lately, i've been struggling to balance my various responsibilities. this week was really busy at work with two big events to deal with. on top of that, i just had a ton of reading to do, so much so that i took a half day on tuesday to get a nice chunk done. turns out i was one of the only people in class who actually read all of the articles, so i think i need to cut myself a break and just do whatever i can.

i guess the thing that's been hardest for me is to focus on my "selected questions" paper, the second paper in the master's portfolio, with classwork piling in. i find myself having difficulty just sitting down and working on it. i could potentially ask for an extension, but the truth is that i just need to get it done because i have so much other regular semester work to focus on. also, my husband and i are finally going on a vacation (to jamaica in mid-october -- yay!) and i just can't have a paper like this hanging over my head when i'm trying to relax.

my current plan is to try and get a lot of my work done early so that i'm not stuck doing work while on vacation. in any case, we'll see how well that goes. right now, i'm barely staying afloat. but at least i'm smiling through it.