November 2nd, 2017

Getting to be That Time in the Semester

I’ve always been a big Janis Ian fan.  She’s best known for her very depressing song, “At Seventeen.” I always felt like I was that girl in the song and so I bought the album, “Between the Lines,” in record form, 8 track, cassette, CD and now, I own it digitally.  If you were ever a Leonard Cohen fan, you can relate.  The music is very depressing, but there are times in your life where you need a sad song that makes you cry. Was I that sad girl of “At Seventeen?” Probably not.  I’ve been to my high school reunions and clearly, if I had known I was as popular as people say I was, I would have had a much better time.

But it’s getting to be that time in the semester.  I was joking in class on Wednesday that I was behind in my work on my paper for Lynch’s class but I would have a moment probably at 3 AM some morning where I knew what direction to go in and I would start writing.  That happened tonight. So I got up, did a little work around the house while I was thinking about what to do.  I’ve been feeling lousy, so I’ve been up in the middle of the night a lot this week. Then, I did the reading for tonight’s class. Finally, I found the data I’ve been looking for.  Since I’m not a full time grad student, I have to rely heavily on databases that are already out there or in sources not usually used in academic papers.  I work for the U. S. Senate so I searched the Senate Historical Office website (because you can’t call them at 3 AM) and found several databases that might be useful.  Hooray!  Now, I just need to get Lynch to buy into it.

I’m sure there’s an alphabet label for how I do things.  Maybe, MPDS–Morning Person Derangement Syndrome.

Now it’s back to reading and taking notes until it’s time to go to work. I think I’ll be doing a lot of this in the next few weeks.