Swallowed in Thesis Land

Tonight I read through UNL's Theses Guidebook and added deadlines to my calendar....and the gray hairs are now sprouting like crazy. I'm not sure I've ever felt this overwhelmed before. In addition to my thesis, I'm helping to plan two youth writing festivals, training for a marathon (WTF was I thinking?!?), planning for a course I'll be co-facilitating at UNL this June, teaching (duh), and still praying for an adoption placement.........I feel swallowed.....

Here's a basic outline for my thesis (modeled after the National Writing Project's Monograph Series):

I. Problem

a. Research surrounding the problem

b. The problem in my own classroom

II. Solutions

a. Research surrounding the solution

b. What I did to address the problem

III. Student work/community feedback

By the time I go back to school after Christmas break, I need to have the three highlighted sections finished. Which means my Fridays-Sundays and probably all of my holiday break will be filled with reading and writing. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. My class project and data collection will take place from January-March. Because the preliminary copy of my thesis is due to my committee the first week of June, I'll devote March-May to more writing. My oral exams will be during the last week of June then it's revising and filling out paperwork until July.

I am excited to write, research, and dive into academic work again (I do actually like doing this work...it's just the juggle of everything that's overwhelming) but am afraid of failing....and of the emotional meltdowns that are sure to come along the way.

So for now, it's to the books for me...