Never-Ending Rain :(

It was raining this past Saturday night . As I listened to the rain falling outside I thought it sounded like a "lazy rain," one that just takes its time coming down non-stop for days. Like rain when you're at the beach for just a few days in the summer.

In Brazil it rains a lot in the summer (January-March) and the following scenario was a common occurrence in our lives there, particularly during my childhood:

Every summer we arranged with our "rich uncle" to stay at one of his beach houses for a week or two. Sometimes we'd also spent a long weekend at my aunt's beach house (or my uncle's). Of course during many of those days it rained. And rained, and then it rained some more. I would go to bed and pray hoping that the next morning the rain would be gone just to wake up and hear it falling again.

Those were chilly, damp days, filled with card playing and "cabin fever" in the small beach house. If we were lucky, we'd have brought a board game or two, or, luckier yet, borrowed a TV from someone (that happened only once). There was a time we spent playing UNO for days -- I just couldn't take it anymore!

Then, of course, the day before you're scheduled to travel back home the sun comes back in all its splendor, and you go to the beach so eagerly that you get this horrible sunburn afterwards... This last part was even worse when it was just for a weekend :)

I used to wonder why was it that beach vacations and rain always had to go together (in Brazil at least)?

My life has been like that for several years now. The fact that I haven't yet finished the dissertation is a never-ending rain that spoils my whole life. I can't enjoy my time with the boys because I have to worry about the chapters I need to finish. I can't travel with my parents and need instead to have them help me so I can work on the dissertation. I can't be fully happy because of the looming clouds and endless rain. I want to blog about so many other things in my life and I have to go back to this dreaded subject.

And every year I have to feel devastated at the end of May, thinking that I'm not participating of commencement AGAIN!

I can't even metaphorically sing:

"Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day
Little Lilian wants to play
Rain, rain, go away!!!!"

Because I alone can make this rain go away. I have to wrap it all up and work with it so it can go. I know that I have many problems and limitations. I just don't write well, I have a hard time even having my own ideas and not relying on other people's, but I'm a good researcher and I've accomplished a whole lot. That I know. I will just have to overcome these apparently unsurmountable obstacles that I have right now -- personified in one of my committee members -- so I can finish. How that will be done is beyond me. I'm trying to write an email to this person right now. Wish me luck. If you pray, pray for me.

And in spite of the rain, I'll get my bright "rainbow" umbrella (which I got for mother's day last year, BTW! :) and blog about some other brighter subjects soon!