Time.

First and foremost, let me say Happy Birthday to Mallorie, even if I am technically an hour and five late at this point. I blame daylight savings time - otherwise, I would have missed the time by a mere five minutes.

Now, on to less pressing matters: I am running out of time. I fear that I have flirted with a life of leisure too much this semester, and will have to shake myself out of it pretty lickety split if I'm going to keep afloat in the next few weeks (months too, for that matter) and still retain moderate shreds of my sanity. I won't say that I've spread myself too thin. I won't even say that I have poorly budgeted my time recently. Neither of those statements are true, really. I just have a number of commitments that I must now juggle. Fortunately, if there has been one advantage to sleeping as much as I have in the past few weeks/months, it is that when I have been required to press my brain a bit, it has responded with a quickness and clarity that I can hardly remember experiencing before. For a change, I feel like I'm really on the ball in my classes, and feel like I not only have something legitimate to say, but I can express it as I want/need to.

"So Bill" you ask, "what is it you have to do that's all so pressing?" Well, I'm glad you asked. Tonight I am editing an essay for our school's lit magazine, tomorrow I do a little online copy editing, write a rough draft of a high school recommendation letter, go to class, and I have band practice (gotta re-string my guitar in there too, somewhere). I have a short prospectus paper due for one class on Tuesday, a five-to-seven page essay due next Thursday for another class, all the while I'll need to be reading books for my thesis while getting that prospectus in order. During this time, I also have to keep up on my copy editing, which is actually a nice change of pace from the mental gymnastics of all my school work. Plus, I make my own hours, so it doesn't matter if I get the bulk of my work done between the hours of one and three in the morning.

Now, regardless of how much work I do or don't have going on, it still seems like time has been flying by recently. Am I alone in this? I swear, if feels at times like I just started the semester. Hell, it feels like I just started the Grad program. It seems like time is slipping from me weeks at a time, and I scarcely notice.

Speaking of time slipping away, it's not getting any earlier, and I have editing to do. Before I sign off for the night, I want to give special thanks to my expert proofreader Jennski, who never lets me down. Unfortunately, I can't pay you for your tireless efforts, but you can put it down on your resume -- I'll give a glowing reference.