Geting my accomplishment on.

I often mention "small victories." Cuz, you know, grad school takes up all your time and is really hard, and most of the time it makes you feel like a fuck-up at best, if not an essentially defective person. So I'm going to recount two victories, one small and one large.

Small: Yesterday I read an entire book. That's right. I know, I know, this is not a big deal to everyone else, because you all took some kind of "exam" where you had to read approximately 750 books in 10 days, while being poked with sticks and standing on hot coals or something. But it's a big deal to me, because I have an attention span problem, as well as a finishing-stuff-I-start problem. So, yeah. I read a 300-page book in one day, and I didn't start until 4. What's up, bitches.

(Nevermind the fact that reading that book occupied the lowest-priority slot on my to-do list, and I only read it because of a staggering guilt complex about not reading for class, and also to procrastinate on working on my term papers or reading Our Mutual Friend, which is actually relevant to my field. Also nevermind the fact that I ended up not really participating in the discussion about the book in class and instead talked about the the articles, which I didn't read. Whatever. It was a good book.)

Large: This weekend K threw up ham. Okay, okay, this is not about grad school. But it was awesome and deserves celebrating nonetheless. Saturday night, after we all ate an ill-advised amount of ham, B wagered K that he could not drink 2 beers in five minutes. No slouch to a challenge, K slapped on his smug face and put a shotglass down on the table next to his beers. 4 minutes and 50 seconds later, everyone is yelling a new-years-style countdown and K is looking quite green around the edges. Not a man to give in, however, the shotglass tips back. Also not a man who can consume a pound of ham and two beers without consequences, the shotglass tips forward again. Whiskey sprayed all over the table. K running, hand on mouth. Vomit everywhere. "Oh, God, it's all ham!" Me laughing harder than I can remember laughing in my entire life (excluding anytime I was stoned, particularly one time I laughed so hard I fell off a porch at a house party).

So things are going pretty well. Except for those looming paper deadlines. H(ow)TF am I going to finish this semester? Lord do I hate HD's class. Let me count the ways. Why am I never caught up on my reading? Why do I always feel like I'm not really learning anything? Aren't I supposed to be doing PA work? When am I going to buy plane tickets for my summer trips? Why did I sign up for a summer class with a bad professor? Should I buy a house? And HOW? Help...