One flew over *this* cuckoo's nest...

It's like having a baby, minus the nausea, the 9-month gestation and a baby shower... but apart from that, the ailments are the same- inexplicable mood swings, neglecting my husband, losing my appetite and bouts of self-doubt and crying. Lots of crying. Last week, I was listening to NPR and just started bawling for no rhyme or reason. It was a show on scientists finding a new strain of the flu virus. Enough said. Doing this quantitative research methods project all but consumed my life for the past 3 weeks and it's OVER!!!!! I made my presentation today and like giving birth, you feel both relieved of the burden but at the same time overwhelmed by waves and waves of uncertain feelings (or so I assume)- did I run the data correctly? Did I control for all possible variables? Why didn't I listen more carefully to my secondary school Math teacher??

It was truly a harrowing and distressing experience- oh don't get me wrong, I learnt a ton of stufff, but honestly, I wish the whole process was less trying on my physical and emotional well-being. C'mon when my last waking thought every night for the past 20 days was contemplating the variance of kindergarteners' reading ability explained by family characteristics, something's freakily wrong. There's no morally defensible reason why an English major like me should have been stuck with a calculator in my bag everyday this last 3 weeks (and using it no less... do you know that if you multiply numbers between 1 and -1 with lots of zeroes after the decimal point, you get really teeny values with even more zeroes in them? After a couple of days, I realized that fiddling with these numbers was an exercise in abject futitlity...)

Anyways- whatever, it's over. The moment I was done with the presentation, I heaved a sigh of relief that at that point had to be the world's most subtle but most profound gesture of emotional catharsis. Afterwards, I celebrated with a whole pint of sangria and an indulgent two-hour long nap smack in the middle of the day (*gasp* how decadent no?) Now, I'm finally able to really enjoy the gorgeous Spring weather- our living room doors are wide open, I'm about to ravish two weeks worth of the New York Times Sunday Edition, a huge pot of chili is simmering on the stove and Joss Stone's "Sleep Like A Child" is playing on the iPod. See, life's better already... :)