chaos and noise

I'm slowly wearing myself away at the edges. The last few weeks have been a trial... I've been running that knife edge between five sets of deadlines for too long. Nights like these, I wonder whether I'm actually still on top of things. I'm far too stubborn to stop just because I've hit a wall. I'm still delivering work faster than ever, but this time I'm all out of reserves. One more week at full throttle. Six more weeks until I get a few days off. After that, blessed oblivion.

No firetwirling tonight. Not much of anything other than work, actually. Layout has stalled while I wait for Chapter 2 to come in... after that, I'll make a few final changes and connect up all those lovely "page XX" references. Compiling an index will be the last job to do. I can see why so many RPGs "forget" to leave space for one - they are a royal pain to prepare. Fortunately, Wednesdays and Thursdays are eaten by uni so I'm not twiddling my thumbs waiting for the last piece of the puzzle.

I can see why they don't recommend combining postgrad with any large amount of other work. Like, say, 80-hour weeks. The workload is generally pretty decent, but it's been slowly building up while I try to make enough money to pay my bills. The work is fun, but getting it in short bursts is killing me. In realistic terms, work from the last month should have been spaced out over at least two. Unfortunately, when it's "do this in three days" or "don't do this and don't get paid," that doesn't give me much of a choice.

Right now, I have pieces of a persuasive writing folio to upload, and then it's time for a few more hours of restlessly wishing I could get to sleep. The thing that frustrates me most about insomnia is the wasted opportunity - you can't do anything productive with those hours, sleeping or otherwise. The plan for tonight is to get some exercise until I'm physically exhausted (not hard, in my current health), with the aim of collapsing into bed afterwards. If I would have spent a few hours staring at the ceiling, I might as well get something done in that time.