Sixteen down, more to go

Wow. I just finished what I hope is a successful first draft of the book. I've no idea what will come next, but it feels pretty darn good to get that part out of the way.

The last two chapters were *really* rough, but I sent them along their merry way. I'm spent.

But the timing worked out well. I was at camp all last week for training and didn't expect to be off more than Saturday. As it turns out, the free time during last week was negligible. I'd get an hour and a half here or 20 minutes there. Unfortunately, it takess 20 minutes to get on the WiFi (if you're lucky) so even on the best "fellowship times" I didn't get much done.

But, even though camp officially started today, it was day camp. I'm mostly for overnight, so I unexpectedly got off from Friday night until Thursday sometime.

So with two chapters to go, I got on it. I sent one yesterday and just wrapped up the last one. They're to the editor, not the author, so it's not like I've checked them off but it's something.

The next steps are to add in some more random examples to the existing body of work and then to combine the chapters in groups of four and begin looking at the bigger picture.

I'm just really thrilled the big research part is over. There's more to be done -- way more, I get the impression -- but the whole research paper-like thing is behind me.

I hope.

Last week was nightmarish at camp. I got eaten alive by bugs and had to do a scary drill involving what would happen if a camper goes missing in the spring. I'm OK if I don't get back into that green water again, honestly. It was nerve-wracking.

Inchallah, camp will be all right. I am still concerned about it and have found out more stuff I didn't know, like I will have to work Saturdays on a rotating basis and that there is a camp the week of July 4, which I didn't know. I thought I'd be off that week.

But I am going to honor my commitment. We'll see what happens. It's not like I have been looking for other temporary work or anything, and the permanent jobs are slow to move. I did have an interview for another job last week but I haven't heard anything.

The downer thing about camp is the free time. If I am off an hour and a half a day, that is just not enough time to be able to study and write KSAs and cover letters. I saved up for Saturday this week but by the time I got to the house I was just exhausted. I pretty much spent Saturday doing some errands and then hanging out with Kocur, who's feeling very left out.