Thank you so much...family, new friends and old

for all of your support throughout this process...

Your comments
Your love
Your cheers
Your reminders of God's miraculous power
and most of all...
Your prayers!

The prayers of the righteous avail much.

Hallelujah!!!! They say if you shoot for the moon....

You'll land among the stars.

God is so great!!! It is to the glory of God alone and not myself, that I have completed my exam (12 hours for my deadline)

Not only that, I also had time to participate in my Wednesday night Bible study!! God is amazing!

More details to come soon. . . But, praise the Lord with me! Come on and bless the Lord with me!

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance. Perserverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anthing. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because (s)he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. -- James 1: 2-6 (The Holy Bible).

p.s. still have to review and add few more references to both essays, but I have finished all the writing. (question 1, i only wanted to do 12-15 pgs but ended up with more than 30. don't want to say how much, "but I count it all joy." I will also e-mail it out tonight.

Goal for Day 2/ Question #1

After I began the attack on question #1, I realized that though I just blogged a few minutes ago, I forgot to post my goal for today. This is really important.

MY GOAL FOR THE REST OF THE DAY IS NOT TO HAVE TO WORK ON THIS FOR MORE THAN 3 or 4 HOURS TOMORROW!!

Even if no one is reading my blog, the process of posting this important goal on is useful to me. I feel like I am not only personally accountable, but also publicly accountable. Hear Ye! Hear Ye! I will finish this thing today! I can! I must! I am sure I can do it with the help of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! Tomorrow is for editing, finishing references, walking away from it for several hours, then coming back to read one final time before I send it off.

Also, I will e-mail this off Wed. night and not wait until my deadline of 9:30 am Thursday morning!!

And, there'll be no more blogging until question #1, my final question, is done!

I Finished Question #2!!!!!

Finally!! Though not as soon as I expected, I finally completed my first essay on Day 2 at 12:15. PRAISE THE LORDDD! HALLELUJAH!! Though I planned to finish last night, I just was not able to get much work done after an hour of so of work after dinner. I did read through the rest of the research I needed to review for the essay after dinner.

Laid down for a nap aroudn 9: 30 pm and Francesca woke me up as she promised 30 minutes later. She's been the best study partner! Did not get up and did not set an alarm! BUT..God kept waking me up every hour, two hours, three hours and I would sit at the computer, type a few words or just stare at the screen and then get back in bed praying for strength and fortitude. Finally, at about 5 a.m, God woke me up again and I felt energized and capable of completing my essay. 7 hours later, at a whopping 32.5 pages of prose and 4 pages of works cited (with a few more references to add later), half of my comprehensive exam is complete (at least in terms of having knocked out 1/2 questions)! I really feel good about the work and I learned a lot while doing it, so it wasn't a completely futile exercise at all.

I praise the Lord for progress and now move on to question #1.

Hey, where did my cheerleaders go? Are you still out there? Come on, my friends, No slacking off. "The prayers of the righteous avail much." Not to append the Bible, but your little encouraging notes help too.

I Am Very Tired!!!

I am toward the end of my 21st page of writing on youth culture studies. My fingers are slowing down, I am sleepy and quite hungry. I'm also getting a bit of a headache. I guess I just need to eat. The good news is that I don't have too much more to do to finish this essay. That means, I can certainly finish this question before I wake up tomorrow morning. The bad news is that I don't think I will be able to reach my goal of getting substantial work done on my first question, the big, major one, today. Plus, I feel like I really need a nap and will be even sleepier after I eat dinner.

I think I might end up napping for 2 or 3 hours after dinner, getting up around 12 am to finish the essay for my second question (abt 3 hours more worth of work), then wake around 9 am to start my first question after 6 solid hours of sleep. That's one plan. Another one is to work on this until I finish and don't go to sleep until it's done though I'mm soooo tired and have been writing for the last 9 hours. (Whew! Praise God for that. I'm not complaining at all.) Then, sleep for 6-8 hours, depending on when I finish it. Can't get up later than 8:30 am, which will allow me to start writing again by 9.

I started my second question first since I wanted to get this one out of the way so as to be able to use the majority of my time on the 1st one without having to try to rush through that one to make time for the second one. Does that make sense?

A special shout-out to my dearest friend, Kike, who made the most comments on my blog today! She should win some kind of award. To all of you supporting me and monitoring my progress, please don't let ME distract YOU from your work!! And also a shout-out for my sister, Dana-- Her hard work, persistent fortitude, positive outlook amazing success at her audition in Philly on Saturday is deeply inspiring for my current journey. Like you, Dana, my hope is in Him!

Off to dinner...

I Feel Loved and Supported...

I am!

Against Marcy's good advice to delay all blogs until after today's work, I felt the need to take a little break and communicate with my awesome, wonderful and beautiful cheerleading squad. You all are great!! I have peeked at the comments every time I felt like stopping (miraculously, each time, there was a new one) and they have been so motivating, inspiring, and challenging. Thank you sooo much!

