Stop the ride, I wanna get off...

I love you Dr. L, I really do, but I feel like I'm arguing in circles with a congested, fatalistic turtle called "Prospectus."
Any pointers?

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 So, I have a doppelganger in the English Department here who is also named "Jackrabbit" and is a year or two ahead of me in the PhD program.  When I passed my last exam, I was literally skipping down the hall when I ran into her at a desk in our computer lounge.

"Congrats on passing your specialized exam," she told me.   

"Thanks!  It feels so good to be ABD (all but dissertation)!"  I chirped.  "It's all downhill from here!"  She shifted her baggy, exhausted eyes from the disorganized pile of her chapter revisions on her desk to me with baggy, sleep-deprived eyes full of pity. 

"Jackrabbit, I love you and all, but don't you realize?"  She begged.  "You're done with the easy part.  The hard part is just starting.  This stupid dissertation is going to put me in my grave."  And thus, having completely deflated my naive, cheerful buoyancy, she turned back to her revisions with a groan.

"Oh," I answered.

 It only took a month to get to the same point that my friend the other "Jackrabbit" already was at.  I am officially done with the emotional toll of graduate school, and I haven't even finished my stupid prospectus yet.  I'm all for calling it "good enough" and rolling on with the rest of my life. 

Wipe that grin off your face and help me with a thesis
statement already, Falcor.  I'm desperate.

Unfortunately, my dissertation committee, like a certain stodgy turtle from an old movie from my childhood, has other plans.   One of those plans involves another three semesters in school and a grinding, hopeless weight that's pulling me underneath like Atreyu's horse in the Swamps of Sadness, and I'm still waiting to get pulled from the muck by the sudden arrival inspiration with big wings and floppy ears.  Stupid Luck Dragons-- never around until the last possible second.  I mean, look at that face; he's mocking me, I swear.

Some of my colleagues are a lot worse than me right now, however.  In the last month I've had three different PhD candidates crying on my shoulder in despair, and this afternoon I made a freshman burst into tears just by asking her about her paper topic.  To top it all off, yesterday I stepped on a roofing nail and drove the thing almost an inch into my foot, so I earned a visit to Student Health for a free tetanus shot.  Winter vacation in Wyoming absolutely can not come soon enough.   

What that means for blogging, however, is that I'm going to have to shift from regular posts and research on TLP temporarily to more of an ad-hoc basis.  Although, if I'm honest, that's been what I've been doing since April anyhow, so nothing will really change that much on everyone else's end.  It does mean, however, that I won't get near as much progress done on keeping up-to-date with everything as I would wish, but, hey, at least we'll keep rolling.  And, if anybody has a contribution they'd like to add, or advertise an upcoming "Project," or point me to something cool, I'll certainly have the time for that.

And so, do not despair, I am still fully committed to blogging!  I should have a few posts up over the next week and a half.  I find that blogging is a relaxing way to procrastinate from writing a dissertation proposal.  Just as long as Dr. L doesn't find out...