Slouching Towards Extimacy

I don’t know if I can keep up with reading or writing in the blogger and livejournal and wordpress worlds like I was (which isn’t to say I was doing a bang-up job in the first place), as I deal with two sections of a class I’m teaching for the first time, the finalization of my thesis and gearing up for defense, and the regular coursework.  It’s crazy crazy, and there are a lot of conversations I’m missing out on, but it’s nose to the grindstone time (note to self: go look that phrase up).

In good news, I’ve gotten an interview/visit invitation for a PhD program already, so the idea that some adcom somewhere doesn’t think I’m a total moron is pretty nice, even though I’m mortified at having to interview and am scrambling to find someone to teach my sections while I’m out of town.  I am trying to tell myself that I’ll have to screw up pretty bad to not get in, that they can’t possibly spend the money to fly up a huge “finalist” candidate pool and then pick only a small percentage of them, but the concept of having to interview for this slot is still mortifying as I really do come across better on paper than I do in person.  I’ve never heard anybody flail on a conference question as badly as I did at SEMA last year, and I’ve been to plenty of student conferences.  I just flail when put on the spot — I minored in flailing.  I wish I could send a clone, only one minus the tendency to flail and full of the ability to have friendly , easygoing conversations with strangers who intimidate me.  I don’t do that well, either.