Leaving the cave hurts my eyes!

Hello, blogosphere ... assuming you haven't all given up on me!

Sorry I disappeared there. I've basically spent the last month buckling down on my thesis, which in its primary, "un-seen by the power-that-be" form, is finished stem to stern. But it looks like, with all the fixes I know I need to make and those I don't yet know, I'm not going to get it finished in time for May graduation. A month ago that would have been devastating. However, I 've done a ton of work in the last month and if I finish this thesis by the end of May and end up graduating in August, so be it. If I wasn't employed full time I could probably still get this finished in time for my thesis committee to review it and return it to me for the necessary corrections in time for final delivery for May graduation. But I am employed full time, so c'est la vie.

That's the bad news, but the good news is: my professor loves my work. Frankly I feel like my data analysis is terribly elementary. I feel like I'm painting a truly interesting subject using crude, chubby crayons and in only primary colors. But he loves it, so I must be doing something right. When he asked this week how I was holding up, I told him the truth which is that I feel like I'm losing grey matter; that when I re-read my paper, I'm not seeing content anymore, I'm seeing figures on a page which I gather are letters, but I'm really not sure. He suggested I take a break and come back to it after a bit. I'm a magnificent enough procrastinator to know that that's dangerous for me. I feel like I've created a groove for myself right now, though, so my plan is to instead of plowing ahead 8 - 12 hours each weekend day, to just knock out 2 - 4 hours a day so I don't over saturate myself. At least until I can start understanding again what I've written.

Life in the last 30 days has been an emotional roller coaster, too. When I started grad school, I remember my mom telling me that it can be hard on a marriage when the student is writing her/his dissertation or thesis. Wow. I have totally learned that this month. This has been hell on both of us. Compounded too by the fact that I've been doing a show on Friday nights. If I were married to me, I would've left my panic-attacking ass three weeks ago. Honey is a trooper though. I don't know how to reward him when this is all over. I made him a playlist of songs to get him through this, but I don't know if that's enough. Some solace though is knowing that there will be an end to this and it's within sight; as well, that others have survived the same thing. I ran into an old coworker of mine yesterday and she agreed that her thesis was one of the hardest things she'd ever done and that it definitely put a strain on her relationship with her then boyfriend, now husband.

On the good side, my show has been immensely popular and has been selling out since the second weekend. I'm with a good group of people whom I'd really like to get to know better offline. We've got one more show next weekend and then we're down till June. We'll remount for the summer and if it continues this wild popularity, we're already planning variations for a fall and holiday run! Luckily, with my thesis done and only 10% to go until it's dead and cooked, and an effective study groove established, I think the show will be more of the creative release that I need than another taxation on my brain cells.

I'll try to catch up on all y'all's blogs, soon and I'll try to post some more, soon. I have been missing cruising!