STRESSED

I seem to have lost the ability to format my posts properly. This is very strange.

I am stressing massively, in a way that only a dyspraxic with obsessive tendencies can.

I sent an e-mail to my tutor yesterday, having *lost the plot* over one more inaccessible situation (not physical access issues - more structural, if that makes any sense). I offloaded about *all* the stress that structurally and attitudinally inaccessible situations have been creating for me on the course, over the last few months in particular.

Now she's likely to want to know exactly what the problems are and what can be done about them. Putting them into words? Not going to happen...

I've held it together by a thread - but still quite impressively and successfully - for six months in this situation. I don't like people seeing how vulnerable I am. Especially worried as I've just been accepted for a PhD (no news on funding yet so it may well not actually happen) and I really wanted to communicate the illusion of how capable and normal I am in relation to that. Who'd appoint a teaching assistant who can't cope with ordinary circumstances on an MA course?

Argh.

Brief Update

...as I have been away too long.

Recent events include:

- Getting one distinction and one merit, and deciding to apply for a PhD anyway (and then changing my mind the minute the application was in and it was too late)

- Having the worst Friday 13th of my *entire life*, involving broken lifts interrupting my studies and forgotten passports nearly ruining Dublin holidays (but The Girl, ever the hero, had us on another flight by the next day)

- Broken powered wheels, frustrating inabilities to focus on work, general irritation at PAs (it's not personal), and a DAN demo that I almost didn't make it to (but some great friends helped me out and I got there in the end).

Currently having:

- A month of (mild, fortunately) depression over missing The Girl, perceiving exploitation in my department (whether or not it's real), and generally being tired and in pain 

- Some surprise, some worry and a general ontological crisis following acceptance onto my PhD (but I probably won't get funded, so I'm trying not to worry too much yet)

- Delight at finding a doctor from whom I can get exactly what I want, when I want it, and realising that it's partly because I now know what I want and when I want it.

Going back to debates over professional power, emancipatory research, and women and medicine now.