i hate it when i can feel myself becoming anxious. when i get the crawling feeling in my skin, the slight numbness in my hands, the fluttering in my stomach that wont go away and wont let me sleep. and finally the feeling in my chest, like my heart suddeny shot downward.

i was relaxed, just depressed yesterday. today i'm depressed and panicky. i had decided i would spend all of today reading. i figured, ill spend this week reading, put together a coherent hypothesis and specific aims by the end of this week or early next week, send it around, then start writing. then my advisor thought it might be fun to tell me he thinks i should change my topic. a day after they were due, and five after he told me it looked fine and i sent it in for final approval. not to mention less than a month before the paper is due.

i dont want to change my topic. i'm trying to work up the "i'll show them" anger i used to run on in high school, but right now i kind of just want to quit. i was going on my "this is a nifty topic" confidence and enthusiasm, but now im flattened, and all those "what if..." scenarios about my defense are coming back.

oh yeah, and my grandma has a bile duct tumor.

so what am i going to do? read my ass off for three or four days, and formulate good strong aims. ill show my advisor and he'll do a total 180 and tell me how wonderful and awesome i am. ill write my quals and be lauded as a genius. the end. hah.