i. can’t. sleep.

welcome to the latest installment of almost-done-with-grad-school angst. ;)

i seriously cannot sleep anymore. this is a problem.

my advisor assured me today that thesis defenses, at least in math departments, are basically a formality; that the thesis and your advisor's word are what really count. but still, with mine now 10 days away, it's not that i'm un-calm about it... but my mind won't turn off. seriously. why am i awake at 3 in the morning?

as of today, i have the job contract in my hands that will send me to indiana this summer. i just have to sign it and mail it back tomorrow. i feel like i should put it in a scrapbook or something instead though.

so weird to be talking about "job contracts". it's like that's an "adult concept" and although i'm nearly 27, i guess i perpetually view myself in this inbetween world of independent, but not an "adult"... the following line in quarterlife episode 36 a couple of weeks ago couldn't have said it better:

"In really serious situations I always feel like I'm pretending to be an adult. And it occurred to me recently that I might always have that feeling. Maybe everybody's pretending to be an adult. After all, we're not that young anymore. We kind of are the adults."

in my head, an "adult" is defined as someone closer to my parents' age, who owns a house, has a "9-5 job", etc., etc. certainly people my age do those things too, but i've been "postponing" the real world and getting paid mostly to study for the past number of years. i wonder if i'll ever fully want to classify myself as an "adult".

right now though, adult or not, i'm a ph.d. candidate who is just hoping that it will be possible to get more than 2 hours of sleep in the next week and a half rather than be a perpetual insomniac on account of stress and anticipation of big and rapidly approaching change...

we will see.

i wonder if there's any chance of me falling asleep before 4am.... oi...