Goodbye, 2025. Hello there, 2026. New year, new me. All that jazz.
It’s a wildly intense time in my life, and on Monday I go back to grad school for winter term. I’m gearing up for a doozy of a course load. And oh yeah, I also have a book coming out ten weeks from today. So there’s that, too.
Yesterday, I did a lot of my calendaring for the term, made a weekly template of when I’ll do work for which class, when I’ll fit in book promotion work, when I’ll work on ebooks and audiobooks for my manager roles at Ooligan Press, when I’ll shower, when I’ll check my email, when I’ll pee. Okay, that last one, and only that last one, was a joke. I’m scheduled to the hilt is the deal.
Every term for the last several, I’ve made a mega Master Plan google doc that lists every due date, every reading assignment, every discussion post due in Canvas, every project, every paper. Some of it’s very granular, like preparing for two weekly Ooligan meetings each week, teaching a department lesson at Ooligan every week, and recurring reflection assignments for classes. Others are big projects.
This document is in a grid, so that on the left are the weeks of the term, and across the top are the classes. It’s not a spreadsheet, but it’s close, with everything in checkable boxes to cross off when they’re completed. You can take the type A planner med student out of medical school, but you can’t take those organization instincts out of the former med student, I suppose.
While creating this Master Plan of Winter Term Domination, I had two thoughts swirling through my mind over and over.
The first was that I will only have to do this once more, for spring term. I’ll be in class for summer term too, but I’ll only be enrolled in one-credit (Ooligan) and I won’t be a manager anymore. So yes, I’ll have a Master Plan doc for that term, I’m sure, but it’ll be light and fluffy and summery in comparison to the usual. After this term, I only have to build this full, complex thing ONE MORE TIME. The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight, folks.
The other thought was something I already knew but was now staring me in the face: This is the most jam-packed, go-big-or-go-home bonanza of a term I’ve ever encountered.
Med school really didn’t hold a candle to the all-consuming nature of grad school. Or at least my grad school program. Or at least for me in my grad school program. Saying this pisses people off (I don’t know why) and is a bit beside the point, other than no term of med school comes close, like at all, to what I’ve got going on this upcoming winter term. I’ll leave the full on feather-ruffling for another day.
So, here’s what’s on my plate, both in and out of schoolwork:
- A full-time load of Book Publishing grad school classes
- An additional class outside my program (more on this in a later post bc this might be the most amazing class I’ve ever taken, if it lives up to all the hype in my head)
- Managing the Digital department at Ooligan, which has big projects like
- One frontlist ebook
- One complex backlist ebook that needs to be re-made from scratch to meet current and upcoming accessibility standards – also a topic for future posts
- Managing the Audio department at Ooligan, which has big projects like
- Planning and potentially recording our next audiobook – we’re still nailing down details on recording options and schedules with everyone involved
- Coordinating proof listens for our audiobook coming out in summer, and then implementing all the proof listen edits
- Work on my thesis – oh yeah, there’s also that!
- Promoting my book – I just had an amazing meeting with Laura Stanfill of Forest Avenue Press to talk through some strategies and the limitations of my current budget and schedule. One thing you can always say about Laura is that she’s wearing a fun hat. And that she’s thoughtful and generous and kind and real and knows her shit.
- Plan and execute my book launch and everything that comes with that
- And then I decided to be a completely unhinged person by going and adding a community standup comedy class to my plate
About that last one…yeah. It’s the most optional of the list, and technically I could let it go to give myself a little more time, to not feel like I need to schedule my pee breaks or they won’t happen. But it’s NOT. I’ve been wanting to take a standup class for a long time, and I need something that’s fully for me in all this work. It’s also sort of for my book, because I plan to do a 5-minute comedy set about the behind the scenes of my book process at my launch event. So that could either be the best thing I’ve ever done or the biggest disaster. There’s probably no in-between, and either way it goes, I’m here for it.
One of my friends I’ve known the longest said she’s excited to see what kind of comic I am, and I said something like, “Probably a filthy one,” because inside me is a twelve year old boy from the ’90s.
So, it’s going to be a packed term. I’ve been making far too many jokes about how I’ll have to start doing Adderall so I can stay up all night and get everything done. Instead, I’m planning to downplay or defer or automate the other parts of my life for this term. Gone are any dreams of doing any reading for fun, doing any creative work whatsoever outside of the standup class, working on any of my writing projects, exercising outside of walking all over campus and my weekly walk with two friends (which may have to go if things get real tight), cooking, watching TV shows, celebrating my birthday anywhere close to the actual day, most social everything.
I’m intimidated.
The truth is, I’m already tired. I’ve been going really hard all through grad school and it’s rare I take a full day off. Sometimes I get to the point where I feel like if I even look at any of my too many email inboxes, I’ll throw up. I’ve been working hard over winter break too, on an editing project that is a dream to work on and trying to catch up on what I should be doing for my book. Oh, and pre-reading some of the books I’ll have to read in winter term to lighten my upcoming load in what smallways I can. So, none of this has been bad or even mildly unpleasant, but it has been A LOT. And I’m tired.
But I’m also energized. I don’t know what it is but I feel more READY FOR IT this term than usual. Maybe I’ve become so used to working nonstop that I’m numb to some of it, or even bored of being stressed by it. Maybe it’s that light at the end of the tunnel coming into view, with graduation on the horizon in August. Maybe it’s the closeness to my dreams of being a published author coming into view. Maybe it’s because while I feel tired and overworked most of my days, I like the work and am finding my way. Maybe I want to go as hard as I can in my penultimate packed term.
Whatever the reason, and tired as I am, I know it’s doable. And then I have a book release PARTY, I mean launch event, on the other side. My calendar and my Master Plan doc and all my type A med student tendencies are at the ready, and my game face is on.
LFG! Bring it on! Let’s fuck shit up, fuck it up up up up up up up up up! You know, all that jazz.
Chrys
Image description: a person covered in post-it notes of things to do.
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
Chrys Buckley 