so yeah...

... I don't know what the hell I think I'm doing.

I'm supposed to graduate with a largely useless degree in an obscure field in less than three months. We're in the severest recession in my lifetime. The best job I can really hope to get around here is flipping burgers or sweeping floors, and even then I'm going to have to beat back other grad students to get it. I heard a report on the radio today from an animal shelter that had over 70 applications for one position scooping poop, about half of which were from people with masters degrees.

I was going to get a PhD. That would have insulated me for a while longer. I had spent three years working myself up to the point where I could look someone in the eye and say "I am hoping to get a doctorate". I have been rejected by 6 schools so far. Including my own.

I may not even graduate on time. I can't seem to get a committee to form for me. One of the same problems that is preventing me from continuing at the GTU (lack of New Testament faculty) also means that there are no professors free to sit on my committee. If I don't get examined, I can't graduate. Not, at this point, that it will really matter. Just to my ego.

My depression has been acting up lately. Not in the sort of traditional cry-all-the-time, can't-go-out-in-public sort of sense. Just in that my base level mood seems to have dropped from "mellow" to "apathetic". I can still be happy. I still enjoy seeing my friends. I still pet my kitties. I just really turn off between happy moments.

It's mostly when I'm alone. I spent over ten minutes sitting on the bed the other morning with one foot in a pair of tights trying to work up the motivation to put the other foot in. I wasn't sad. It just didn't seem worth the effort. In January, bathing once every three days was a real achievement. It just didn't seem like going through all the trouble of taking off my clothes, getting cold, running the water, washing my hair, getting out, drying off, and getting dressed again, was really worth it. Such a large expenditure of energy for such a small payoff. I'm better about this now that school has started- never underestimate the motivational power of potential embarrassment. I'm going to all my classes. I'm doing my homework. I go to the meetings I'm supposed to go to, I do the things I'm supposed to do. It's everything else that's falling through the cracks.

There are probably lots of reasons for this. Multiple rejections hurt my little ego. It's the end of winter, which is always hard. I have senioritis. I've never fully recovered from coming back from Israel. I've been sick. I feel a lot of low grade anxiety about not knowing what I'm going to do next. Lots of reasons.

It will pass eventually. It always does. It is the ebb and flow of my life, and part of who I am. I think that I will be able to get most of the things I need to do done without too many casualties. I usually can.

But I don't think I'm alone when I say that June can't come soon enough.