Why the Silence?

An update, and an explanation...

-So, grad school continues. I have been refocusing my prospectus so that the project is qualitative and not quantitative in nature, and that is just about done. I need to get it to my chairman and get it defended quickly so I can start grinding out the actual thesis - I want to get on with it and finish this damn thing.

-Soon we will know where everyone is going for the next school year, and the stress of finding new housing will begin. I don't know if I'm going to be heading off to a PhD program, deferring for a year, or just looking for a job. In any event, it is unlikely that I will be living in Flock Hall. That's a bit sad - I've found that I enjoy the tribal nature of communal living. To put this in perspective, in the last 32 months Flock Hall 2.0 has housed 14 people. Out of the original crew, I am the sole remaining inmate. I guess my sentence is done - this summer I'll probably be paroled to independent housing.

-My radio spots have been going quite well. I need to post links to the most recent shows, since I've done some well-received rants of late. It feels good to say what you've been thinking and have others raise a fist and say, "hell yeah!" That's been happening a lot lately. It makes me think that I might not just be talking out my ass.

-I'm enjoying the kid's class I'm teaching at the MMA gym. They are so pleasantly full of life and excited about working out. It's a real change from the exhausted and stressed grad students I spend my days with. The kids are happy to be at the gym, happy to run and sweat and get out of breath without goals or trying to fit into a certain dress size, run a certain distance, or lift a certain weight. I should pay more attention to their attitudes.

-I'm really struggling with my body right now. I gained some weight back during the last half of the previous semester and during Christmas, and now it's a bitch to get rid of it. I am not exactly filled with energy, either, so getting in extra workouts is tough. It's cold outside, so I am hungry all the time - it sucks.

-I haven't been posting much lately. I could give you numerous reasons, but it all boils down to me just being depressed. It is the dead of winter, I am struggling with meeting all of my obligations (to my degree, my friends, my pets, myself...) and I am tired. Really, seriously tired. It goes beyond a physical exhaustion (I'm actually getting much more sleep than I normally do) to an emotional, spiritual sort of tired. I am soul sick, perhaps, like that described by the Psalmist. Of course, his remedy is of no help to me - you can't turn to a god you don't believe exists.

-So the above is why this blog has been so quiet of late. I assume (hope) that when this cursed month passes I will get more sun and get outdoors more and I'll feel better. Until then, I can't promise that I will post anything regularly except my radio rants.