Deadlines

I'm continuing the long race to the finish line with my studies and am happy to say that in less than two weeks I should be completely finished.

This last week was quite the challenge, but I managed to stay on schedule with my essays...barely. I had two papers to turn in by the end of the week. One was due on Thursday by no later than 4pm and the other by 4pm on Friday. I finished the first one on Wednesday night but didn't have anything to save it onto except my hard drive. When I plugged the computer in at home to print it out on Thursday morning my computer crashed. It was a real mess and I couldn't get into it at all.

Graeme, who is our worship leader in Kirkintilloch also works with computers, so I talked to him and he tried to help me figure out a way to retrieve the file. Nothing worked. Finally I rushed back to the college and tried to reconstruct my essay as quickly as I could. A friend of mine let me use her laptop, so I got quickly to work with only a few hours to accomplish my mission.

Finally, at 3:20 I had an essay that I felt I could turn in though it was 250 words shorter than the last one and I knew it was not nearly as good. I had saved it periodically as I typed it, but somehow when I needed to print it it mysteriously disappeared.

At that point I was in BIG trouble, but I got a text through that said to call Kenny from church. He had been given the computer to look at it while I was away and had called a friend who was a hardware specialist who just happened to be in at the time though he usually wouldn't have been. He managed to access the file and printed it out for me.

Then he sent someone else from the church with it and it got to me in time to hand it in at 3:50pm, ten minutes before the deadline. However, that had now set me back a whole day when I was already pressed for time, and I still had another essay due the next day that I had not even started researching. In addition to that I had a church meeting in the evening, so I didn't get to start the next essay until the next morning.

I rushed through it and was still typing the conclusion at 3:53, but I got it in at 3:55pm!!! When I met a friend for coffee half an hour later I was so exhausted that I couldn't even make proper conversation. I just sat there like a zombie and drank my coffee.

I did get a wee breather after the stress though, so that was nice. On Friday evening I went out for dinner and bowling with a friend, and then on Saturday I went to a big birthday ceilidh for one of my friends from the college. It was great!

Then I preached this morning, and this afternoon I feel like I'm back to my zombie state again. It's all right though because tonight I'm going to just relax. Then I'll start the hectic schedule of essay writing again in the morning.

Here's hoping and praying that there are no more computer problems and that I manage my next deadline with at least a little bit more time to spare!!!