I'll accept with poise and grace when they draw my name from the lottery

I believe the end of my semester is in sight. I am a little nervous to breathe a sigh of relief. Can this really be? Did I just submit my final assignment for the semester? I'll be entirely honest; that last assignment was not my finest piece of work. It also almost sucked me dry. I think I am burnt out from school. That is what happens when you give 110% of yourself consistently for almost a solid two years. I still have a few minor things to finish up for my assistantship; otherwise, I am done for the semester.

The good news is that I am actually looking forward to writing my thesis (make note of that for when I start complaining halfway through writing my thesis). I will be writing about the battlefield. Basically, I will write a history of the battlefield from the end of the war to the present, looking at the landscape as the main character, if you will. It will allow me to include past research and readings while playing with ideas about landscape use, memory, and commemoration. I have an outline and the verbal approval from advisors and a ton of sources (identified) to work with. My goal: finish writing the thing by the end of September to allow for last minute revisions before submission to the graduate college so I can GRADUATE in DECEMBER! Woo! Then I'm probably moving to Europe. Why not?

Now, as far as the Pacific goes, Dr. Frisby is building another class to travel to Peleliu, to both explore and possibly to do some preservation work. I want to absolutely say "no." It is time to see other things and travel to other places. But there is pulse that beats from the bottom of my heart that I am trying to ignore. Come back, come back, come back it throbs. I am still doing my basic sorting-through-the-footage-I-have-while-building-a-story-before-I-start-officially-editing-my-film work with my Pacific footage. I love being immersed in the footage. It is a combination of loves: film, history (especially WWII), story development, and reliving memories of my travels.

There is a Jewish proverb that says, "if you want to make God laugh, make plans." So I do. And He is probably cracking up now as I write this.