oh the many many things

[katekat]

things that have been stressing me out

• taxes.  the government asked for a whole lot of money.  no mistakes.  i spent a day freaking out.  i'm still freaked out. mom is helping me, and so now i feel guilty that she's helping me, guilty and grateful
• advisor.  it's not over till it's over.  but then it's not over, it's in this weird limbo where i'm not sure if i should move forward like she's not here or like she's going to be here some how.  i don't email her and she doesn't email me right now. 
  
• paper for advisor. i had no idea what texts i was going to work on.  though, see below because that got better.
• paper for non-advisor.  well, i was freaked out by advisor. and pissed off.  it's very difficult to even think about writing something when you got told you're not supposed to be doing.
• money.  always money. i wish i was better with it, and i wish i had just a smidge more of it each month so i wouldn't have to be quite so careful about every single thing i do.  and sadly the cost of quitting smoking was basically entirely eaten up by the rise in gas, so i feel like i'm not making any many gains in things like that.  grrr.
  
• my face. oh my god, i am having a terrible break out - like acne like i haven't had since high school. it makes me feel uncomfortable, my face literally hurts, and i'm trying to drink more water, wash my face twice a day, and be patient enough not to hate myself or be all self conscious, but it's really, truly difficult. (sadly this may be a manifestation of all of the stress from the above, but it's making me feel somehow young and out of control at the same time i feel too old to be having these problems.)
• final project in the linguistics class is going to be like 20 pages of translation - a longer task than i've ever done before, by about 4 times
  
• having to make a decision about summer - i'll get to that later ... pro and con lists, they're awesome!
  

things that have been going right

• found texts for advisor!paper. TODAY I found them! I found one that is littered with letters, another short story that has male voice in letter, and i have a bunch of other books that i lugged home today that have more things for me to discover.  it was a very productive research day.
• met with professor for other class and feel confident about my paper, despite what advisor said (and managed not to bring up what advisor said to professor, because i DO NOT want to get into a he-said, she-said debate)
• haven't smoked.
• have been walking the dog in appropriate amounts so she is healthy and mostly happy (she wants to eat squirrels! i do not let her! i am evil!) 
• accomplished like a billion things off of my 'to do list' including fixing a lot of things that needed to be sewn, so i have a sun dress and favorite jammie pants back
• friends don't seem to mind be holding it against me that i have been hiding for the last couple of weeks (because of the aforementioned stuff) and are awesome anyway
• summer_of_giles is open!! and people are actually singing up!  i'm so excited our little corner of fandom has strong willed awesome people who keep the love alive
  
• 
  

NOW, you ask yourself, what about summer?  I'm asking myself that very question.  I thought I'd settled it for myself - I was going to do the program I could afford, that I was comfortable with.  But I got thrown back into confusion today after meeting with the grad advisor in our dept because he really thinks it would be a good idea if i go to Japan this summer.

Here's my pros and cons list of the choice i have to make

Summer in Japan		Summer in California
PRO	CON	PRO	CON
Top rated program	I'm on the waiting list (not in yet)	Familiar	Not as good as JProgram
Better Japanese training	More expensive*	Learned a lot of Japanese last summer	Not as prestigious
* In * Japan	Radiation?/Power outages / food issues?	Costs covered by funding	I've already gone one summer
Adviser wants me to go	* In * Japan	Housing / food covered by program
Looks better on CV	Higher stress	Close to family
Can do my own research while I'm in Japan	Have to arrange a lot more (housing, food, etc)	Will still improve
College-level work (not undergrad)	I've already paid $250 for California program, nonrefundable
I will learn more here

* more expensive, although grad advisor says he can get money from the department to help me pay the higher expense.

this list? does not really help me.  And I've talked to five people about going - 2 are for going to Japan, 3 are against it.  Japan has more pros AND more cons - how does one balance that all out? 


Gah.  it all makes my brain hurt quite a bit...