It is raining again. Shouldn’t be a surprise. It has been raining off and on since I moved here. The rain is starting to drive me crazy. When the sun does come out it is for about five minutes, maybe ten, and then the clouds blow back in and the rain starts.

I need a weekend away. I need lots of weekends away. I’ve been avoiding the office for two weeks. I went in yesterday for a couple of meetings and today I went back to hiding out at my house. I had a meeting with the supervisor I can relate to the most, and she said that the main supervisor asked her to have a chat with me because the last time he gave me bad news I didn’t take it well. My report has been turned in and hopefully it won’t be kicked back, which means I can be an official PhD student.

We shall see though.

I felt a lot better after the chat with my supervisor, she is really good at making me feel better, but by the end of the second meeting, my main supervisor dashed my hopes again by telling me that the paper I have been working on since November is nowhere near ready to be considered for publication. After all of the edits, the comments, the back and forth between the four of us, now he tells me that the paper needs a lot of work to be good enough. Where was this 4 drafts ago?  I have no idea what is expected of me, or what I can do to read their minds.

and the sucky part? It is starting to make me doubt my ability. I have this horrible problem of attaching my worth to the things that I create. These papers, they are a part of me, a measure of me….and right now, they are not good enough….which means I am not good enough.

But I digress. The challenge for this week is to write about 5 major goals I have for my life. No big deal.

Goal 1: I want to get healthy. I am having a tough time staying mentally and physically healthy. I’m trying to get a handle on my Lupus, and so far, things have been pretty good. I’m hoping that in the next 6 months or so I can go off some of the medication. I would like to get down to less than 10 pills a day. I want to be able to overcome the dark and twisty and the self doubt and CSUF and be able to enjoy my life and all the good things around me.

Goal 2: I want to stay in the UK. Okay, by UK I mean I want to stay in Scotland. This is the only place I have ever felt at home. Leaving once almost destroyed me, and I am sure leaving a second time would. I love it here. I love the people, I love the way of life. I love that I can walk almost anywhere, and take the bus when I can’t. I love that the buildings are old and have a history, love all of the different accents that I get to hear on a daily basis.

Goal 3: I want to start my literacy foundation. I want to spend part of my days helping people learn how to read. I want to travel the world and set up programmes that teach kids to love books and allow them to be opened to a whole world of possibilities. Libraries are dying. Bookstores are dying. Curiosity and storytelling are dying. I want to bring that back. I want to bring it all back with paper books and not tablets and e-readers. I’m also going to make Reading with Rover a mandatory thing. Because nothing is better than books. Except puppies and books.

Goal 4: I want to get out of debt. This one speaks for itself.

Goal 5: I just want to be happy. All of the other goals are really to meet this one. I want to be one of those people that makes you sick she is so happy. If I was in a cartoon the sun would shine when I walked outside and flowers would bloom and sing.

And I want a puppy. Someone get me a puppy.