SSHRC Application vs. Doing My Taxes

Yearly ritual in October vs. Yearly ritual in January (I'm from one of those families)

Having to fill out stacks of picky forms for a federal agency vs. um, the exact same thing.

Potential of getting a lot of money vs. potential of getting back a heap of tax money (yay, being a student and having an income!)

Both hopeful and frustrated vs. actually I don't have a problem with doing my taxes (I use QuickTax, and so it's easy, I don't have a complicated financial situation, and I get money back every time).

But the application is complete, with time to spare! I'm going to wait to click the "verify" button, which prevents any further changes and lets me print the final copy, until tomorrow morning. I think I need have a good night's sleep and go back over it with "fresh eyes" before I do anything rash like that.

But now I think I deserve an evening off, n'est-ce pas? I've had a full day:

German midterm: apparently, the prof underestimated how much time it would take to do each translation. He pretty much gave us a final exam. I conquered the first translation and answered all the related questions, but then I realised how much more I had left, in less than half an hour. (One more reading, which requires translation because then I had to answer questions, and then a HUGE translation.) I started to panic; was I so far behind everyone else? What could I do? There were a bunch of words in the big translation that weren't in our vocabulary yet, and I would have to look up. I didn't have time! I bordered near panic attack, and then near crying, and then I thought to myself, "Self, you've been at the head of this class, or near the head, all semester. If you're struggling with time, surely there are others who are, too!"

And so I went to the front, and told my prof that there wasn't enough time to finish the whole thing. He asked the class, and apparently I was ahead of everyone! And so he adapted.

History workshop: So, then I ran to my workshop, with my head a big pile of mush. Could I even read anymore? There ended up being a pretty good turnout, for a blustery day, and I'm so glad that I'd gone over my notes so many times, because I just went without the notes, after about the first minute. And I started ad libbing! I realised that they needed more background into the stories, and so I narrated the basic storylines of all three books. Suddenly, I started to worry: my time was going quickly, and where should I go now? I realised that I had already established the importance of Berlin, and so I took these stories that I told, re-emphasised the important points, and drew my conclusions. Then I said that I bring out my best points in response to questions, and boy were there! We all talked for a long time about the different cultural and political tensions at the end of Weimar. There was a good mix of people with a general background (or expertise -- such as my supervisor) in my area, and a bunch from entirely different fields. This was good, because I got some interesting questions and different points of view. My supervisor was glad he came, because he's compiling a whole list of questions for me to consider, for branching out on my reasearch, for my dissertation.

Afterward, people told me that they were really excited about my talk, and a couple even asked where they could find English translations of the books, so they could read them themselves! (Apparently, they actually enjoyed my storytelling!)

All in all, it was a triumphant day. I conquered the midterm, the workshop and the application, all in one day.