through. They already lost one child to a congenital heart condition (not genetically based) so it's just frigging WRONG that they might lose another child when she was completely healthy as far as anyone knew.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
UPDATE: I spoke with M this morning and learned that I has been been moving around and making some vocalizations since this happened; more and more as time goes on. She's opened her eyes a few times, mostly when she coughs, but is clearly not seeing anything. M says she seems to respond to friends and to music the most. Her movements are strange and not like what the medical staff has seen before, but M has been told that there is no reason I cannot recover. That said; there is no guarantee that she will, either.
M says the more people who visit, the better as far as she's concerned, since I seems to respond to people she knows. She's had a veritable parade through all week and people have been coming forward to watch her at night so M can sleep. M is unwilling to leave I's side in the event she wakes up and is frightened and confused.
I'm going to go over in a little while and pay a visit.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
UPDATE #2:
Went to see her yesterday and found an amazing number of people there. She appears to be coming 'out' of her coma a little more each day. Not all of her movements are involuntary now, and when I was there she opened her eyes at a time when I was very animatedly telling a bird story. She definitely tracked my voice and movements. They said she'd done that before, but this was the most focused and the longest yet. She acts frustrated, periodically kicking her feet or pushing someone away with one hand. Non symmetric movements like that the medical staff says are definitely voluntary. She has quite a devoted following of boys, though she has no boyfriend. One young man has been by her side the entire time and by now looks as if he must be a trained nurse! Another boy just heard yesterday and insisted on spending the night last night, just holding her hand. But she has made herself loved in all walks of life it seems, because there was a steady stream of adults coming to see her as well, many of whom her parents didn't know. her dad is good about meeting each new visitor in the hallway outside ICU and preparing them for what they will see. I can see how it would be very disturbing to someone unfamiliar with how 'active' a coma state can be.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
One more UPDATE:
Well the news is grim. The CT scan done when I first came in didn't show anything, but just yesterday she finally stabilized enough to do an MRI. It showed that she had suffered massive strokes on both sides of her brain due to anoxia. Based on the statistics available, which are pretty much entirely about adults, she has almost no chance of recovery. However I is NOT an adult and the local neurologist, as well as a consulting neurologist both suggest that some change my come with time as her brain attempts to heal itself. her parents want to take her home once she is prepped for long term care. M is already talking about looking outside the United States to see what is being done with stem cell research that might apply here. The consulting neurologist said she would help them with that.
I won't post more here unless something significant happens, but I really appreciate the support this week. Thank you!
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Update #4: (8/8/8)
They moved her down south to a place near where her half brother lives yesterday. M went with her and her father is staying here to remodel the house (he's a carpenter) in anticipation of having her there in the long run. No change medically.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Crazy Daze
Well I went to my parents' and am back again. The trip was good, but very busy and tiring. They're adjusting to the new place better now, though my mom is quite a bit less enthusiastic than my dad. Probably because for him it offers respite while for her it symbolizes her decline. Anyway, we had two delicious meals with them, played pool and enjoyed all the wonderful amenities at the place.
This visit I got to hang out with my niece a bunch as we worked and shared rooms. She's always been a fun kid, but now she's an intriguing young woman with well thought out ideas. We talked late into the nights about all sorts of things. Lovely, but four days of 3am mornings and a 9 hour drive (thanks to two hours of sitting in traffic) took its toll. Ugh... I'm just not as resilient as I used to be! =)
Practicum has been busy too. I've been working four days a week and doing at least one neurospych each week as well. I'm so slow writing them up I feel guilty, but I'm catching on as I gradually see the connections and patterns. Naturally I've ended up with outrageously convoluted cases to cut my teeth on. LOL! Isn't that always how it is? So tomorrow my supervisor leaves for a week of vacation and I'm only doing one day next week, or maybe two partials. Going to finish some scoring and report writing and then practice testing with a fellow student. Looking forward to the break!
