It's been a busy year and I'm exhausted. I feel like I've been dialed up to 11 since New Year's Eve. The very first thing I did in January, after recovering from a fairly significant hangover, was go to the Joint Mathematics Meeting in New Orleans. Seeing all of my various conference friends was fabulous, but the main reason for my going was to try to get a job, which did not make for a relaxing four days.
Fortunately, I got a job offer shortly afterward and, to my considerable relief, by February I was contracted up and knew what post-grad school life had in store for me for the next three years. The relief was immense. Now all I had to do was finish my Ph.D.! Oh... wait...
While a thoroughly unpleasant, emotionally fraught period of my life, finishing my dissertation was really not as bad as I'd expected. Nothing actually went wrong, I steadily progressed towards my goals, and even though I spent a solid 72 hours hunched over my laptop during the days preceding my defense, I successfully defended my dissertation on March 31.
With the worse out of the way and feeling more confident than I had in years, I spent the next few weeks editing my dissertation and submitted it on time in mid-April.
May brought the end of the semester and the usual extended office hours, extra review sessions, and exam grading marathons in the conference room. I also realized that with only two months left before my wedding, I'd better get on that shit!
Anyone who's had a hand in planning a wedding knows how tense and stressful it can become. I think that everyone has a different experience, but I would guess that at some point, everyone reaches a bit of a breaking point. I was determined not to let things get out of control. I'd keep things simple and easy and avoid the "bride mania." Yeah, right. Between teaching during the summer session at Tufts throughout the month of June and keeping track of all of the random crap for the wedding, I didn't have much time to think about how stressed I was getting until the week before the wedding. Everything was done, the last loose ends were being tied up, but I'd been on "GO" for so long that it was impossible to shut off. Sitting around waiting for time to pass so I could just be married already was probably the worst part of it. But time does have this habit of continuing on at a steady, relentless pace (unless you're traveling close to the speed of light, but whatever).
Finally, it was the evening of July 9 and I was married. I did my dance, smiled, and cut the cake. I even had fun, truth be told. Kraig and I spent the next few days opening cards addressed to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Theriault, saying "good bye, thank you, and we'll see you soon," to lots and lots of family, and packing for our honeymoon. The honeymoon itself was a ton of fun. We spent 10 days in Puerto Rico hiking around San Juan, swimming in the bath-like water of the Caribbean Ocean, and keeping busy with all sorts of touristy activities. We then went up to Montreal for a long weekend to see the International Fireworks Competition.
And then, it was done. We were back to real life.
Now it's August and we're planning our move to Chicago at the end of the month. I've been trying to motivate myself to get some math done, but anxiety about the move keeps on making me get up out of my chair and either clean or eat. Because the wedding and honeymoon were taking up my brain for most of the summer, I've had to hunt through a few month's worth of emails to find the forms I need to fill out and the websites I need to visit to get myself set up to start at Northwestern in September.
Kraig and I are going to Chicago on Thursday to find an apartment. Fortunately for me, Kraig is an internet god and has been taking care of hunting down apartment listings. However, it leaves me with time to kill before I know how much I need to purge my belongings to fit them in our new place. Regardless of how much space we end up having, the old course notes are being returned to nature via the recycling dumpster. The books I have no intention of ever reading again are being donated, as are clothes that I will never wear again. It's a process that's both exhilarating and depressing at the same time.
With all of that going on, I haven't been able to force myself to do work. My plan for today was to head out to Tufts, bury myself in the library, and Get Work Done. That hasn't happened yet, but it's not even noon, so maybe it still will? I find myself strangely nostalgic for those weeks back in April when I was the most productive and focused on a single, well-defined task.
It also strikes me, and forgive me for waxing poetic, that my life has been mimicking the seasons fairly reliably lately: gloomy, cold, and soggy in the Winter months, followed by a burst of new energy and progress in the Spring. Summer was a mad rush of planting, growth, and lethargy
For the moment, however, I think I'll try a little harder to take advantage of the longer daylight hours.
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