I've been feeling a lot of school stress lately. Fortunately next weekend is fall break. Saturday I'm stuck at the department retreat all day, which is like a really really long seminar, but it sounds like there will be a fun dinner/party in the evening. Then Sunday, Ryan and I are driving to Pittsburgh to visit Jen! Yay! I just did the math over the weekend and it's been almost 2 years since I saw her last. Her birthday is tomorrow (happy bday, Jen!), so we'll have a slightly belated celebration next weekend.

I guess most of my school stress is that I'm trying to put together a slam-dunk proposal for the NSF predoctoral fellowship (i.e. big money). I applied last year and from my ratings sheets it seems that my personal essays, grades, test scores, and references are all sufficient, but my proposal really needs to be top-notch. There's a page limit of just 2 pages, but they have to be jam-packed with outstanding ideas and I have to convince the reviewers of the importance of the work. Bottom line is, I'm second-guessing every decision I make, wondering if it's good enough.

The kitten is still cute and Ryan is still the best, so everything is good on that front. Over and out.