We all knew that it would come to this at some point.

It was only a matter of time, I knew, that a one-week or two-week period would come along that would just be so loaded with stuff to do that I would feel absolutely inundated. Then I would truly know that Ph.D. does indeed stand for Piled Higher and Deeper.

Those two weeks have come.

In the next two weeks, I have a homework assignment due in one class. I have a project due in three of my classes. I have a midterm in my hardest class. A couple of weeks after that, I have a project due in the fourth class.

This past Friday night, I actually did work on a project. This was a first for me in all my years of school. Beforehand, Friday night was sacred, a time to celebrate the weekend having come. Unfortunately, I knew that I couldn’t do that this particular Friday.

I started working on my CIS 6930 project. Why? Because I’d done everything that I could on my COP 5725 (databases) project, and I didn’t know how to start my COP 5615 (operating systems) project. I actually got it practically complete by the time the night was over, and finished it up Saturday evening after football (which I will not give up no matter what deadlines loom).

This still leaves me with my COP 5615 project, which I started working on this morning and for the most part have worked on all day. Then tonight, I looked on the course announcement page and saw the magic words.

“The deadline for project 1 has been postponed to 10/10.” Woo-hoo!

Now, this doesn’t mean that I stopped working on the project. It just means that I didn’t have to remind myself to breathe every now and then while doing so.