In other news, I have had a major upheaval in my home. I met a woman at a pet store a few weeks back and had Gus with me on my shoulder. (He always comes to Petco and picks out his own toy). She and her husband raved about how sweet Gus was and told me I should have their little female Senegal to keep him company. Ok, so that was really weird, and I joked I would only take her if they took my noisy cockatiels. They said yes, and they were totally serious! I laughed it off and said I'd bring Gus to meet their Taranga (they say the name means Karma in Senegalese) and then went my merry way. I did mean that part. Thought it would be fun for him to have a play date.
So Monday my supervisor canceled his client and told me to come in a day later in the week instead, so I went to grab the tiels from boarding (got back from parents on Sunday) and popped by to see these people's place. I'd heard from the people at our mutual vet that they had an amazing aviary and the sweetest birds on Earth, but still I was taken aback by it all. WHAT a place! As it turns out this little sennie gal was disrupting their whole flock. You see they have to amazons named Blue and Red who have been quite bonded for years. When Taranga, the little sennie came along, Blue fell in love with her, which meant that Red kept attacking her and Blue then attacked Red. After two years of endless wrangling, a lost toe for Taranga and a mutilated beak for Red (this little one is formidable to do that to a bird four times her size!) they were at wits end and ready to find her a new home. And along I came...
So they loved the tiels and compared to their amazons didn't consider them loud at all. Gus and Taranga hit it off right away, and she is quite the little sweetie, despite some biting issues when she's feeling territorial. They had just rescued a little budgie from a neighbor child who was abusing it, and insisted I take it too, so I went home with the same number of birds I came with, but different species!
It's not sitting well to have given away my boys. I miss them horribly. Chewie is 11 and George is 9 and I've had them both since they were babies. They're very happy there and I can visit as often as I like, which helps a bunch, but the guilt is still pretty awful. On the other hand, AR is much happier with this new, much quieter flock, and the amazons have stopped pounding on each other and screaming as well. The tiels love their huge new aviary and all the amazing gyms and picture windows in their new home, plus they seem to like their new keepers and are getting lots of head rubs and attention. The budgie is slowly coming out of his/her (not sure of the sex yet, too young) shell and blossoming, so I think it was the right choice. Time will tell.
This visit I got to hang out with my niece a bunch as we worked and shared rooms. She's always been a fun kid, but now she's an intriguing young woman with well thought out ideas. We talked late into the nights about all sorts of things. Lovely, but four days of 3am mornings and a 9 hour drive (thanks to two hours of sitting in traffic) took its toll. Ugh... I'm just not as resilient as I used to be! =)
Practicum has been busy too. I've been working four days a week and doing at least one neurospych each week as well. I'm so slow writing them up I feel guilty, but I'm catching on as I gradually see the connections and patterns. Naturally I've ended up with outrageously convoluted cases to cut my teeth on. LOL! Isn't that always how it is? So tomorrow my supervisor leaves for a week of vacation and I'm only doing one day next week, or maybe two partials. Going to finish some scoring and report writing and then practice testing with a fellow student. Looking forward to the break!
In other news, I have had a major upheaval in my home. I met a woman at a pet store a few weeks back and had Gus with me on my shoulder. (He always comes to Petco and picks out his own toy). She and her husband raved about how sweet Gus was and told me I should have their little female Senegal to keep him company. Ok, so that was really weird, and I joked I would only take her if they took my noisy cockatiels. They said yes, and they were totally serious! I laughed it off and said I'd bring Gus to meet their Taranga (they say the name means Karma in Senegalese) and then went my merry way. I did mean that part. Thought it would be fun for him to have a play date.
So Monday my supervisor canceled his client and told me to come in a day later in the week instead, so I went to grab the tiels from boarding (got back from parents on Sunday) and popped by to see these people's place. I'd heard from the people at our mutual vet that they had an amazing aviary and the sweetest birds on Earth, but still I was taken aback by it all. WHAT a place! As it turns out this little sennie gal was disrupting their whole flock. You see they have to amazons named Blue and Red who have been quite bonded for years. When Taranga, the little sennie came along, Blue fell in love with her, which meant that Red kept attacking her and Blue then attacked Red. After two years of endless wrangling, a lost toe for Taranga and a mutilated beak for Red (this little one is formidable to do that to a bird four times her size!) they were at wits end and ready to find her a new home. And along I came...
