Guilt

I am sitting on the couch, watching TV, attempting to stay as still as possible. I am five days from handing in my thesis. Last night, I was up way past my teacher bedtime attempting to write enough of my paper so I could give it to my editor friend today.

Now I'm practically incapacitated. I cannot move. My brain hurts. Even though my paper is close to done, I am still feeling overwhelmed with the feeling that I should be doing more...despite my complete lack of ability for locomotion.

I can't wait to be finish school and get to enjoy free time.

On the other hand, one of the unexpected benefits of being this tired is a whole lot of cheesy. I am currently experiencing some serious cheese issues.

Bullet Points

*My professional Development at school brought some learning. My issue with getting things done is due to a weakness in the production controls of my attention. Some people call this procrastination. I have been able to justify my procrastination by being a little productive on all the wrong things. The lack of order is a temporal-sequential issue.

*Looking up apartments on Craigslists has become a new hobby (please see justification of procrastination information above). LA's Craigslist is crazy. I have seen things like sublet a great apartment (shared bedroom, on TWThs) or $1000/month for a great guest house--from 9:30-3:30 weekdays.

*My thesis is due in 14 days. I am getting a little batty. I have 93 pages of field notes. I wish I had a ruler so I could measure it in inches rather than pages.

*I'm at the point where I am looking at all of my things and trying to judge if it will make the cut for the cross country trek. When I moved to AZ, I just left college and I basically only had books and clothes. Now, I look at things and wonder, "How much would you cost to ship."

*Listening to Elvis Costello's When I was Cruel is the perfect soundtrack for the day.

The Year of the Cold

I like to call 2007 "The year of the cold." At this moment, I am again reminded that an over developed interest in q-tips + teeth that feel like they are loose = I have a sinus infection. Because this is not the first time this has happened to me, I attempted to figure out why I am a germ magnet. Two major themes emerge:

Variable A-Kids. I am not one of those teachers who have managed to develop a personal space bubble. In fact, I think that I may be walking around with a sign that reads, "If you need a hug, I've got a hug" on my back. On Friday, I told the children in my class that I was sick and they should not touch me. At the end of the day, several students' internal struggle with this was visible as they tried (and ultimately failed) not to hug me goodbye. Two tried to keep their feet far away as they leaned in...But, most just attempted to use stealth to avoid the germs and surprised me with a quick goodbye. Sneaking up on germs has no scientific evidence of working to avoid colds but my students do not seem to care.

Variable B-My Thesis. I am 16 days away from handing in my thesis. Each Tuesday, after my 7:30am-9:30pm day, I am run down. I am also loaded down with another phase of work to do for my thesis class. I am always behind in the work I need to do because by Wednesday afternoon, I'm sick. The idea of sitting and doing 2 more hours of work after work each night is much too daunting, thus causing the cycle of undone work/run down me to continue.

Findings
I think variable A is reacting to the catalyst of variable B. The cycle of school and contact with germy kids creates a situation where I sound like a man and have a red, red nose (both were observations by my class last Friday).

However, all of these factors will change after 41 days (end of elementary school) and 64 days (end of NY residency) where another study can be conducted in order to triangulate the findings of this phase of research.

Discussion
Based on the evidence, it is clear that I should invest in anti-bacterial stuff and never take class again.