On my mind...

I've reached it -- I've come to the breaking point with my prospective students. First, to clear it up for some of the faculty with whom I work, they are prospective students, not perspective students. For the students themselves, let me tell you what not to do.

First, don't stand in the doorway of my office. You can come in and ask questions, you can ask me for just about anything, but don't just stand there. I hate that.

Second, don't use the following in an email to me, "I was intersted in the information system program. which I hear great things about your school program." I make your admissions decisions and I don't want to be forced by the state's regulations to admit an idiot.

Third, don't use semi-colons. Face it -- you don't know how to use them, and you will do it incorrectly. You will drive me over the edge.

Fourth, and finally (at least for today), don't use the thesaurus to write your essay. You will inevitably end up using words that you do not understand. You will write sentences like "I have obtained a higher level of not only concentration but organization, as well as a faultless self-administration of precedence that has brought me further into faster development of my academic skills." Apparently, the primary academic skill is the one used in choosing "thesaurus" in word. Other than that, your skills, precedence and self-administration are escaping me.

Okay, so I am feeling a ridiculous amount of stress. For those who don't know me well, you should know that I don't really deal well once I'm over the line to FEELING the stress... i'm very good at ignore it for a long time, and then I crack, never to return to sanity again. The biggest thing that throws me is the unknown -- the "hey, I wonder what will happen!" that seems to excite some insane people I know. Here are a few of the biggies that are pushing me over the edge right now:

1. I've got an event today at 11:30. I'm completely unprepared, and the person who was supposed to be the MC called in sick. No one knows anything that's supposed to be going on because she's one of those "I've got it covered" people who doesn't inform anyone about how things are going to run.

2. My first party for my little business (see HERE) is this Saturday. I shouldn't be stressed about it, since it's just a few of my friends being guinea pigs for me so that I can know what I don't know, but I woke up from nightmares last night about it anyway.

3. I'm still waiting to hear on the stupid job. I applied for an indirect promotion -- another job higher in the organization, but not in my direct line. At first, all I was hearing was "you're so perfect, you're so perfect" and now nothing. And I'm afraid to be pushy, because these are people I have to work with, whether I get the job or not.

4. I'm also waiting to hear on the doctoral program I finally applied to. I waited until the last possible moment to apply, so I'm still not sure if my recommendation letters arrived in time or if I might be deferred until next year. I hate the waiting.

5. None of this (#s 3 & 4) may matter, because BC is now doing a job search. He hates his job (understandably, from what I know) and wants to get back into academics. The thing with an academic job search, though, is that you don't have a whole lot of control over WHERE you're going. So, we may be moving somewhere crappy, we may be living apart for some period of time, we may be staying right where we are, with him in a job he doesn't like. Who the heck knows. Did I mention that I'm SOOO bad with the waiting???

So, I'm just sitting around, stressing and waiting. I also stopped going to yoga, which isn't helping with the stress. I used to refer to Yoga as my hour and a half each week when I was mellow. Now I don't even have that. Oy.