So they loved the tiels and compared to their amazons didn't consider them loud at all. Gus and Taranga hit it off right away, and she is quite the little sweetie, despite some biting issues when she's feeling territorial. They had just rescued a little budgie from a neighbor child who was abusing it, and insisted I take it too, so I went home with the same number of birds I came with, but different species!
It's not sitting well to have given away my boys. I miss them horribly. Chewie is 11 and George is 9 and I've had them both since they were babies. They're very happy there and I can visit as often as I like, which helps a bunch, but the guilt is still pretty awful. On the other hand, AR is much happier with this new, much quieter flock, and the amazons have stopped pounding on each other and screaming as well. The tiels love their huge new aviary and all the amazing gyms and picture windows in their new home, plus they seem to like their new keepers and are getting lots of head rubs and attention. The budgie is slowly coming out of his/her (not sure of the sex yet, too young) shell and blossoming, so I think it was the right choice. Time will tell.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
No Rest for the Wicked
Well I got lucky and didn't have to work today after all, so it's a catchall day and comps time. Tomorrow through Sunday I am going back to my folks old place to meet family and go through stuff. Should be easier this time since they are in the new place and struggles over staying and eating in their filthy digs are no longer an issue. Hooray!
Gus is going along, though I know he won't appreciate the all day car ride to get there. My sister and niece will be there too, and later on, my brother in law, who will bring his BIRD dog. They are avid bird hunters, he and she, so I'll probably try out the offer to stay at the new facility (they provide a 2 bedroom suite for visitors at a nightly fee) while the dog family goes to friends' for dinner and the night.
I find I am formulating responses for my comps all through the day if I just read over them each morning and again at lunchtime. At my practicum I snag little bits out of verbiage psych evals to use for constructing a good explanation of why I want to use which tests and what I expect to see for the two testing questions. So it makes me feel a little better about not having many chunks of time to work on them formally. For this trip I won't have internet on my puter because neither the old place or the new has wireless. That's a bitch, but in reality I doub't I'll get much time to work on comps there anyway. I can do quite a bit without having to cite, but I find that when I KNOW I have no connectivity, then I just HAVE to look something up! Well I have gazillions of papers where I've already done that, so I guess I can just search my own private database of work and find articles to site. =) Anyway, I am designating a good two or three hours to them today, so maybe I can knock out another question and be on schedule for this week after all!
Off to get a new travel cage for Gus. I need one with a bigger door on it, because he is NOT impressed with having to ride inside his cage and is getting more and more difficult to stuff in there without bloodshed. He thinks he ought to ride on my shoulder or on top of the cage. Besides not being safe, he's not good at staying put!
Happy day, it's good to be home on a beautiful Wednesday morning! =)
Gus is going along, though I know he won't appreciate the all day car ride to get there. My sister and niece will be there too, and later on, my brother in law, who will bring his BIRD dog. They are avid bird hunters, he and she, so I'll probably try out the offer to stay at the new facility (they provide a 2 bedroom suite for visitors at a nightly fee) while the dog family goes to friends' for dinner and the night.
I find I am formulating responses for my comps all through the day if I just read over them each morning and again at lunchtime. At my practicum I snag little bits out of verbiage psych evals to use for constructing a good explanation of why I want to use which tests and what I expect to see for the two testing questions. So it makes me feel a little better about not having many chunks of time to work on them formally. For this trip I won't have internet on my puter because neither the old place or the new has wireless. That's a bitch, but in reality I doub't I'll get much time to work on comps there anyway. I can do quite a bit without having to cite, but I find that when I KNOW I have no connectivity, then I just HAVE to look something up! Well I have gazillions of papers where I've already done that, so I guess I can just search my own private database of work and find articles to site. =) Anyway, I am designating a good two or three hours to them today, so maybe I can knock out another question and be on schedule for this week after all!
