I've wanted a Master's degree since I knew what graduate degrees were--which is to say as long as I can remember.  I wanted a Master's before I knew what my college major would be.  In my family, it was always a given that I would graduate from college.  Graduate school was always my real goal--the goal that I had just because I wanted it, and not because anyone expected it of me.

I was looking at graduate programs when I was still deciding on my undergraduate major.  I looked at programs all over the country of many different kinds.  When I declared my major and decided on a career path, I kept track of which schools I might want to attend for graduate studies.  For me, graduate school wasn't a way to prolong making decisions, or getting a real job, or just to stay in school--it was a quest.

And today I took the final copies of my thesis to the library for binding, and my final approval form to Graduate Studies for validation.  This marks the last of my series of deadlines for the semester.  The only thing I have to do now is pass my writing class--and I've already done all the work.  

So I'm done.  Really and truly.  The master's degree is mine.

I realized today that I am exactly the person I always wanted to grow up to be. 

Drew and I went to Borger, Texas to spend Thanksgiving with my in laws.  I actually functioned without a to do list for six whole days. 

"Functioned" might be an overstatement.  I sat around and did nothing.  I read three books.  I played video games.  I was mostly just a lump all week.  And it felt oddly disconcerting.  (And thankfully my sister-in-law put up with me hanging around her house all week and not really helping much with anything.  Whoops.)

And, now we're back.  I ran into Monday at 90 miles an hour.  I have a huge to-do list today, but so far it's going well.  I actually feel better being back than I did "relaxing", because now I can actually do something about all the things I'm worried about.

I like vacation.  But I like coming back even more.

Dear Santa,

I would like you to know that I have been very, very good this year.  For Christmas, I would like our miniatures business to actually contribute to paying the bills.  It's not that I don't appreciate the success we've had already, but it's just not quite enough yet to justify the time and energy that goes into it. 

In addition, I would like my novel to sell and to actually start getting paid for my writing.  (We both know I've waited quite a long time for that one.)

I understand that this is an awful lot to ask, so if you could just manage one or the other, I'd be most grateful.  If I could have both, though, I promise to be extra good next year, and leave you extra milk and cookies on Christmas Eve.  In fact, I'll leave those cookies out anyway, just in case.  

Yours,

Janci

Today in the mail we got four sample pewter Mistborn minis.  This means that we are one step closer to that release we've committed to do in less than two weeks. 

*deep breath*

So much going on, so little I can do but worry.

When I am stressed, I organize.

Organization is my means of gaining control over a world in which I have very little.  The less control I have over the variables in my life, the more I organize.  Of course, my organization has little to no effect on the elements of my future which are out of my control.  But when I am organizing, I can fool my psyche into believing that I have power, that I am in control, and that because I am so on top of things, everything is bound to turn my way.

And then I run out of things to organize.  I can only relabel my filing cabinet so many times.  My house isn't that big, and I organize it too often.

And so I settle back into confusion and panic--but at least my office is clean.

So I'm losing my job in a month.  Since I'm the only one with an actual, paying job in my household at this point, this has been cause for much panic and more planning.  We're aware that we'll likely never make very much money in our lives, given our choices of careers, and so we're always looking for ways to save money.

This weekend we ran out of laundry soap, and I'd heard it was quick and easy to make your own, so I decided to give it a shot.  Turns out it's even quicker and easier than I thought, and cheaper than regular laundry soap.  (Not to mention less smelly.  I hate the smell of laundry soaps.)

If anyone is interested, here's the recipe.

I think it took me about ten minutes to make, and I filled two ice cream buckets with the soap.  I've used some of it today, and it seems to work great.  I was also able to find all the ingredients on the laundry aisle at the local grocery store (Macey's, if anyone cares), so I didn't have to pay shipping on anything, which would have driven the price up.  Though it says on the site that the soap won't turn into a thick gel, mine did, maybe because I heated it to boiling when I was putting in the soap.  I don't know.

A part of me thinks this is completely ridiculous.  I mean, laundry soap isn't THAT expensive, right?  But there's a certain satisfaction in knowing I can do some of these things myself.  I'm something of a do-it-yourself hobbyist when it comes to things like this.  And saving money never hurts, even if it's just a little.  (Especially when it takes longer to run to the store to buy laundry soap than it will take me to make the stuff, now that I have the ingredients.  And it uses so little of the borax and washing soda that I'll probably not have to buy more for the next five years.)


