Day 16 of training. Studying. It feels as if it’s been a million years. The Municipal Bond chapter is kicking my ass. It’s got three hundred thousand details and they are all starting to blur in my mind. The worst thing is, I’m supposed to have my chapter test completed by midnight. Well, that’s less than an hour away. Not gonna happen.

The worst thing is that this material makes up 37% of the Series 7. I just want to scream.

I’m not stupid, by any stretch. But I never, ever imagined what it would be like to study for 40 to 50 hours a week. I don’t think I studied 50 hours a semester at Southwest Missouri State. And now, every sentence I read has to be memorized. There are lists and lists of details. Regulations and laws. Ohmigosh. I’m just fried.

Here’s a great example of why I study at Club Purple: since I’ve been home (just over an hour), I’ve: 1) given my dog a bath, 2) eaten chocolate, 3) written four e-mails, 5) played with code, 6) called Max and left a voicemail checking on his sick laptop, 7) written this.

If anyone else asks why I just don’t study at home, I will kill them.

I’m bordering on that feeling of extreme anxiety where it just melts into apathy regarding everything. Apathy would be good, and bad. My hands would probably stop shaking. My stomach would un-knot. However, I’m afraid my motivation would slip to less than zero and that would be the end of me. Nope, not an option.

Suddenly certain activities are looking really good to me. Things like cleaning out all the molding Tupperware in my refrigerator. Like polishing my cabinets with lemon oil. Like getting the piles of clothes off the floor of my bedroom. Like raking the yard in the dark. This is an issue.

Tonight was my friend Nancy’s “bachelorette party” of sorts. We’re all too tired to party, so we went to dinner and promised we’d go out sometime after she gets married next Saturday. The entirety of my social life in the past three weeks has been tearful conversations with Max and tonight’s dinner. This is pretty sad, from my perspective: the thing I’ve been looking most forward to, for about two weeks, is going to The Fire House tomorrow night to hear the Javier Mendoza Band perform. The only reason that is sad is that it’s actually getting me through the week. i.e. “If I just make it til Saturday I can see Javi sing!”  Ugh.

Javi’s a bundle of nerves right now. Keeping a band together, especially a large one like his, is more difficult that you’d think. I saw him on Wednesday, and he looked like he was starting to wig. They’ll do great - they always do. I haven’t seen them perform since November, so this will be my first concert of theirs since getting to know Javi. It’s still a little weird. It would be like being friends with Dave Grohl, and then going to a Foo Fighters concert and watching all these screaming, singing fans, and being amused and a bit perplexed. This is just on a smaller scale!

I’ve done a relatively decent job of setting The Wounded Heart aside today, partially due to self-preservation and partially due to desperation. I can’t obsess over two things at once … and today’s obsession had to be Municipal Bonds. On that note - back to work…

Fried,

michelle