Off to get a new travel cage for Gus. I need one with a bigger door on it, because he is NOT impressed with having to ride inside his cage and is getting more and more difficult to stuff in there without bloodshed. He thinks he ought to ride on my shoulder or on top of the cage. Besides not being safe, he's not good at staying put!
Happy day, it's good to be home on a beautiful Wednesday morning! =)
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Comps Season
Well they arrived. My comps came today, so I have until August 8th to complete them. They are, well... comprehensive! All hope of working on internship applications and my dissertation have gone up in smoke. I'm thanking the powers that be that there have been administrative complications with my new practicum and I won't start there until the second week in August. Whew! Dodged a bullet there for sure! Saved me from my own poor planning. :p
As it is I am going out to my folk's place to meet my sister for a once through of what they left in the old house week after next. We want to get everything valuable out and remove tax records and so forth since the house is now sitting vacant. I'm covering for my supervisor at the Hall while he's on vacation, too, so I'm working 4 days a week now, but that will end next week. Thank heavens!
I'm sure this won't be so bad once I sit down and begin chunking it and setting a schedule to get it done, but I confess, two paragraphs in and I was feeling serious resentment about having to do an academic task with a deadline during my precious BREAK!!! As much work as I had to do without this, at least it was all on me to get it done or not. It seems that dissertations, internship applications, and practicum work are all kind of applied stuff that feels like 'mine' as opposed to some artificial construct that equates to a meaningless hoop. I know most places have comps, and I did this for my Masters, but in that case I also knew about it from the get go, and it happened after everything else academic was done.
Just being a peevy little kid right now I guess. WHIIIIIIINE!!!
A PhD friend of mine told me that the whole point of doctoral programs is to break you and I should just focus all my energy on getting through it. I really want to have a good experience somewhere in there, too. Is that an unrealistic goal?
As it is I am going out to my folk's place to meet my sister for a once through of what they left in the old house week after next. We want to get everything valuable out and remove tax records and so forth since the house is now sitting vacant. I'm covering for my supervisor at the Hall while he's on vacation, too, so I'm working 4 days a week now, but that will end next week. Thank heavens!
I'm sure this won't be so bad once I sit down and begin chunking it and setting a schedule to get it done, but I confess, two paragraphs in and I was feeling serious resentment about having to do an academic task with a deadline during my precious BREAK!!! As much work as I had to do without this, at least it was all on me to get it done or not. It seems that dissertations, internship applications, and practicum work are all kind of applied stuff that feels like 'mine' as opposed to some artificial construct that equates to a meaningless hoop. I know most places have comps, and I did this for my Masters, but in that case I also knew about it from the get go, and it happened after everything else academic was done.
Just being a peevy little kid right now I guess. WHIIIIIIINE!!!
A PhD friend of mine told me that the whole point of doctoral programs is to break you and I should just focus all my energy on getting through it. I really want to have a good experience somewhere in there, too. Is that an unrealistic goal?
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Choking and Wheezing
The smoke here is insanely thick. I can't imagine how bad it must be closer to the fires! Monday night the smell of woodsmoke was so strong I kept getting out of bed to be sure there were no flames on the hillside. Today though it smells of ash and it's suffocating. I had to bring my cockatiels in for fear they'd keel over in it.
We're well mown and watered, but I still keep checking and rechecking.
The property next door just sold and escrow was supposed to close on Monday, but one member of the buying couple is a firefighter and is on the fire line, unable to sign paperwork. I was blown away to learn that the realtor on the buyer's side is so antsy to have her money she's insisting a special envoy be sent up to the flames to get his signature! Idiot woman. Rome can burn as long as she gets her check...
My allergies are giving me hell. =(
We're well mown and watered, but I still keep checking and rechecking.
The property next door just sold and escrow was supposed to close on Monday, but one member of the buying couple is a firefighter and is on the fire line, unable to sign paperwork. I was blown away to learn that the realtor on the buyer's side is so antsy to have her money she's insisting a special envoy be sent up to the flames to get his signature! Idiot woman. Rome can burn as long as she gets her check...
