prosody and stress
this week i began in earnest the process of destroying myself.
i want to stop thinking of ways to strengthen and tighten and focus my application. i need to stop. if i take on one more thing, i think the whole structure will collapse. i'm not exaggerating, i wish i were. i have a 20 page term paper to write, a phonetic and phonological inventory of the telugu language, based on data i've gathered firsthand from a native speaker. it's my writing sample for my apps as well, it has to be perfect. everything has to be perfect and heather laughed when i said that but god do you know that feeling? like you absolutely cannot fuck anything up, and you can't even get your brain around everything that you have to keep track of? around work and your ordinary schoolwork and the volunteer project work where they want you to get more involved, with finals screaming towards you this other stuff keeps escalating. and it ALL matters. you don't just want more time you NEED more time, but there isn't anything that can give, anymore. you don't get to rest anymore, well actually you get one evening per week, that's what you've promised yourself. all the fun and rest and relief you're going to get has to come from that one night. and you better enjoy it 'cause it's gonna be a long week until the next one.
whether the stress is self-inflicted or not...that doesn't really matter.
within the scope of my temporally/temporarily condensed life, it's real.
the stakes are unarguably high.
whatever metric one chooses, tangible investment or feverish hope, they're high.
i have lists and lists and lists and lists, weekly lists and daily lists and asap lists. i haven't been sleeping enough, but that's okay because i keep having these anxiety dreams anyway. it is ceaseless. it is in my head all the time. if you were to see me at work or on the street or something and say hello i would say hi back. i would engage in the requisite small talk, make the requisite gestures and expressions. and i would be genuinely happy to see you, it's not that i wouldn't. it's just that as a background to all that, about 1/3 of my brain would be thinking "okay have to go talk to fillmore about the lor next. need to draft my personal essay this weekend. don't forget to print all the forms. what kind of labels should i provide my recommenders with, i wonder. is replacing the undergrad prof's letter really a good idea? what am i going to hypothesize about the telugu stress system. don't forget to start chopping up the recordings and generating spectrographs. remember to email those other professors. i wonder when i'll have time to meet with them." and on and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseam ad insanitum...
it's only four more weeks.
okay, enough with the self-pity. i chose this; i'm working my ass off to take a long shot at something i want more than i've ever wanted anything that didn't breathe. it's by far the hardest thing i've ever done.
but what a great thing.
what a lucky human i am.
i want to stop thinking of ways to strengthen and tighten and focus my application. i need to stop. if i take on one more thing, i think the whole structure will collapse. i'm not exaggerating, i wish i were. i have a 20 page term paper to write, a phonetic and phonological inventory of the telugu language, based on data i've gathered firsthand from a native speaker. it's my writing sample for my apps as well, it has to be perfect. everything has to be perfect and heather laughed when i said that but god do you know that feeling? like you absolutely cannot fuck anything up, and you can't even get your brain around everything that you have to keep track of? around work and your ordinary schoolwork and the volunteer project work where they want you to get more involved, with finals screaming towards you this other stuff keeps escalating. and it ALL matters. you don't just want more time you NEED more time, but there isn't anything that can give, anymore. you don't get to rest anymore, well actually you get one evening per week, that's what you've promised yourself. all the fun and rest and relief you're going to get has to come from that one night. and you better enjoy it 'cause it's gonna be a long week until the next one.
whether the stress is self-inflicted or not...that doesn't really matter.
within the scope of my temporally/temporarily condensed life, it's real.
the stakes are unarguably high.
whatever metric one chooses, tangible investment or feverish hope, they're high.
i have lists and lists and lists and lists, weekly lists and daily lists and asap lists. i haven't been sleeping enough, but that's okay because i keep having these anxiety dreams anyway. it is ceaseless. it is in my head all the time. if you were to see me at work or on the street or something and say hello i would say hi back. i would engage in the requisite small talk, make the requisite gestures and expressions. and i would be genuinely happy to see you, it's not that i wouldn't. it's just that as a background to all that, about 1/3 of my brain would be thinking "okay have to go talk to fillmore about the lor next. need to draft my personal essay this weekend. don't forget to print all the forms. what kind of labels should i provide my recommenders with, i wonder. is replacing the undergrad prof's letter really a good idea? what am i going to hypothesize about the telugu stress system. don't forget to start chopping up the recordings and generating spectrographs. remember to email those other professors. i wonder when i'll have time to meet with them." and on and on and on ad infinitum ad nauseam ad insanitum...
it's only four more weeks.
okay, enough with the self-pity. i chose this; i'm working my ass off to take a long shot at something i want more than i've ever wanted anything that didn't breathe. it's by far the hardest thing i've ever done.
but what a great thing.
what a lucky human i am.
posted by amy at 6:19 PM
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