Ho. Ly. Shit.

That’s about the only sentiment I can use to describe my life this semester. I’m not sure what happened to Christmas break, did that end?

As I’m sitting here typing this, I’m currently running on 8 hours of sleep. In a 4 day period. So forgive me the imminent errors. Before you all freak out, just… don’t. I’m an insomniac, I’m a night person, I always have been, I can’t help it, and today is Thursday, the Day of Rest (screw waiting for Sunday). That being said this 8:4 ratio of sleep to days is not normal for me. Although… I can’t promise it’s not infrequent. Just know that, you know, sometimes, I actually get to sleep normally for, say, a week.

This is due in part to my insane class schedule. As I’d told many of you, I was requested in, and gained approval for, a graduate-level law class this semester. What in the HIGH HELLS possessed me to decide that a graduate-level class would jive well with a 16-credit semester is completely beyond me (re: I’m a nutter). Of course I knew this would be tough. What I didn’t expect was for my classes to arrange in such a mystical convergence, such a planet-aligning event, that it would be my complete and utter undoing.

I can barely breathe sometimes. I don’t think I’ve actually had a panic attack, but a crazy Mexican guy on my bus route once heard me breathing funny.

Mexican: Hey! Hey! You! Miss! Lady! HEY!

Me: (Pretending not to hear until it is impossible to ignore anymore) Hm? Are you talking to me?

Mexican: Yeah, man, are you having a panic attack!?

Me: Um, no… I’m sick.

Mexican: Oh, ’cause you sound like you’re having a panic attack. I had one of them once, and you sound just like that.

Me: Nope… just sick…

Mexican proceeded to detail for me his biographical journey from the court house (where he had a ticket dismissed because the police officer didn’t show up, and won his case against his landlord by sending the judge – I kid you not – a love letter) to his apartment via this particular bus trip. Don’t ask me why he thought I wanted to know. People are just drawn to me, I suppose.

Also, who yells frantically at a person five feet away from them who might be having a panic attack?

Anyway…

Speaking of my apparent magnetism. (So humble, right?)

I was approached by four of my five teachers this week, kept after class, and spoken to privately. First of all, if any of you ever become teachers, please for the love of god don’t do that to a student. “Hey, I want to talk to you after class.” That totally uncolored comment, absent of any possible hint as to why in the hell you want to talk. “I want to talk to you because you failed your test” and “I want to talk to you because I think you should go to law school” sound THE SAME WAY in that voice, don’t do that voice. Which, coincidentally, “I think you should go to law school,” was the sentiment given to me by my graduate-level professor. Apparently, I’ve got the knack for it, according to him.

Earlier that week I’d been grabbed by my communications teacher and told that she “really appreciates my presence and input in class.”

After that it was my writing teacher who vehemently wanted to drill it into my head that even though I did not win the Gwen Frostic Writing Award, just being a finalist is a huge honor, and the fact that I was awarded that privilege as one of the five stories selected from hundreds, a story I’d written as my first workshop story in a 2000-level class, in competition with senior-level writers who’ve had four years of workshops, is amazing, and he wanted me to know that I definitely had not “lost” in that situation, and to make sure I applied next year. He also said he’d sign an approval for me to take my 5000-level writing workshop next semester, before I’d met the prerequisites of two 3000-level workshops, because he believes that I’d thrive in that environment. Unfortunately, the English advisors thought otherwise (though not for lack of talent, but rather that the spots in the fiction workshops are very scarce and he was “wary to place someone with such little experience where a more experienced student might fit”). Poppycock, say I. So I managed to convince him of my adamancy and dedication, and he conceded in part and registered me in another 5000-level workshop instead (one that includes both fiction and non-fiction, and so is in less demand). Sadly, I’d greatly hoped to take the original 5000-level class with the particular faculty member teaching it this semester (she’s apparently well lauded), but perhaps there will be another chance to get her as a teacher down the road.

Today, my Asian Literature teacher, a rather amusing Kurdish man, asked me if I planned to go to graduate school. When I replied that I didn’t think so right away, he shook his head and tsk-ed me saying that I had absurd amounts of potential and ought to foster it. He pointed out several points that I’d made in class that day that delved deep into the readings’ symbolism, in his opinion, and said that I have a wonderful mind and shouldn’t waste it. Having attended a special extracurricular lecture on the topic of modern fairytales and how they relate to a consumer society by a visiting professor from Ohio State University (apparently a great personal friend to my Kurdish professor), I had initially stayed after to ask him if there were a way I could get a copy of the published work she’d read at the lecture because the topic really interested me. In what I’m sure was an attempt to convince me of my graduate school future, he said he would get the two of us in touch and that I ought to remain in contact with her because she’d be a great mentor.

So apparently I’m great to have in class, write above my level, and need to attend both law and graduate schools.

Now that that little exercise in pompousness is through, you may all take a deep breath in the absence of my perceived ego. I promise you, “perceived” is accurate here, because I could not feel more undeserving of the praise at the moment. But fate has a way of making it pour when it rains, and then letting the sunlight peek through right at the moment you think you might drown. So my four professor talks were really just a severely needed floatation device, rather than an inflatable raft in the shape of my gigantic egotistical head.

I love you all, the number is still on the contact page, and while I might not be the best at calling, I can text like a madwoman while I rush between classes.

And in case anyone was curious, I’ve posted my Gwen Frostic Writing Award submission on the blog (just click the “Frostic” tab at the top).