stress and why I'm that....now do you get it?

Just a list. I am under a lot of pressure this week. This is why:

On September 22nd I found out that the graduate biology department at the school to which I am applying has its own special admissions deadline, which is October 1st. The entire school, except one other program, has a November 1st or later deadline. And every program that has a different deadline than the general November 1st deadline is listed in first pages of the application. Except. biology. And when I emailed the head of the department, he was very much like "um make the deadline on time, or don't apply." He probably thinks I'm a flake, even though I was mostly emailing him to point out the fact that there are some major discrepancies between the bio department website and application. Anyways. The problem is that now I have 8 days instead of 38 to get 3 recommendation letters and a minimum 1200 word statement done. I had 2 recommendations lined up. At least one (bless you, my former advisor) told me that she could get it done by the due date, which is a lot to ask since the poor woman moved to Ithaca two weeks ago and is now teaching at Cornell and is probably STRESSING. So one down. Next I approach another person I had thought of but not confirmed and they say "no. the grad school doesn't want a letter from me, they want a big name from the hospital to write one. Ask the doctor in charge of your study" Oh the woman who barely knows me? ok. I asked her, and she also said "yes" if I emailed her my personal statement. Which means I had to write it. I spent Thursday brainstorming it, went home Thursday, 1 hour and 45 minutes late since the bus broke down and there was a shooting/electrocution on the train tracks which delayed me. I went to my sister's best friend's father's wake, depressing, then settled down at 9:30 pm to come up with something to say. I was too tired. My brain refused. I spent most of the work day Friday writing my statement in between frantic emails to the the recommender I hadn't yet heard from (former boss).... I got a decent enough draft done, but it was far from perfect. I then took a 45 minute bus ride to drop of the necessary forms at my former office, left a message for my former boss offering everything except my first born child should he finish my recommendation before October 1st, took the bus back, then took the train for another hour. It took me 3 1/2 hours to do all of this. And once again, it was personal statement time. I could only do so much. I quit around 12:15 I think, slept til 8, woke up and packed the car for a camping trip.

Saturday morning I drove myself and two friends 200 or so miles to go camping, where we met 3 other friends, all girls I lived with in college. We spent the night camping and it was truly fabulous, did some great sight seeing in the area, but then it was another 200 miles back home. It was fine, but the drive is tiring. I got in in time to watch the end of the football game, yay, grabbed some dinner and then worked til 11:15pm on my personal statement. It was still unfinished but taking shape. I forwarded it out to my recommenders saying "it's not done, excuse it if it's horrible, but at least you'll get an idea of why I'm applying to school (and putting myself and you through hell to do so)" I still haven't heard from anyone regarding when they may finish. But fuck it, that application will be there complete or incomplete on October 1st. It's a little irritating that a university department can set it's own standards. I mean it's fine, but I can guarantee you that half the people who apply to this program do not check the individual website. It's hidden away and very tricky to find. FUrthermore it has all these special rules "send two copies of transcripts directly to school" Yeah? Well maybe if I had fucking 38 days to do that, I would, but sadly for you, I have 8 days, and you are getting the single copy of my two transcripts in the envelope of other application materials I am sending. Too fucking bad, I am at the point where if I tried to follow all of these stupid rules I will have a breakdown. It's ridiculous. Bad enough I am a perfectionist and am tweaking my personal statement on a daily basis because I'm so worried that the admissions board will read it and say "she did this the week before it was due." ARGH!

So I have that. As if that wasn't bad enough, I am running a half marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. THIS SUNDAY. Can you believe it? ugh. SO yeah, I am exhausted from staying up and cranky as all hell, and I have to run 13.1 miles on Sunday. I am supposed to be resting and instead I'm running around crazy and the hike I took while camping (which I knew would be bad, but went on anyways) aggravated my ankle and illiotibial band. Great. Hopefully it won't bug me on Sunday.

ALSO this week is bookclub. ANd cause I apparently can't plan for sh*t, I volunteered to bring the snack. I could of course buy something, but that is definitely not my style, so instead, after work today, I will be buying the ingredients to make 4 different types of cookies (the batch size is pretty small). I feel like I have to go all out with this because I don't add much to book club. i usually don't like the books that much, find them slightly boring, and therefore say things such as "the descriptions in this b0ok are lovely and vivid" Who am I? Jesus. I want to make up for it with my delicious cookies.

What is this obsession with being "able to do it all?" God. Ugh. I feel like I am going to turn into Felicity Huffman's character on "Desperate Housewives" (though God help me if I have 4 children) and I'm only 23!!!! Imagine me being all psychotic PLUS kids. IT's terrifying! And it makes me so stressed out (ok the deadline thing is an extenuating circumstance) and then I get cranky and no one wants to talk to me and then people think that I am mad at them (boyfriend probably thinks I am mad at him, though it's not particularly fun to try and carry on a conversation and be interrupted every five minutes with a description of what's going on on the LL Cool J tribute on MTV. Jesus Christ, don't call me if you don't want to talk to me) and yeah. Ugly ugly cycle. I guess what I have to look forward to is the fact that on Sunday, October 2nd around 12 noon, everything will be OVER. It will be wonderful. Then I may sleep the rest of the day. Then I'm getting a pedicure and manicure. Everyone KNOWS I am a nail polish whore and i haven't touched nailpolish since, uh, at least August, maybe earlier. I the last time I did anything to my nails except break them was the weekend of a wedding I went to with boyfreiend, August 6th.

Also-I feel guilty for being stressed. My sister's best friend lost his dad last week. There were 2 hurricanes in a month that destroyed people's houses. I mean, what the fuck is my problem? :(