Edit: I paid slightly more for the ingredients than the author of that article did, so I worked out the cost of my detergent.  The patch I made yesterday came out to .012 cents a load, while store bought liquid detergent works out to about .10 to .15 cents a load, if you get it on sale.  Not bad at all.

The BYU Magazine is a publication sent out to alumni of the school--usually full of articles based on scholarship from professors, articles about events on campus, and news stories about alumni who have accomplished something unique.  

The first thing I do, when I receive that magazine in the mail, is check the obituaries.  I do this because I found a friend in there once by accident.  I hadn't talked to him in two years or so, and he'd died six months earlier climbing a mountain.  I hadn't known.  When I emailed my old roommates who had also known him, none of them had heard either.  I remember looking at his name there at the bottom of the list in tiny type.  This couldn't be my friend, I thought.  But his name was unusual.  There just couldn't be another one.  And then I googled him, and sure enough, there he was, smiling at me out of the news story.

Now I always check the obituaries first thing.  They list the alumni by year of graduation, and so the list of alumni who graduated in the 30's and 40's and 50's who have died is very long, and the number gets shorter by the decade.  There's usually three or four names in there who hadn't graduated yet, and one or two who graduated around the same time I did.  

I'm not sure what pulls me to those obituaries.  It doesn't feel morbid.  It doesn't feel like fear.  I think the pull is much like the pull that leads me to look old friends up on facebook and add them to my friends list--just so I can keep track of them.  I want to know what's going on in their lives, even if contact is limited.  I don't like the idea that someone I was once friends with can die, and I might not even know about it.  I've had a lot of friends over the years.  I couldn't possibly have stayed good friends with them all.  But I miss knowing what's happening with many of them, and so I collect blog links, I use facebook, I check the obituaries.  These habits seem strange to me, but it makes me feel better, like I'm still part of this larger community, even if my life has moved on.

Knowing what's happening doesn't change anything.  But it still makes me feel better to know.

I am tired of people posting hateful things which then get funneled to my friends list.  I am tired of the hate toward people who are homosexual, I am tired of the hate toward people who choose to exercise their rights to free speech,  and I am tired of the hate toward people who have religious beliefs that other people disagree with. 

It doesn't matter which side you are on, I don't want to hear about how much more right than the other side you think you are.  People on all sides of every issue believe what they believe because they are SMART people with DIFFERENT but not inferior values.  And that's okay.

I really just wish people would speak nicely about other people, and realize that just because someone disagrees with you isn't a reason to act as if they are stupid, or childish, or petty, or a bigot, or whatever other epithet comes to mind at the moment.

Even if you think these things about the person you disagree with, just don't say it.  You're not helping anyone, including yourself.  If you can't make arguments in a way that avoids offending your audience, just don't make them at all.  It only makes things worse for everyone involved.

Today at noon I had finished all of my to-do tasks for the day.  There are some thing on next week that I can start working on...but nothing I'm really prepared to do at this moment.

This is strange, and I find myself wondering what I will do with myself.

Mostly I am wondering this because I need things to distract me.  If I am not distracted I sit and fret about all the things that could possibly go wrong in the next few months.  I start cataloging my planned response to each and every potential problem.  Then I catalog my responses to the next-least-bad set of problems.  And then I start listing all the things I can be doing *right now* to avoid these future potential problems, and debating whether the problem is likely enough to happen that I need to actually implement those changes *right now.*  And then I decide I'm already doing everything I can do, so I start worrying about the problems again.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

In short, I am driving myself CRAZY.

There have been many video games and movies in the last week, because when I am thinking of videogames and movies, I am not fretting and worrying and cataloging possibilities.  There's also been quite a lot of writing and cleaning and planning.  I suppose I could always spend the rest of the day writing, but I've already reached my goal for today, and I really need to think about characterization stuff over the weekend before I jump into the next few things.

But I need to be busy.  I really, really need to be busy.   And not just social busy but task-that-requires-my-whole-brain busy.

At least I have roleplaying tonight.  That'll distract me. 

And this afternoon I'm going to figure out how to put lapels and a collar on a coat whose pattern does not call for a collar and lapels.  That'll occupy my brain for a while.

*sigh*

Today,

I PASSED MY THESIS DEFENSE!

I'd been told the defense was no big deal.  And...the defense was no big deal.  My professors talked more than I did, mostly, which was nice.  They gave me some really neat ideas for toying with a new revision next time I have to do one.  And now...for the first and possibly last time, I am sad about graduating.  Mostly because my professors have been SO AWESOME to work with...and now I'll be off on my own again.  But still, exciting things are happening.