The Bible verses to the jokes to the confidence boosters and especially the unheard but felt prayers have been tremendously effective. I am now on page 19 (double-spaced now) of my second question. (This doesn't mean I finished my first one; I started on the second one first.) You would be think I am almost done this question, but I am so darn long-winded that I probably have about 7-10 more pages to go for this one. I will finish it today, by God's great grace!!

You all will be glad to know that I have been typing non-stop since morning except for necessary trips to the bathroom and a snack preparation break. (I ate my snack at the computer.) You all know that's just God because I'm such a wanderer. I am getting hungry again now since I haven't eaten a full meal yet since breakfast so I will probably take a 30 min. dinner break in about an hour. Well, I'll probably read something pertinent for my exam while I eat. I mean, I only have 72 hours to get this thing done and every minute counts. Love, love, love!!

Okay, Let me get back to work.

BTW Can we just give a brief round of applause and a moment of prayer for the engineers, computer scientists and scholars responsible for the internet, online research databases, and electronic journals? Pray for God to bless them as they have blessed us all! How to fill in the gaps without the information super highway?

Here I Go!!

My questions have arrived. They are great. God is so good. Question 2 is even a bit easier than I expected. I had already picked a quote out that I wanted to use for the epigraph to this essay and it addresses the question perfectly!

The plan for today is to actually do 1/3 or 1/2 of question 1, which is about the intellectual history of American Studies and write all of the essay for question 2, which asks me about youth studies literature.

To Microsoft Word, I go.

Good Morning -- Day One!

It is 9:20 a.m. and my question is to arrive at 10 a.m. Checked my e-mail just in case my prof decided to send it early, as she has done to at least one person I know before.

I feel great and refreshed. Have showered, dressed, watered my dying plants, am now eating breakfast (bagel and yogurt with apple juice..mmmm), and read a Bible verse (not actually studying/reading the Bible, I know -- I'm quite behind on this).

Here is my verse for today : Eph 2:10 (NIV) For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

My dear sistafriend, Francesca, is working today on a paper for an exam as well, so she and I will be making sure we both stay focused and make progress. We did this yesterday, giving each other our goals for the next few hours, and it worked out well...until we both fell asleep before our 9 pm check-in, that is.

When my questions arrive, I will update you all with my specific goals for the day and get started. I can dooo this!!!!

Thanks for your support. May everyone who reads this also have a blessed day. May everyone who reads this know everything is possible with Christ. Amen.

I hope my internet connection stays up..

I think!

So, I just realized, at 1 a.m. after my latest multiple-hour nap and now back up at the computer, that I forgot to pay my most recent phone bill. Well, Is 'forgot' the most accurate word? Yes, there is some truth to that, so let's go with it.

So, I'm thinking.. for the most part, I REALLY hope that my phone and thus internet connection doesn't get turned off during my exam.....

Breaking news: My rations for the journey have just arrived (yes, in the middle of the night..true to the nature of this mission, I suppose). In the home-cooked meals category, I've got pasta alfredo with vegetables, rice with mushrooms and onions, and cabbage. In the frozen food category, there's waffles, pot pies, and burritos. Snacks? Oh yes! Fudge Chip's Ahoy, croissants, bagels, cheesy bread, and cream cheese. Plus, paper plates and cups to avoid dish-washing. More juice and milk. My mom is the best!! All tributes to her this International Women's Month. I am blessed that she is so close by, so wonderful and supportive. Can't wait to get started with my exam so I can eat! (just kidding).

OK, due to the meal arrival and my news about it, I won't be able to tell you anymore about the phone bill and my internet connection at this time. Gotta return to the main interface, that is, Microsoft Word.

The plan is to work for an additional 1.5-2 hrs, sleep for abt 6, then get up again to continue. I'm amped. God is soo GOOD!! Jesus is real!

Making sooo much progress the day before!

With clear ideas on what my two questions will be, I'm spending time organizing the more than 30 pages of notes I've taken, transforming my notes into an extended form that I can use when I start the actual writing tomorrow and ensuring all my notes are as complete as possible. I've made considerable progress on doing this for my second question and am several pages into my preparation work. Very impressed with myself! Really, all the glory goes to God. I've prayed, I'm calm and I give Jesus the praise. Amen.

For the most part, I've stayed on task all day and have been working straight through since the morning, about 8 hours now. Took a one-hour break/nap halfway through and a few mini 5-10 min. breaks. Call to Mom who lives quite close. She'll be bringing over food this evening that I can reheat and eat for the next few days. Yeahhh! I won't starve. Another friend and fellow grad student who lives in the neighborhood also volunteered to help keep me fed. I haven't touched base recently though.

Also, got my first blog comment. A fellow grad student who I don't think I know gave good advice I'll be sure to take, "turn off the phones." I'll have to remember to do this first thing in the morning.

It's good to be loved and supported.

Well, That's my break for 8 (min.) Gotta, get back to work!!

One day 1 hour and counting...

One day and one hour until I start my exam. I have several more books to go through and take notes on...I will get it all done today!!