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Those voices

are speaking loud and clear as the four by six room gradually begins to close around me. I ponder for a moment whether they can hear what I am saying on the microphone. Maybe I should unplug it and shatter the mirrored glass with it and strangle the invisible person watching me and stop pretending to be normal and start believing what they tell me.

Sorry about the creepy blog entries this week but they all fit into a story. I have been literally sitting in a room with padded walls and mirrored glass for the past two days writing my preliminary exams for the PhD. Each of these lasted four hours and I wrote about a single topic for that entire time. They are finished and they "let me out" of the room yesterday. The room itself is just as it was described. It has had padded walls and ceiling for soundproofing, mirrored glass for clinical observations, and a microphone so the observer could listen to what was going on. They used to use the rooms to train counselors or psychology people I believe. Now they are used for prelims. Kind of appropriate I suppose. I should know next week whether or not I passed. Have to have three out of four to pass and if I don’t, I am effectively expunged from the program. If I pass, I am officially ABD–all but dissertation–and a Doctoral Candidate rather than just a student, whatever the hell all that means.

Bobby T’s tonight should be great fun. Kevin and Christina Fowler, Greg and Heather Seiler, Eric and Sarah Van Allen have all made noises about coming to the show. Might a little bit of a preview to next weekend. PT. Peace Treaty along with the 1996 class reunion. What the hell was I thinking when I ran for class president at the end of my junior year? I was elected to the permanent office that keeps giving your entire life–senior class president. It will be good to see everyone and hopefully everyone can get along.

See you tonight or next weekend,
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