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| I knew it. A perfect start to the longest and most dreadful weekend of my life.
A five and a half hour drive turns into a ten hour drive thanks to two factors. Number 1: An hour-and-a-half-long, nine-mile-long stretch of road work traffic outside of Tuscaloosa - at which, no sign of actual work ever appeared. Cars crawled along at a pace usually falling between a tempo run and a light jog. Not half an hour into the clear, cruising along again, I find myself on the side of the road near Bessemer in the growing darkness with a flat tire. One that I couldn't manage to remove until a walk a mile up to the next exit for no help and two frustrated calls to the highway patrol lead to a "dumb-ass" moment when I took a second look at the owner's manual. That made the second half of the drive considerably slower - and more tentative and anxious, too - given that I faced a 200-mile drive on a spare tire - four times the distance it was likely meant to endure.
(Un-?)fortunately, those incidents came unexpectedly. And, yet, I continued forward, forging ahead to face the worst of the weekend. I know what's coming, but I can't stop myself from being drawn towards it.
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| It's going to be a long weekend... | | |
| My alarm clock fucking hates me. I set it last night to go off at 7:15. And I wake up this morning....at 10:41. To silence. I swear, I'm going to throw it against a freaking wall. | | |
| I don't think I've ever been so excited about fraternity life. On the first "preference night", I guess you could call it, over 50 guys chose to come back and give DTD a second look Of those, we'll be inviting 51 - I think it was - back for the final night of Formal Rush. The rushees will be narrowing their visits from five houses to three. But with 51 potential pledges invited, there's a lot of excitement in the house. I heard that at this time last year, there were a grand total of 20 guys coming back for the final night. With such a number as we have this year, we could very easily draw a pledge class that DOUBLES our membership! Times seem good at the Delt house!! And I totally sliced my chin open shaving tonight...ouch. | | |
| I woke up this morning feeling very productive. I was ready to go and ready to get things done. And then I got out of my first meeting of the day - after the first freaking thing I had on my agenda - I came out feeling incredibly overwhelmed. It was a meeting of the conducting grad students who are in the final stages (the last two weeks) of planning a huge choral conference. It was a flurry of things that need to be done, people who need to be called, helpers that needed to be enlisted, etc, etc. They were overwhelmed, and it's like I began to feel overwhelmed by proxy. I thought of the twenty or thirty contacts I need to make for my conducting presentation, which - between classes and work - I have about three or four hours a week to conduct my interviews. Granted my contacts answer the phone. I have fraternity things I need to take care of - not much. Just getting supplies for the month, but I need to allot myself about two hours to do that. And that will probably have to take place during the time I need to spend on my presentation. I really DO need to spend the recommended forty minutes a day practicing piano. I need to analyze and practice and determine a rehearsal plan for my song. And, once again, around my class and work schedule, that's a lot to be taking on. Why do I allow myself - not to BE so overwhelmed - to FEEL so overwhelmed? Because I know that the other choral grad students are actually required to help out with the conference. All I had to do was sit there and listen to the discussion about it. I know there are people who have it even worse than I do - than even the other grad students. So, I wonder why I want to pity myself for my load when things are so good for me. I should just suck it up and get my shit done. Maybe it's because I feel like everything here keeps me from being where I want to be. Where I wanted to be all along. Where I would be if I didn't lack some sort of belief in myself and hope that what I wanted could actually happen. Because it did. Hopefully, keeping that in mind can help me to maintain hope and direction in my life. And motivate me to get done what I need to. I'll write myself a reminder somewhere that I'll see it everyday. | | |
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