I might as well get this off my chest now, I've been talking to everyone else about it.

You would think, after finals week, I'd have some sense of relaxation. You would think that the prospect of my thesis proposal would be the worst of my stress and I don't plan on even buying The Craft of Research and starting it until I get home on Tuesday. You would think that I would just fill my weekend with socializing, burlesque, and playing Earthbound while picturing the characters as jaded-beyond-their-years cursing children working to save the world while being pissed that it involves running people's errands and wading through face-deep swamps.

See, for the past few months I've been working in Lab MPS and for a while I'd planned on doing my thesis there. It wasn't anywhere approaching my area of interest (mechanical problem solving vs. my social psych interests) and it was giving me stress near to (or up to, at some points) tears but I wasn't sure if I had another option. The story I gave to my supervisor was that I was going to function as if I was doing my thesis there until I figured out what was going on. The head guy at Lab SP has offered to let me sign up to attend their meetings, which will hopefully let me at least run people's data on occasion and be a good little lab monkey type, but I'm not sure if it'll count as a replacement for being in a lab. And if I scuttle my chances at Lab MPS and can't find a thesis advisor willing to work with my thesis idea...I don't know what I'll do.

On Monday I meet with my supervisor to discuss the data and I'm going to tell her I'm not doing my thesis work there. Better to be honest than cowardly and also I wouldn't mind getting out of writing a progress report this month because that's just a pain in the ass. I don't know how she'll react, she's a very nice woman who's sat with me through more than one freakout and annoying her scares me deeply. And I'm going to have to tell the lab head in January at the first meeting we have and that scares the stuffing out of me because she's a rather aggressive lady and she'll be mad I didn't tell her earlier (not that this is my fault since we haven't had lab meetings since mid-November).

I've been obsessing over it for...days, weeks maybe. Anxiety makes it very difficult for me to work and the thought of looking at my survey results actively scares me. I've been putting it off because the very thought of it, or anything related to academia, sets me into panic mode.

It's fucking frustrating and I wish I knew how to handle it, or at least handle the stress revolving around it. Finals was daisies and sunshine compared to this.

...also I'm thinking of getting a hedgehog. Thoughts?