Hellacious, Yet Cold

The next two weeks are going to be extremely busy. Ridiculously busy. You know how every semester there are a couple of weeks that turn into Hell Weeks? Well, the next two weeks are my hell weeks.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. At the beginning of the semester when I was picking when I wanted to do certain projects, I tried to spread everything out as much as possible. But then one of my major projects got moved up, and my midterm for my Wednesday night class got pushed back by two weeks since we missed two classes, and now suddenly between now and November 8th (two weeks from now) I have to do the following:
1. Prepare and give a lecture in both giant intro classes (The classes I teach each week are two discussion groups that break off from these big lecture classes, and each of the six TAs has to give a guest lecture to the big class at some point during the semester, and it's my turn on Wednesday). I'm not very excited about this, partially because it involves speaking in front of 300+ people and I wouldn't say that lecturing to a big group is exactly my forte (classes of 20 to 30 people don't even make me break a sweat; classes where you have to wear a microphone to be heard are sort of a different story), partially because I don't really want to have to lecture in front of all the other TAs (I know they'll be nothing but supportive, but still), and partially because I don't know the subject matter very well at all so I'll be speaking authoritatively about a topic I'm basically going to make up tomorrow (I picked this lecture date initially thinking the subject matter was going to be about something else entirely. It was a stupid misunderstanding, but now I'm stuck with the date and the unfamiliar topic so, yeah...)
2. Research and write two fairly long papers for my Intro to Doctoral Studies class, one of which involves coming up with THREE possible dissertation topics and discussing them in detail (Three?! Have I mentioned I'm having a hard time coming up with even one that seems feasible?!)
3. A stupid group project for my Teaching class
4. An in-depth draft of a proposal for my Thursday class
5. Write my take-home midterm for my Wednesday class, which is set up as a practice comprehensive exam and involves two complex essays that each need to be 12 to 15 pages long
6. Grade 60 papers that my students turned in on Wednesday.
Those are the major projects. On top of that, life goes on as usual so I have to do all the reading I normally have to do for classes each week (which during an "easy" week has been averaging about 300 pages but can be as much as 500 or 600 pages) and write the two short papers I have to write every week (responses to readings, which are actually quite helpful for later reference but a pain in the ass at the time).
Oh, and I'm going to New York next weekend, which means all of this gets compressed even more because there's no way I'm going to get anything done on Friday or Saturday, and probably not much on Sunday night, either. I know that a more logical person would probably cancel the New York trip since it's entirely optional, but I really, really, really want to go, so I'm not going to skip it. It's my birthday, I have to do SOMETHING fun! So I'm determined to get almost all of this stuff done over the course of the next week and then go to New York as planned, even if it means I don't really sleep much at all between now and then.
I may be deluding myself somewhat, but I think I can handle it.

I was actually feeling really overwhelmed thinking about all of this yesterday, but then I called my mom just to chat and she mentioned that my grandpa went into the hospital for some routine medical tests (he has a small blockage in his aorta that they monitor regularly) and the aorta is fine, but they found a mass in his lung. He went in this morning to have it biopsied. The procedure went fine, but now we have to wait a week or so to find out if it's malignant or benign. Obviously I'm hoping against hope that it's nothing serious, but he was a smoker for 55 years before he quit cold turkey ten years ago (he started smoking when he was 10!) and so I'm bracing myself for bad news while trying to think as positively as possible at the same time.
So yeah. I don't really know what else to say about that. I'm really close to my grandma and grandpa. We have so much fun together, they're smart and funny and incredibly generous and I know logically that eventually they won't be here with me anymore, but I'm just not ready to think about that yet. Needless to say, my workload suddenly doesn't seem like anything worth bitching about when I think about how worried Grandpa probably is right now.

On a brighter note, my stress was lightened today by a little bit of retail therapy. I was talking to my mom and grandma on the phone earlier and grandma mentioned that she wanted to buy me a coat for my birthday since she knows that I'm not really equipped to handle my first truly cold winter. She said that she'd seen a nice coat in the Bloomingdale's catalog and that she could get it for 20% off if she bought it today, so did I want to look at it to see if I was interested? Not being an idiot, I said, "Sure!"
So now, in about five days or so, this is going to be delivered to my apartment! I ordered it in black. I'm in love with it already. It's such a classic style that I'll be able to wear it forever*, and it's cashmere** so it's going to be super warm. I know I'll regret saying this later, but if I get to wear that coat all winter, maybe it won't be miserable!

*The fact that I think I'll be able to wear this forever helps to justify the price, which is making my grad student brain go "Damn, that's more than an entire paycheck for a coat!" But it's a present, and my grandma is the one that suggested it and I know that as generous as my grandparents are, they also only offer to do things when they really want to do them so I think that this time around I'm just going to be grateful that my grandma is so freakin' awesome and move on.
*Confession: I have a cashmere addiction. Obviously, I cannot afford cashmere on my budget, so I'm lucky that I have a grandmother that has fed my addiction with offerings from the Bloomingdale's catalog pretty much every Christmas. Of course, I suppose I could technically blame her for starting the addiction in the first place, but whatever. I've always had way too many fluffy sweaters for someone that lived in the south where each sweater pretty much only got worn once a year, so I'm excited to live in a place where a cashmere outerwear addiction is no longer utterly ridiculous.