2:16 in the morning. . . homework unfinished. . .

This is not what I want to be doing with my time.

I got a lot done today, but I'm not sure it was the right stuff.

I don't think I'm going to my Beowulf class tomorrow, because I'm not prepared for it.

I still feel behind. And I still haven't filed for financial aid.

Wow, am I in need of divine grace.

What would it take for me to even feel in control of my time? Is it a pipe dream? Should I feel bad about taking four or five hours to make the learning center website look good? It's much more useable at this point. . . and I think I may, through Jesus' mercy, have broken the back of the Incredible Roman Blinds Monster.

I also spent two or three hours on my Beowulf paper. . . and that was good.

But I think it was probably the wrong choice to spend all of my time *tonight* on the webpage instead of plowing through my own coursework. I have a good idea for an excellent final paper, maybe even a publishable one. And I am about 75 lines behind, which is about an hour and a half of work. I haven't even started thinking seriously about my other final papers.

I need to deal with my stuff tomorrow. I am happy that I got a lot done. That was good. And it was creative stuff, which is also good. But it probably wasn't the very highest priority stuff, and in the long run, that really does matter. The learning center could have gotten along with an ugly website. But I have less than a month to write 70-100 pages of papers that really matter, and that have a real deadline.

Here are my real priorities:

1) Faith (learning to abide more in God and depend more on God)
2) Service (interacting with children in a way that makes them feel cared for)
2) Vocation (literary criticism and creative writing)
3) Higher-order self-preservation (the house, the gym, my hair, my bills)
4) Careerist stuff (making sure I exceed my job responsibilities at the learning center, getting to class on time)

How can I balance all of these things? Where are relationships on this list? What should I do about all the make-or-break coursework that I have coming up? How can I do a better job tomorrow?

If I do absolutely nothing else tomorrow, I need to deal with my financial stuff. . .

I'm afraid I should just go to class even without preparing.

I'm pretty angry at myself for not making it to the gym more frequently.

How on earth am I going to keep my head above water?

Somehow all of this not-having-enough-time ends up inextricably time to the not-having-enough-money. . . which is pretty ridiculous.

I need to get off the hamster wheel.

?? Is it my values? My perfectionism? My anxiety?

I feel like it's partly just that I'm in school, and I need to be in school, and I don't have time or room to be in school. In many ways, it's not what I would have chosen for myself; it's been a significant sacrifice. It keeps me from the lower-down items on my list, and it contributes to the whole money-time merry-go-round.

Maybe it would be possible, and even wise, to spend two years out of school paying off my debt?

But if I did that, would I ever go back? I feel like I'm ahead of myself already.

I can't keep on living in this limbo, however; the pressure of the denial is killing me.