WHERE HAVE I BEEN SINCE MY LAST POST?

Where have I been? Where am I? Where am I going? Sounds really existentialist to me, particularly the second and third questions of this tri-partite self-examination query. BUSY sounds like a non-committal, semi-diplomatic answer. During last summer, I spent one afternoon a week meeting with my classmates and our advisor, trying to make headway with our dissertations in a collegial, critical environment. It helped a lot, but also raised more questions than it answered. I was hoping to focus on producing a review draft of the completed document, but other issues and my penchant for adding more to my plate have caused me frequent bouts of mental indigestion.

The Armenian adage, "There's good in all evil," applies here, for everything in which I have been engaged has taught me new things which are applicable to my aspirations. So I can move on. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, thank goodness,but there also is much work yet to be done!!!

Current projects (aside from the dissertation): ARMENIAN STUDIES AT A THRESHOLD, Society for Armenian 35th anniversary conference, March 26-29, 2009, at UCLA. I am responsible for the program booklet, which is at the printer's. Reviewed the galleys-in-progress and had to add to one page, with only 4 days to go. ARMENIAN PROFESSIONALS NETWORK, Report of 2008 activities, and Web site development. Just finished with a meeting of our admin committee. CLEANING MY DESK(S). That should be a fun, kind of archeological dig. Will post some pictures of progress with the latter. CHECKING E-MAIL, FACEBOOK, LINKedIN, DOING ON-LINE CROSSWORD PUZZLES, and STAYING UP ALL NIGHT.

The good thing is, I haven't totally lost my sense of humor, patience, enthusiasm,...or my mind, YET!!! I wish I could also lose a few lbs. of unwanted fat.