My allergies are giving me hell. =(
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Back on the Chain Gang
Wow... two long days in a row and my sup asked me to come in tomorrow as well. I am working to cover my therapy sup at Juvenile Hall on Thursday, so that would be four days running. I agreed to work from home on the neuropsych case we're embroiled in, but I refused to drive 40 miles south. Besides the price of gas ($4.76 for 87 octane today!) my comps are overdue as of today. They should be arriving any time and I really have no desire to try to peck at them for a hour in the evenings when I'm exhausted.
My other site has decided that despite my having worked there for a year in 2005/6, I must now present three letters of reference, transcripts, a updated CV and endure an interview with their clinical committee before they can consider me for a doctoral practicum. Akk! Ok the updated CV and transcripts I get, but what the hell... do they think I've regressed since I got my masters? They gave me a glowing review and thank you when I left and asked me to come back "any time" not to mention my supervisor there wrote a fantastic letter of recommendation helping me get into my doctoral program to begin with! Well whatever... it means that I will have more time for comps, and besides, it appears there is no lack of hours to be had at my current site!
All that aside, I still plan to take a week or so for myself at some point. AR and I are thinking of going up north to the giant redwoods later in the summer. My niece wants to come and stay with me for a week too, which is always fun. I really want to go see her new apartment at school, too. She's a sophomore now and I've never been to see her in her own digs.
Gus (see pic of green bird top left sidebar) has a tentative playdate with a female Senegal parrot, though I'm not sure he knows it. We ran into a lovely couple at the pet store (Gus always comes in and picks out his own toy) who mooned over what a wonderfully socialized bird he was and complained that their young female was most definitely NOT! The wife wanted to give me the bird, but the husband, whose bird it was, did not seem so keen on the idea. I was more on his side of the discussion, so we simply agreed it would be fun for them to meet and see what happened. Gus needs his wings and toenails clipped, so when we're out doing that we'll stop in and say hi. They live very close to our vet.
I see from their online statuses other classmates are working on their dissertations. Sigh. I'll get there, honest I will. I just can't do so much all at once though, not without a substantial break in there somewhere. So this week is work and a once over on comps, and next week I'll get started on an application essay. I think one reference per day on my lit review is a modest start I can make next week too.
Hooray for next week... it isn't HERE yet!!!
My other site has decided that despite my having worked there for a year in 2005/6, I must now present three letters of reference, transcripts, a updated CV and endure an interview with their clinical committee before they can consider me for a doctoral practicum. Akk! Ok the updated CV and transcripts I get, but what the hell... do they think I've regressed since I got my masters? They gave me a glowing review and thank you when I left and asked me to come back "any time" not to mention my supervisor there wrote a fantastic letter of recommendation helping me get into my doctoral program to begin with! Well whatever... it means that I will have more time for comps, and besides, it appears there is no lack of hours to be had at my current site!
All that aside, I still plan to take a week or so for myself at some point. AR and I are thinking of going up north to the giant redwoods later in the summer. My niece wants to come and stay with me for a week too, which is always fun. I really want to go see her new apartment at school, too. She's a sophomore now and I've never been to see her in her own digs.
Gus (see pic of green bird top left sidebar) has a tentative playdate with a female Senegal parrot, though I'm not sure he knows it. We ran into a lovely couple at the pet store (Gus always comes in and picks out his own toy) who mooned over what a wonderfully socialized bird he was and complained that their young female was most definitely NOT! The wife wanted to give me the bird, but the husband, whose bird it was, did not seem so keen on the idea. I was more on his side of the discussion, so we simply agreed it would be fun for them to meet and see what happened. Gus needs his wings and toenails clipped, so when we're out doing that we'll stop in and say hi. They live very close to our vet.
I see from their online statuses other classmates are working on their dissertations. Sigh. I'll get there, honest I will. I just can't do so much all at once though, not without a substantial break in there somewhere. So this week is work and a once over on comps, and next week I'll get started on an application essay. I think one reference per day on my lit review is a modest start I can make next week too.
Hooray for next week... it isn't HERE yet!!!
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