Monday, February 16, 2009

trying to catch up (or at least not fall further behind)

My prelims are 3 weeks from today. I requested feedback from my committee members on my proposal by today, and so far have only received it from Melody. Should I send a polite email to the others reminding them that I need their feedback soon? I'll get feedback from Herb and the rest of my lab tomorrow at our meeting. We were supposed to talk about my review last week, but instead we're talking about my prelim proposal this week.

Last Thursday I talked to Herb about my sister. He wasn't all that comforting. The least helpful thing he said was something like, "Well, you're still young. When you're older you learn how to deal with things like this." Maybe, but totally not helpful. I won't hold it against him though as I know he's understanding of how difficult this is even if he didn't articulate it very well. He gave me a check to help cover my travel expenses to get home.

My classmates have all been very supportive. I've received some hugs, many emails and calls, some cards in the old fashioned mail, and my interdisciplinary cohort sent flowers to both my grandmother's and sister's funerals. Friends have brought food and helped clean.

Last week I got a massage and I'm going to get one next week too. I can get cheap massages as a student and it's something I can do for myself. I'm also trying to keep up my exercising, especially swimming. I was registered for a triathlon on Feb. 8 but we were in the midst of funerals so obviously I missed it. Hopefully I can do one in March. If not, Jon will come to the gym and time me in all of the events for my own little triathlon.

I need to send my final prelim proposal draft to my committee in one week. I honestly haven't even looked at it since I made revisions the morning my sister died (11 days ago... already?). I'll do that tomorrow morning.

Then we've got that wedding to plan. We need to send invitations in one week and we don't have them yet. I think we're behind by absolutely every wedding planner's agenda of what is supposed to be done when. My sister was going to cut my hair and help with my makeup... another thing to figure out.

1 comment:

Albatross said...

A polite email wouldn't hurt. If I hadn't sent those none of my committee would have remembered to show up!

It sounds like you are taking good care of yourself in this difficult time, and have a good support network. Try not to worry too much about expected timelines for the wedding- your isn't a cookie-cutter type of wedding anyways.