I'm trying to be patient...this is not the first time it hasn't worked very well

The boyfriend says I'm not a very patient person and in many cases he's right. This fellowship application is a prime example.

I emailed my advisor all the written portions last Thursday for him to comment on. I got comments on the first half of a two-page proposal Friday around lunch time. I emailed him an edited version that addressed all but one comment so I could get some more input on the second half and see if I'd interpreted his comments correctly.

I have yet to receive another email on the proposal. There are also two other written parts to this fellowship, neither of which he has read. I realize that he has family obligations, especially having been out of the country for two weeks and now his wife being out of town, but I really want to get this thing out of the way so I can return to research. And it's due Thursday, which doesn't leave much time for procrastinating if I do more than one round of edits on it.

Did I mention that this is my first proposal, so much of my first draft is guessing what a proposal is supposed to look like? It's going to take more than one edit to get it reasonably good and within the page limit.

It'd be nice if I could blame someone, but it's been an accidentally badly scheduled semester all around. The advisor wasn't supposed to teach, but another faculty member bailed on his class after the semester schedule was made. My advisor got to take up the slack. That means that next semester he'll be teaching one class instead of two with very little travel--just in time for both of his advisees to be studying for the qual.

Speaking of his other advisee, I feel bad for her, too, because she's trying to put together her seminar, a required part of a master's degree, so she can graduate in December. Her research has not been going as planned and she's been very stressed. It's more evidence for the bad timing of everything this semester.

I've also received preliminary news that my spring semester will be rearranged in such a way that I won't get much break over winter break, but more on that once the details are confirmed.