Another gloomy day

It's cloudy, rainy, and just all around gloomy here. It's been helpful because all I like to do on days like these is to curl up with a blanket and read - I've been relatively productive over the past couple of days for that reason. The only thing about these long spells of nothing but clouds and rain is that it makes me feel gloomy too, like there's no hope (no matter how much you work, you'll never get it all done...muahahaha). An even better analogy would be that it reminds me of the scene in A Muppet Christmas Carol where Scrooge is meeting with the ghost of yet-to-come - scary stuff!

But all is well otherwise. My research career isn't over (more RA drama that involved a governor's office asking me to withdraw my report on their state and work with one of their staff to fix it). I cannot even tell you how freaked out I was. Everything is fine though and it will all work out. I keep asking myself when this RA is going to end! And I don't even know if I can get paid for all of the hours of overtime that I have put in - it's closing in on 20 hours at this point.

Anyway, everything else is moving along, and I'm making slow progress on my professional paper mainly due to the fact that I don't like writing until the last minute because I need the adrenaline that comes along with trying to meet a deadline. I have to have the paper written within the next month since my working group's last meeting in on April 24 (yikes!). I will have to give a presentation in front of two faculty members after that in which they will ask me about my paper. It's terrible but true that I am having a hell of a time trying to figure out what I can really contribute with my paper. It's supposed to be an original work, with something different about it that makes it unique. Most professionals have done what I'm doing now (looking at various aspects of the FTAA and why it's having a difficult time passing). We know why it's not passing and what needs to happen for countries to accept the agreement...I just have to think about it some more, and my grand idea will likely come to me in the twelfth hour (I hope).

Hope all is well with everyone else, and I hope you enjoy the time you spent procrastinating while reading this as much as I enjoyed procrastinating while writing it :)