Almost the End!

Dear Blogosphere,

It is in the upper 80's. Tomorrow will be June 1. People are posting photographs of their fun summer adventures. And I am...

Still in school.

DESPERATE for a break.

I felt like having last week done with would make me see the light at the end of the tunnel. But no dice. I still felt like I got a lot accomplished last week -- including two firsts:

• Pre-pre-thesis proposal presentation.
• First lecture.

The presentation was on Wednesday and I feel like it went pretty well. But sort of looming above was my first lecture, on Thursday. The topic of my guest lecture was on sexual coercion. It was harder in some respects than I thought it would be. Putting together a lecture is a lot of work... and when the topic is, to put it lightly, depressing, it is tough. By the end of my preparation, I was a little emotionally exhausted. But the actual lecture was strangely fun. It went well, I think (we'll see how the students do on their 3rd exam/final). But I enjoyed teaching. A few students asked some great questions and one even came up after class to argue with me. He seemed surprised when I agreed with him. :-)

The presentation and lecture were big projects for this quarter. I decided to consider them my finals. But now I am realizing that I have another busy week ahead.

• Over 150 8 page papers to read.
• Narrowing, specifying my hypotheses, and reading more for my thesis/summer research proposal.

This proposal is due on Friday and comes with some possible money... if I receive the grant. My thesis chair is fantastic and told me to give her a rough draft of my proposal by June 1, she'd look over it and give me some pointers. So I really can't complain. I just wish it would write itself. Ha ha.

I hope y'all are enjoying your summers! I can't wait to dive into mine!

-N@