There are a great number of things making me cranky today.  Here’s a summary:

• Mitt Romney’s speech and the religious pandering of all the candidates.  (I love this summary, and hate what it means for the country.)
• The imminent mortgage bail-out for those who overextended themselves, but only the ones that timed it right (so that they haven’t already seen the rate jump and therefore had to stop making payments) and who someone somewhere thinks can make it at the low rate but not at the high rate.  So, I should have taken a risky loan and saved myself a few percentage points instead of buying a house within my means?  Good to know.  My friends who have already had their rate adjust and missed a payment?  Out of luck. 
• The fact that my hope of a 20 hour job has just fallen through, leaving me with either the 30 hour consulting job (still not officially offered) or applying for a full time institutional researcher position (where at least I would be on campus all the time, if busy, and have to give up my assistantship in favor of tuition remission through the college, which is taxable).
• I have been calling and emailing adviser since mid November.  First it was “You’ll hear from me after Dec. 1”.  On Sat Dec 1 7:45 am he emailed me to call him.  I was crunching to get things done and called him on Tuesday.  No response.  Called again.  No response.  Emailed.  Got a response.  “I’m finishing up some work on an evaluation project.  I’ll call before mid-week next week.”  Nice to know where I stand. 
• I am stumped on a stupid problem at work.  It makes no sense at all.  None.  And it’s pissing me off.
• It’s cloudy.  Again.  I deal with 115 degree days because it’s sunny here all the time.  Right now I’m feeling jipped.
• My mother called last night to tell me to check my email for something that she sent and I responded to days ago.

I realized last night that part of my procrastination problem is that I don’t feel like a scholar/academic.  I feel like I am taking classes as a hobby.  And if that’s the case, we are accumulating far too much student loan debt to keep the hobby affordable.