Oh, and the book is going out to editors this week.  *squee*

I applied for health insurance today.  I guess this means I'm really not getting a full time job.  I feel a little like I'm walking off a cliff.  Here's hoping for one of those Indiana Jones style bridges--the kind you can't see until you're standing on top of them.

I'm graduating in December.  That means that in a month and a half--closer to just a month at this point--I will no longer be a student.  Ever.  Again.  This makes me very, very happy.

On the other hand, it's looking increasingly likely that I won't have a job in January.  My Things To Do have already slowed down.  I have time to focus on writing, and the writing is going well, but it's not actually making money yet.  This week I actually found myself with *extra time* which is actually bad because it gives me space to sit and worry about how things will work out.

So I'm compiling lists of things I can do to make the miniatures business make more money, because I'm already doing 150% of what I can do to make my own career go.  In January, I'll probably be focusing on that.  And then maybe finding a job.  Maybe.  Depending on how things shake out.

That's why I haven't been posting much lately.  All my thoughts revolve around depends and what ifs and maybes.  Sometime in the next six months, we'll know where everything falls.  Maybe then I can have some kind of solid idea about my life.

*crosses fingers*

I voted.  And for the first time in my voting life I had the opportunity to vote for someone who talks about things that are important to me, and says things that I think make sense.  So no matter what happens, I could feel good voting for him.

That's the first time that's ever happened to me, and it feels really, really good. 

Here's hoping he wins.

Today I double checked to make sure that I've met all the deadlines to defend my thesis.  My defense date is set for two weeks from Wednesday.  Paperwork has been filed.  A room has been scheduled.  Final drafts are formatted and edited and given to my chair and my readers.

I'm done until I defend.  HAPPY!

I'm actually not nearly as stressed about the actual defense as I was about getting all that in on time.  Suddenly I feel like I can breathe again.  

Today I ended up with 92834938 little bureaucratic tasks to do.  In some ways, I don't mind days like that, because it means every fifteen minutes or so I get to cross something else off the very long to-do list.  On the other hand, it also means I am not working on my greater list of Things To Do--those overarching important goals that need more time devoted to them than fifteen minutes.  Like writing.

On the other hand, graduating and teaching and paying the bills and being healthy and having a functioning computer all feed the greater goals at least tangentially.  I guess I need to remember that my to do list isn't a list of things that are ends unto themselves.  The little tasks build toward the greater whole--and the greater whole of my life is going very well indeed.

(I still want to sneak in some writing today, though.)

Today I got poked with dozens of needles (literally) and discovered that I have allergies. Lots of them. To really annoying things that are impossible to avoid.

At least we've found the likely cause of the two-year sore throat. (Probably. Maybe. Could be something else, too. There are still multiple possibilities to rule out.)

I would be happier to have made this discovery if my symptoms were more stereotypically allergy, or if my doctor had seemed at all certain that that's all it was.

Bah. Humbug.

I opened my blinds to a white frosted lawn today. Snow!

I am simultaneously happy and annoyed by the snow. It makes everything harder and slower, but it's also very pretty to look at.

I really could have handled some more fallish weather before we jumped right into winter.

I finished my revision on Tuesday and sent it off on Wednesday. Then I had a long list of things I'd been putting off to contend with. The last thing on that list is to grade the stack of 40 papers sitting here on my desk. Strangely, I'm not dreading it. (I love teaching, but I hate grading.) Probably because I haven't started yet, so I'm not burned out. Give it time. :)

The last couple of days I've spent actually being social. I went to help Howard and Sandra pack Schlock books. I helped my friend Stacy move some things to a new apartment, and paint some walls. It was good to actually see people and talk to them. Nice to have my social life back.

Drew's doing some assembly work for a friend in trade for minis. He's amassing a new army (slowly, since he's not allowed to actually spend money on it right now) and so I figured he'd acquire a new unit or two for his army...and instead he brought home the new warjack I'd been eyeing for mine. :D

My husband is awesome because he gets me pewter monsters when he could be using the barter to get pewter monsters of his own. *swoon*

Okay, so we're geeks. But at least we match.

I know it is fall because:

The lawn outside my window is covered in dead leaves, which I love. I think it's a tragedy that people rake dead leaves, because they are so gorgeous right where they fall.

I'm burning candles. It's cool enough, and I'm not needing to run the vents which disturbs the flames.

I've felt an unequivocal compulsion to make molasses cookies. So today I did. So yummy.

I'm wearing a sweater, and have been for the last three days. I love sweaters.

All I want to do is hole up in my house and make stuff and look at the fall weather out the window. Especially the rain this weekend.