Aquino slasher movies, and other effects of higher education

I had the most bizarre and disturbing dream last night – Corazon Aquino (post-People Power Philippine President) was forced to fight off a group of ninja assassins, cutting them up with a kris and eventually triumphing, in full slasher-movie style.

I think this probably means I’m working too hard. School anxiety dreams are nothing new, but when my research subjects start popping up in my nightmares, I think it’s gone to a whole new level.

I don’t feel like I’ve got much of a choice about it at the moment. I got through the GRE’s and the first round of grad school applications this week. I feel like I should be able to relax, rest on my laurels a bit.

Instead, I have to finish a draft of my entire thesis (about 20 pages to go), write 2 big articles for journalism, a 13 page ethics paper, and another SEAsian studies research paper, all in the next two and a half weeks.

I’ve got this bag I really like. It’s a fancy, vinyl pseudo-messenger bag. Big enough to fit my computer and books, and distributes weight well, so it rides on the small of my back when I’m biking. But its been falling apart for the past few months; the strap is ripping through from carrying to much weight for too long, and because of the material, there’s not really anything I can do to fix it. Thing is though, it still does exactly what I need it to do, so I keep on using it (though I’ll admit that I avoid carrying my computer in it). It works as well as it ever did -- better than any other bags I have -- but there’s no ignoring that one of these days it’s going to break. It’s completely inevitable. The accident will stop waiting to happen, and it’ll go, spilling its contents into the street.

In any case, the point of this is that I was walking down the street yesterday, bowed under a load of books, and I got to thinking about what a good metaphor for my brain this bag is. I’m still completely functional, but there’s no question that I’ve been pushing myself way too hard for way too long, and you don’t have to look to hard to find the places where the strain is starting to show. It’s only a matter of time.

I’m just hoping (like I’m hoping with my bag) that it’ll get me through the next couple of weeks, at which point it can snap at will, and I’ll have enough time to put the pieces back toghether before I start over.

Not terribly profound, mostly just kind of pathetic. But true.