In which BS substitutes coffee for food and sleep

 We have reached the last seven days of my Masters degree.

Well. It had better be only seven days, because I can't take much more of this.

To use a baseball metaphor, I am rounding third base and hoping not to stumble on the home stretch, because the only dugout here is more school, and I have neither money nor patience for that. I haven't written here in ages. This is largely due to the research project which has consumed my life for the past few weeks. Those of you who know me in real life are aware that I tend to, as my voice teacher said yesterday, "amp myself up" when preparing for a major event. In terms of actual recent events, what this means is that the other night I called my mother at 3am the other day (it was 6am for her, so not as heinous as it could have been) to tell her I was quitting graduate school. And she, of course, reminded me that if I quit grad school with nine days left, she would kill me herself. After four consecutive days of about three hours of sleep per night, I nearly cried in my voice lesson yesterday and my teacher told me to be strong because I'm fully capable of finishing in time, and to just "get her done." So I suppose I should count myself lucky to have two of the baddassest ladies on the planet to remind me in no uncertain terms that this is something I have got to get done, or else.

After two years of graduate school, I'm finding that I'm tougher than I ever thought I could be. This is something I don't always believe, especially when I'm tired. But, look! Look at all the impossible things I have done since October!

• Learned to sew
• Learned an opera role in three weeks, then performed it two weeks later
• Maintained a GPA above 3.7 in the midst of the most stressful time of my life
• Made some sense of the theoretical writings of Arnold Schoenberg
• Removed myself from an unhealthy situation in a way that was assertive, without making a scene

So, final M.M. research project, bring it on. I'm going to kick your ass, and then I am going to move to Chicago and have All The Good Times, and you can stay in Seattle and wallow in academia until the paper you are written on yellows and falls apart.

(I might be losing it, just a little bit)

The concept of the Pile of Good Things has become fairly integral to my survival these past few days. Knitting is my calm-the-hell-down activity--I'm working on a slipcover for my MacBook with an intarsia alto clef on the front. I subscribed to mlb.tv so I can watch the Tigers, although thus far I have used it mostly to re-watch videos of horrific baseball injuries, like Buster Posey's destroyed ankle and Marlon Byrd getting hit in the face--this makes me feel better about my own life, which is admittedly a little bit sadistic. Oh, and I finally watched Team Starkid's most recent musical, Starship, whose song "Status Quo" has become somewhat of an anthem for me in recent days, so thanks for that, Darren Criss and affiliated Starkids.

The plan for the next few days: breathe. Breathe. And try not to die, self. It would be a waste to have put myself through so much for nothing.