4:32 AM:

I'm going to flunk out of grad school.

That's how it feels right now, anyway. I've missed the past couple of days of classes due to Rosh HaShana, my mind has been entirely elsewhere since last week, and I'm many hundreds of pages behind in my readings, with hundreds more right around the corner, leaving me no time in which to catch up. And because I'm an idiot, I've committed myself to writing another editorial for the school paper I wrote for through last semester-- nay, I all but begged for the chance to do so. Oh, and I'm organizing a poetry reading for the rest of the first-year students in my program, but that may turn out to be the easiest item on the agenda. Unless my perfectionism kicks in again and I won't settle for holding it in the graduate lounge, opting instead for finding a reasonably quiet place that serves booze. (I don't drink myself, but I gather that others find it conducive to reading their stuff to a roomful of other people...)

Oh, and Thursday's a fast day, a fact that had entirely slipped my mind until a couple of hours ago.

I am so screwed...

6:46 PM:

No time to write. Briefly, everybody I mentioned in my last message has turned out to be okay. I seem to have been one of the lucky ones; all of my nearest and dearest seem to be fine.

Rosh HaShana ushers in the Jewish New Year shortly. Here's hoping that next year is a lot more peaceful than this past one has been.