it turns out that my professor/advisor was expecting the thesis at the end of the month.  so i didn’t miss a deadline last monday when i thought i was supposed to turn in a chapter!  so all the stress i experienced, well, i want to say that was good for me.  but it was way too much stress.  it shut me down this weekend, that’s for sure.  i can work well with moderately stressful deadlines.  but i can’t work with extremely stressful deadlines.  i don’t know where the boundaries are - someone else can figure that out i’m sure.

so that’s one big good news.

then i checked my grades just in case i got them.  and what do you know?  a grad i feel totally undeserving of, staring right at me.  wow.  i didn’t fail the class.  yes i always fear i’m going to fail the class.  and yes, i did well.  quite well actually.  and all the time i was worried that the prof thought i was incompetent or something.  man i gotta really work on my academic self image:  the academic iamge of myself now is that i’m incompetent and cant’ get things done on time and that i can’t think original thoughts, and …  i’ll spare you and stop right there. 

i am so relieved to find out that my professor wasn’t about to let me get kicked out of the program.

i’m trying to wrap my head around the concept of grace.  and i can’t.  but grace covers me.  yeah.

i know i know.  i gotta milk the cow while the milk is flowing.  but i just want to say that i’m thinking about tutoring on my own.  time is really flexible and pay is good.  it might even feel good and pay some bills!  any ideas how to recruit students?  i was telling a friend about my idea and said yup, i’m shamelessly targetting (i said “exploiting”)  the rich kids/parents.  my friend said there is no such thing as exploiting of the rich.  hmmm.  anyway if there is a demand for high quality tutoring at a premium cost, then bring it on!  that’s what i say.

yeah baby!  the muse is back!  praise the Lord!  i was stuck on page 9 since friday morning.  it is now tuesday afternoon.  i wrote and wrote and next thing i knew, i was on page 11!  i didn’t even notice page 10!  wow.  let the creative juices keep flowing.  i gotta ride this wave until it washes out on the shore.  thank you God!

since i can’t write at the moment, i’ve been generating all kinds of ideas for what i can do in case i have to drop out of school. yes - it would be really unfortunate to have finished your course work and not graduate because you can’t turn in a thesis. i really love theology/philosophy of religion. i think i even have theological/philosophical talent! so why can’t i write a paper when i’ve written so many papers in my life already?

i must say that i was feeling really horrible over the weekend and earlier today. and then when i started taking ativan which my doctor called into a pharmacy (okay she faxed it in b/c the law requires it), i feel infinitely better! infinitely and a bout a gazillion galaxies better! i always think to myself, after i take a medicine that works to relieve the emotional/physical pain and suffering, why didn’t i take the medicine earlier? like why did i refuse meds the first time i had a depression episode? i could have been so much more productive and felt so much better!

if you have a medicine that works for you (for physical or mental illness), take it! it’s a gift from god!

i didn’t think about medicine as god’s grace being extended to me. if i had thought of things that way, and took meds earlier, i think i would be a different person right now.

i’m thinking about teaching GRE for princeton review or kaplan. for princeton review, i have to take their test which lasts an hour. for kaplan, you just give them your GRE scores. but each section has to be over 700. if i want to teach at kaplan i have to retake the GRE and bring up the score a little bit.

first i was considering more deeper questions like what are their teaching philosophies and what is the moral of the place like. but then i realized i’m probably more interested in getting paid more rather than less, teaching closer to where i live rather than having to travel far.

i’m on ativan again.  it miraculously lifted all my anxiety in about an hour; it started kicking in 30 minutes after i took it but could really notice feeling better after about an hour.   i was wondering, does it mean that with the help  of all the meds i’m on, that i can do what i enjoy and want to do?  or that since i need to take meds to do what i want, that maybe i should do something else?  something else that doesn’t require me to need medicine?   it seems silly to ask it, especially when i wrote it and can see it on the screen.  i mean, if i had some other passion which didn’t require meds, then fine.  i should do that.   but since i don’t have dream “b” that i could pursue if dream “a” does not work out, i’ll count my blessings and go on pursuing!  i mean, for some people, medicine doesn’t help either.  so then what are they supposed to do?  take an early retirement from life?  so yeah.  i want to pursue what i am passionate about, without without ativan, etc. etc. etc.

i’ve gone mad i tell you.  i slept two days pretty much straight through.  how does one do that?  i haven’t written anything since friday morning, which by a writer’s standard feels like an eternity and a day away.  and actually i didn’t even leave the apartment yesterday.  wow.  i feel like i’m waking up from a coma, like life has gone past before me and i’m trying to catch up to it.

many years back, i heard a pastor preach and the only thing i remember is that he kept saying, “save yourself!”  he was using that as a rhetorical device to point out that jesus could have saved himself but he didn’t.  at least i think that’s what the pastor was trying to do.  in my case, i think i do need to save my self!  but now i’m wondering if the pastor’s point was that we can’t save ourselves no matter what we do.

how important are sermons in one’s christian life?  at my church, lately, i’m thoroughly uninspired by the sermons.  i don’t feel like sitting through the sermons anymore.  but i know when the preaching is good that it really gets me going throughout the week.  i don’t think i should have to miss out on hearing good sermons on sundays just so i could go to the same church with my friends.

somehow i’m managing to write again.  it’s amazing.  since last night i’m writing and organizing my thoughts.  how is this possible?  wow.  wow.  wow.

yesterday was parents day in korea where my parents live.  so i called mom then dad to thank them.  in response they thanked me.  huh?  i guess they were thankful that i (really my sister who informed me that it was parents day in korea) remembered to call them.  their expectation of me/us must be really really low.  it’s all good.  i’d rather surprise them than not meet their expectations.

i’m not sure what really changed…something seems different.  why am i not afraid of writing a bad paper?  how am i able to just write?  when i talked to my dad yesterday he said that one has to finish what one started because otherwise it just feels icky, and the unfinished business will keep hanging over you all of your life.  did that somehow motivate me?  who knows?  at times like this, it doesn’t matter what jump started my brain and got the creative juices flowing.

i need a life-guard.  no, no, i don’t need to someone to save me from all my life’s troubles.  i just need someone to kick my butt, or better, tie me to a chair at a coffee shop or library.  my sister dropped me off at the best study environment coffee place and told me she didn’t want to see me before 11 pm which is when they close.  i have two hours to go!  this place i’m at is the best place to study because everyone else is studying!  it’s like a library with coffee and food.  especially during certain hours, people don’t talk.  their heads are buried in books instead.

i am a third of the way done with my paper.  i wish i could say i was half way done since it’s near 9 pm the night before the paper is due.  i’ll take what i can get.

does anyone find that ritalin decreases your creativity?

i wrote a paper while i was off ritalin and did really well.  so i’m wondering now if i write better papers when i’m not on ritalin.  i wish i knew for sure whether that was true.  if ritalin does affect my creativity, then i can be sleepy and productive or awake and not creative.  hmmm - difficult choice to make, don’t you think?