recovering

Phew, what a week we had! Did you have fun? I sure did! Thank you again to Mimi for organizing the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. I think it exceeded all our expectations. There are so many posts that you could go on for weeks and weeks reading them!

For myself, I have to admit I was doing my best to hide what was going on behind the scenes here. In truth, the last seven days have been the most intense and stressful period since I’ve started grad school. It started off with a 3000-word essay which was due on Friday. On Monday, I was still without an idea of what I wanted to say. On Wednesday, I had a gigantic mess of quotes and thoughts, but still nothing resembling an essay by far. On Friday morning, I was still writing my conclusion. Friends were complaining of not seeing me. My computer seemed to be begging for a break. The damned thing was handed in on Friday at 1, then I had a few hours of just wandering around aimlessly (and, for part of the time, stroking yarn), and at 6 that same day, I got the questions for my 3-day-long take-home exam, which entailed writing 2 essays of 2000 words each. To be handed in on Monday at 6. A minute late, and it would count as not showing up for the exam. Friday, I looked at the questions, went through my notes, stayed up until 1 jotting things down. On Saturday, I wrote and wrote and wrote. At 9 pm I had an emotional crisis from all the stress and went to bed. On Sunday, I was disintegrating. By 6pm, my second essay still hadn’t been started. At 1 am, I went out for a walk to get some fresh air, then continued. On Monday at 5:15 pm, having convinced myself that they were both of good enough quality for a pass, I clicked submit and tried to exhale, for the first time in 7 days.

Caroline and I celebrate our freedom with cupcakes. She went through the exam ordeal as well.

But I made sure the posts rolled on. I didn’t write them in advance. But knowing that at least 45 minutes each day would be spent putting together something fun and interesting (as opposed to diatribes on public administration), and taking little breaks every here and there to read and answer your comments – that really kept me going! So, while you didn’t know it, you were energizing me with all your visits and comments. Thank you for that. To all my ‘old’ regular readers (so lovely to have people with me who have been around since the very beginning!), and to all the new friends we’ve acquired in the last week (Hi! I hope you stick around!) – a huge thank you.

I’m now in the recovery stage. It’s of course physical recovery, but mostly mental. My brain needs to unwind. I think even the physical tiredness is coming primarily from mental exhaustion. I’m still feeling pretty drained and that’s why I didn’t post yesterday. Also, since my knitting has suffered badly in these times of stress (i.e. it hasn’t happened at all, even when I tried to knit I would end up being indecisive on what project to begin, unhappy with my cast on, annoyed with the yarn… all psychological, I tell you!), I don’t have much to show you in terms of new original work. But there’s loads of things to write about (as so many people proved this past week!), and I intend to get my knitting back on track very soon! So stay tuned…

A wonderful little statue I snapped today. I find it incredibly soothing and calming.

Hugs all round!