Swear that this is not to elicit sympathy or anything but this grad school business is really getting me down. I stare down a long list of pros and cons and no decision is forthcoming, nothing seems to tip the scales one way or another. And crunch time looms. And it's all well and good to talk to other people (and friends and family do have wonderful and supportive things to say) but in the end of course it's just you and the minotaur at the center of the labyrinth.

If it's just a question of courage, I tell myself that I have screwed that to the sticking place before. Martyrdom for the sake of growth and self-improvement, "getting outside the comfort zone", to drag out the cliche. Building character, a la Calvin (as in and Hobbes). What does not kill me makes me stronger. Matthew 5:14. If I've done it once I can do it again.

If it's a question of happiness - I think I can make myself happy wherever I am, but who really knows? There is a long and complicated and very tiresome argument I make to myself in my head over and over again about what I presume will make me happy, an argument I don't have any desire to subject the rest of the world to.

If it's a question of utility, how does one find a common currency for the myriad things I'm going to receive and give up either way? And anyway, it probably isn't a matter of utility.

If it's a question of "doing the right thing", there really isn't a "right thing" to be done.

Distress. But as I said, don't be sympathetic. I bring it entirely upon myself.