Sort of Sudden Big Decision

I made it home safely, but I am not particularly emotionally well at the moment. I’m tired because I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t drink WAY too much last night, but I definitely drank more than I should’ve and I spent the night tossing and turning and switching between hot and cold and having nightmares about organizing funerals and paying thousands of dollars to have someone buried. It was very unsettling. I know a large part of it was specifically about He-Who-Absolutely-Cannot-Stay-Dead because he was in my dream or the actor who plays him was. The other person was the dad of a friend of mine. The friend and her father aren’t close and even though I’ve been friends with her for quite some time and I’ve met a lot of her other family members, I’ve never met her father so why I was doing this--why I was being told I had to spend $8,000 to buy his coffin and bury him--I have absolutely no idea, but I guess that’s what I get for combining a touch too much alcohol with an emotionally traumatic episode of my favorite show with a hotel bed.

And now I’ve decided to apply to Grad school. I’ve been contemplating it for years. I took the GRE at the end of my time at university because I wanted to get my Master’s in Library Science, but I was so burned out between working damned near fulltime (36 hours between the two jobs I worked) plus going to class for 15 - 16 hours a day, plus homework. I imagine I’m about to go through all of this again since I’ll be going to school--probably taking two or three classes a semester--and working full time.

That is assuming that I get accepted. I feel like I’m a shoe-in for this thing, and, perversely, that makes me nervous. I guess that’s my brain for you.

I started working on the things. I need to get letters of recommendation and I’m not 100000% sure who I should go about asking. They’re supposed to be professional or educational recommendations. I doubt a letter written by someone who knew me ten years ago in school is going to be a good choice and no one at my job has known me a full year yet which just doesn’t seem like a long enough time. I don’t know if I feel okay about asking Scott for one. He’s got a shit ton on his plate and I just don’t know that he’s really into letter writing or whatever. I know he must have given me a decent review in order for my library job to go through (the county does not fuck around when vetting new employees, I tell you what), but that still doesn’t seem like the same thing since I think he just had to answer some specific questions.

It’s something I’ll have to think about.

I’ll also need to write a statement of intent… purpose, statement of purpose, but I don’t think that will be too bad. It’s just something I’ll have to think about a little and then spend some time on.

I need to go to bed and sleep.

Need More Words

I need to write! I’m so close to my goal for the month. I need about 2000 more words between today and Tuesday in order to make the goal I made for myself. I got behind on my goal for the year so I’ve been trying to make up some of that loss. I got behind enough to know that I need to average about 635 words a day from now until the end of the year. My initial goal was an average of 600 words a day, but with being a little short in May and getting only about halfway to my June goal, I’m a good deal farther behind than I’d like. I wanted to try to make up for some of that this month. Maybe average more like 650 or 700 words a day to take some of the pressure off future months like September and October when I’ve got lots of stuff going on, but I couldn’t quite get there. I’m not too terribly upset by that. In all fairness, this is the best writing month I’ve had in the last three or four months so I can’t complain. I was able to write two fanfic stories and one Writer’s Cramp story as well as some bits and bobs of other things. I think this is the least hard my stories have fought me all year, so I’m certainly thankful for that.

It has felt wonderful to produce at that level too. I mean, I know that other people somehow manage to pump out over a thousand words a day, and I have done that here and there, but I’m trying not to compare myself to other people. I’m trying to remember that comparison kills confidence and creativity. The best thing I can do is try to improve myself and that’s what I’m doing by pushing myself to write. And now apply for grad school. So yeah, I just need to pump out some more words. I can do that. I’m really close and I can do it.