Random bullets...

are all I can manage...

- Diamond has been quite unwell, and I've taken her in to the vet twice. She has blood tests going right now. The vet thinks she has arthritis beginning, and possibly had a skin infection, which she is being treated for antibiotically. But I think there's more than that going on. I honestly can't even face anything terrible after everything else, so I'm largely not going there, mentally - I'm just giving her lots of love and hoping that it's going to be okay. But she really doesn't seem very happy.
- I am so tired of working 12-hour days every day and feeling like I'm running around breathless for most of that time. I am having fantasies about quitting. All of the incidents of last week aren't helping.
- I'm doing another round of the Academic Writing Club and it's working the wrong way on me. Quite the opposite of my success with it last time. It's only making me feel inadequate. Because I just cannot seem to get to my research. There is just a staggering amount of other things to do. People are horrified at how much service I do as someone so junior. How did I get myself into this mess?
- I have finished my SSHRC grant application, though - I completely overhauled it - and had overwhelmingly positive feedback on it from a mock review committee at my uni. Which was wonderful. It's disheartening knowing that my chances are still so low, though.
- I heart my physiotherapist. I first went to him two weeks ago. He's a sports physiotherapist, and an incredibly knowledgeable and competent one. I told him from the get-go, "I am here because I want to be able to run again." Well, the work he has me doing is sooooo intense, sooooo hard, soooooo exhausting - and I love it for being all these things!! It's so different from the couple of other experiences I've had with physio over the years, where I just feel like I'm doing useless exercises. Today when I went in, he had me doing mind-numbingly tough things, and I felt as if my athletic body, the possibility (and actuality?) of my being a strong body, was truly engaged. I was challenged to extremes I wouldn't have imagined at this stage. It restores me to myself, after feeling so weakened and physically vulnerable. I could just kiss him for that.
- He is thrilled with me for the extensive cycling I do, and says that is the best possible thing I could be doing for my leg. He thinks I will be able to try running in another 2-3 weeks from now. That feels a little ambitious to me, but if I stick with this program of incredibly challenging exercises for the next couple of weeks, maybe it'll be okay...
- If only all of this didn't take up so much damn time. Time I could be using for writing or relaxing. But obviously it's worth it in the long run.
- Ugh - I'm annoyed that it's almost 10pm, I have to get up at 5:30am, and yet I still have work to do...and it includes grading a paper called "Society as a Social Construction." Nummy.