comps mini-journal, day 10.

 Day 10! I have three rough drafts, and boy are they rough! They look like mad libs puzzles-- insert detail here, date there, foooottttnnooootttes, and commands reminding me to inject the argument. Those bits are frighteningly highlighted in a number of colors, thanks to GoogleDocs, so I don't forget to delete them. The whole thing is a disaster, all 31 pages are a GD mess. I mean look:

I FOOTNOTED MY SELF-CRITIQUE.

I, too, am a mess. At the age of 26, I can say earnestly and without hyperbole that I am in the midst of the worst breakout I have ever had. So powerful that it has come on in spite of birth control, in spite of diligent facewashing, in spite of fancy face scrubbers, in spite of witch hazel pads. I chose for you the most whited out picture I took because I am, quite literally, horrified, and am plotting out how I can finish this damned process without leaving my house for the next four days while my skin clears up.

And I look tired! Not from lack of sleep. Probably from all of the stress eating! Ice cream every day! Coffee, gallons of it! Kit-kat! Dark chocolate Reeses cups! Lager! You get the idea. Bad life choices make this process so much easier! And probably aren't helping this whole skin problem.

I'm also realizing how much I'm aging. It occurred to me this week that I have permanent wrinkles under my eyes that will not be going away. There's this omnipresent crease on my forehead. And the white hair I found last week! I know I was aging before I started comps, but somehow comps makes it worse. It makes it real.

Ok, so this is the pit of despair. I get it. Rock bottom! The weekend is over and I've got 4 days left. The plan is, as I said in the beginning, to spend next week revising. Tomorrow, dissertation field. Tuesday, big US field. Wednesday, Latin America. Thursday, everything. Since I'm giving a final on Friday at 8am (joy!), I will probably just turn in the essays before I go to bed on Thursday night/Friday morning.  This is the home stretch, and it is awfully homely.

I am recognizing, at last, why the oral defense is scary: you have to account, to four brilliant people, for this dreck you've produced. 

And everything is italicized because it's just so damn dramatic!

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This isn't stopping me from life's simple pleasures.

Yesterday I pickled fennel with orange, a recipe from The Joy of Pickling:

And today I finally combined my new Saltwater sandals with my new favorite nail polish, Essie "Meet Me at Sunset," a very orangey red that is the great lobster color that's everywhere this year.  This has got to be at least my tenth pair of Saltwaters- I've been wearing them since I was a baby, religiously since I was 14 and traipsed all over Europe in them. My brown and navy pairs were getting pretty raggedy, so I opted for gold because I can't resist metallic shoes. Saltwaters are nicely made, leather, and super durable- I replace mine about every 5 years. Which for 41 bucks (remember when they were $20?) is a pretty good deal. And this year they have been deemed so fashionable that Madewell is carrying them- but Madewell is not fancy enough for gold. And as we say at my house:

GIRL, YOU FANCY.