The Queen of Invitations

This should be fast, because I'm meeting Derek downtown at 2:00pm (he's taking away Brownie, the couch). I just wanted to announce that the invitations and their envelopes are printed!!! And I had my Dad look over them several times, to reassure me that I didn't somehow mess them up. Today, I bought $109 worth of stamps (wow) and, after stuffing all of the hand-delivered invitations, I put stamps on all of the to-be-mailed envelopes, along with a little more than half of the RSVP envelopes.

With all of that said, I have this lurking fear that I somehow messed up stuffing the invitations, or putting on the stamps, and that I'll soon have to announce that I wasted $109 worth of stamps. Because, as you can tell by the previous post, it's been that kind of week.

Can you tell that I have the day off from babysitting? I'm trying to be as productive as possible, in anticipation of Friday evening's official envelope stuffing night. I was avoiding active work, because I was kind of tired after this morning's allergy shot, and so this was perfect. So are the Swedish Berries I'm currently consuming. To quote my friend Matt, "Mmmm...Swedish."

With more aggravating news, I finally heard back from Dr. B this morning. (Fortunately, I was checking my e-mail at 6:30 am.) He wrote to inform me that he had "just begun" reading my most recent draft, and could he have the marked copy of my previous draft, so that he could see how I've responded to his comments?

Two causes for panic there. First, he has just begun reading the draft? The draft that he got a week and a half ago, and that he said he'd read at the end of last week? Now, I understand that professors have lives, and have other obligations, but I know exactly what his work schedule is. He finished marking finals in the middle of last week (it's the first time in a while where I haven't been marking those finals -- I'm on scholarship this semester), and next week he begins teaching a very work-intensive Spring class. This is why he was planning on reading the draft earlier in the week, so we could get this all over with and not interfere with the spring course.

And then, in a couple of weeks, he leaves for Europe, for a month! Okay, so the plan has always been that I would defend after he returns, but we're really cutting it short. And I am beginning to panic. And he just says that he's taking care of things and that I shouldn't worry.

My other, more immediate cause for panic was his request of the marked copy of the previous draft. You see, last week I cleaned my room in a very fast and ruthless fashion, and I was convinced that I somehow threw out the previous draft. He'd never asked for a draft before; why start now? Thankfully, I found the introduction and chapter one (there were no marks on the other chapters) and put it in his mailbox when I went for this morning's allergy shot.

So, that's me right now. Caught between a few things, and working very hard not to go into a full fledged panic about my future. I'm thankful that New Kid on the Hallway's most recent entry (as of this morning) was asking her readers for non-medicinal ways to counter an anxiety attack. I attempted a few of the suggested relaxation exercises.

Now I'd better go meet Derek. Farewell, Brownie.