When in doubt, bake cookies.

The life of a grad student is one that cannot be imagined until one is fully in its grasp, swept into the whirlpool, sucked into the quicksand. It is something I had heard about and yet really never understood. Until one day you look up and realize you haven't left the house in over two days, you're wearing yesterday's clothes, there's a bunch of healthy, unassembled ingredients in the fridge, yet your mac and cheese shelf is empty. And you dream about research databases. True story.

While there were probably many reasons that you initially chose it, it ultimately becomes the badge of your commitment to what you deem so important, bags under the eyes as permanent as tattoos somehow less important than the world of information just waiting to be discovered.

I've been at this for a mere two semesters, working full time, class at night, working for a prof on top of it all. I question my ability at least twice a week. I sleep with highlighters. I survive on pots of stew and chili that will last for days.

I have to admit, I am pretty lucky. I couldn't do it without having the best guy in the world at my side. Amazing how one's priorities change depending on one's situation. Right now, I love how he comes over and quietly does the heaping pile of dishes before he sits down to hang out.

In the past seven months, I have dealt with vague assignments, APA 6th edition, stats (although keeping a safe distance from them as much as possible), macro issues, which for a teacher is completely counter-intuitive....."so what does that look like in practice?" and even vaguer teachers....is that a word? And most recently, two weeks of class discussions that have completely questioned...no...clobbered...everything that I believed about language....

And so, tonight, when it's been all a lot to take in, I am baking cookies, something I used to do all the time to relax, to procrastinate, to escape. Sure I have to be up at 6am, two classes to teach in the morning. But somehow right now, it can all just wait.

Because while most would agree that there are too many difficult and vague people in the world, too much structure (take that, APA) and too many expectations, I have never heard anyone argue that there are too many cookies.

Food for thought (no pun intended): In a world of unwelcome alarms blasting us out of our dreams far earlier than we would like, there is something about the ding of an oven timer that puts everything right again.

JM