MidTerm

I'm not sure where the time is going but it is already the eighth week of the semester and I'm am dreadfully behind in my studies.  So much reading and writing to do this semester and the more I think about it the more I panic and run from it and hide in some other nonsensical activity, which leads to less time to do my work and more panic and more hiding and, well, you get the idea.  Tomorrow I have to report to my seminar professor...too bad I  have nothing to report except for the work I have completed for other classes in addition to all the time I have wasted with my head in the sand.

As for the seminar paper, I had to give up on Nellie Bly because I could not find enough primary sources, particularly the newspapers she worked for, on-line.  I still believe she is a fascinating character and would like to return to her someday, but for now I have moved on the the Spanish-American War.  I've found 500 pages of foreign relations documents on-line and have been slowly (too slowly, unfortunately) wading through them for a few weeks now.  I desperately need to get started writing, which I hope to do later this week during fall break.  I'm running out of time to hide from my panic.

The last few days have been spent studying for a mid-term in Middle Eastern history.  I've been trying to cram 600 years of caliphs, Abbasids and Umayyads, Sunnis and Shiites into my tired brain.  Tonight is the test, so we will see how successful I have been.