work hard, play hard

It's knuckle-down buckle-down time over here. On July 7 I'm scheduled to take my comprehensive oral exam for graduate school, and I have a whole lot of work to do to get prepared. I have a book list with ninety-five books spanning the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. I have read all of the books at some point over the past five years, but that doesn't mean I remember most of them. So I'm reviewing all my notes and making a note card for each book. It's taking me roughly an hour for each card, and I'm aiming to do fifteen books per week, which will leave me about two weeks at the end to review larger questions and themes bringing lots of different books together. Anyway, getting these fifteen note cards done each week is no easy task when I have a full-time job and am still trying to have a little bit of a social life and enjoy the beautiful weather. It's no fun, but I'm managing.

And I'm still managing to have some fun, for as my adviser always says, "work hard, play hard." Last weekend I went with Patrick and his friends to Norfolk for the Virginia Beer Festival. We drove over Saturday (after I spent a depressing Friday night studying), stopping for barbecue in Williamsburg for lunch. The festival was at a park right next to the water, and it was a beautiful day. The festival ended at 6pm, so afterwards we all went out to dinner. The next day most of the crew left town after brunch, but Patrick and I stuck around. We visited the aquarium in Virginia Beach, then went to the beach itself for a little walk and an early seafood dinner on the water. Then we finally headed home after a very fun early summer weekend.