paint by numbers

Procrastination mode.

I made a couple pretty substantial commitments this weekend. One is that I devised a way to pay off the rest of the money I still owe Centenary for my last semester there by borrowing money from my grad school in a short-term no interest loan. Since I have to pay it back by the end of next quarter, I also decided to take out a personal loan from a bank. This is the first time I have ever been approved for a loan on my own before, and it's kind of exciting, but nerve-wracking. Apparently being a poor grad student gives you more credibility than just being a poor undergrad. I feel queasy when I have to deal with finances, so this is pretty huge for me.

The other big decision I made was devising a plan to finish my Master's degree in two years (like the program is designed) instead of three (like the program actually supports, and I was planning). The problem I was having was getting my language credits done, but I figured out that with summer school, I can knock it out on time. This also means not taking Arabic next year, which I thought would make me disappointed, but instead just makes me feel relieved. Good sign.

I really love school, and my field and my professors. I really hate the pressure of working overtime to condense so much study into such a short time (both on a weekly basis and in a quarter). I feel like every day I should be getting six times more work done than I am, and I just feel like I'm treading water instead of getting things done (despite my best organizational efforts). Honestly 90% of the problem is financial, since work takes up so much time (although I looooove my job and would quit school to do it full-time if I could). I thought taking three years to stretch it out would be more conducive to my study style, but really it's making me frazzled. So I'm going to try and finish in two years and then take a break before ph.D.-hunting (if I decide to go through with it).

I went to yoga again yesterday and it was amazing. I'm totally sore today and feel like I ran two miles instead of just doing goofy poses for an hour. BTW, the weather is totally gorgeous here right now. If I didn't have 6 books to read today, I would totally be outside :P