Yesterday, I pretty much collapsed. Took my sister to the airport, went to Home Depot and the little fruit and vegetable store, and then just came home and fell onto the couch next to Kevin -- I actually watched the football game. If you can call it watching, considering I was playing Sims during most of it. Still, Sims seemed appropriate, 'cause Sherman gave it to me, and I *think* he got married yesterday (if I didn't get the date wrong). Congratulations to Sherman and Shawna -- I think they'll be very happy together! I wish I could've been there, but if I'd tried, I think I'd be utterly nuts right now.
This next week is busy. I finish up the fourth draft of Classics this morning (some new pages to write), and then I read a short story for the Tiptree, and then I really start cranking on the exam list. I'm flying to Salt Lake City next week, Monday through Friday, to meet with my professors, review my progress thus far, etc. Decide if I need to panic. That kind of thing. I have three meetings, and I'd like to have a clear idea of what I need to know from them before I go. So I'm going to go back through all the books I've read so far and make a big chart -- they're all starting to blur together.
Author, title, major characters -- and then I'm not sure what will be useful. For the critical books, fine, summarize the major points. But for the novels? Major themes? Themes related to my topic? I talked to Paul last week (he took his exam last year) and he seemed to think that they didn't actually ask that much related to the topic. But my topic is a lot more standard than his was, since I'm basically just doing post-colonial identity formation (for nations and individuals) -- very basic to the field, and something they're all already familiar with. I'm just not sure how best to study for this. You'll be hearing a lot more about it, since I'm not planning on doing much of anything else between now and the end of April.
I do have one little home project to do, that I wouldn't mind a tiny piece of advice on. I bought a small cabinet at Pottery Barn, and it's painted a glossy white. I love the cabinet, but not the white. I hand-sanded it and wiped it clean last night during the game. I'd like to paint it today; I have a pretty pewter grey. I can't decide two things -- a) should I just put a flat coat of the grey on, or should I put it on and then sponge some off, for a more textured look? and b) am I supposed to put on one coat or two? I know for walls, you usually do two coats, but I don't know about this (and if I do two coats, do I wait four hours in between so the first coat dries completely first?). Any advice would be much appreciated.
Happy Monday, everyone. January's almost over -- hang in there...