Technically the semester starts tomorrow, but for me that's today, because Sundays are going to be my prime study days again.
I'm feeling enthusiastic about getting back into study. For the next two semesters I am working on my 'research project', which is actually going to be a few short stories plus a related exegetical essay about their genre (I think that's right!) (total of up to 20,000 words), which is exciting. It's bit like what I did last semester but on a bigger scale. And I loved what I did last semester!*
But, I'm feeling quite ambivalent about giving up family weekends again. For the past four weeks we've had two day weekends (Sunday-Monday) with both Chris and I at home, and it's been heaven. We haven't done anything much - in fact we used up one on Kaely's blessing/first birthday, and Chris went to Sydney for half of another. But we have been able to do some errands, get the washing done, and just spend some time hanging out together as a family, and that has been really nice.
Actually, I'm not ambivalent, I'm downright depressed about it. Still excited to do the actual work though.
I was thinking that I would start out just working Sundays for a while, so we could still have Mondays, but I have an outline complete with references, theoretical positions (!) etc due in only two weeks, so... that's not really going to work out. In fact, I better get back to it. I have a lot of reading & research to do today!
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*And just as an aside I have to brag that I got 90% on my essay, which is a fantastically good mark (my best ever I think), and my lecturer said I was wasted on a course-work masters! It took me ages to come to grips with the essay, and there were times there when I really didn't think my brain was cut out for this kind of thing, so that was a very pleasing result. For the fiction I only got a distinction (a 90 is a high distinction - a great high distinction), but that was pretty much what I thought it deserved, so that's fine; I learned a lot writing it.
