Well, I'm back.

Back from a holiday of joy and light - er... I mean work, lots of work, and studying.... in Madison.

And for the first time in my life, I was too tired to go to BW3 and get chicken wings and drink on a Saturday night.

Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the glowing Winged Buffalo sign that hangs above the BW3 on State Street, but frankly, it's like a little lighthouse beacon of sweet-barbecue goodness calling me to pull my weary bones to shore and partake of the fruits of the land (being pina-coladas, captain-n-cokes, sex on the beaches, and BBQ chicken wings with dipping sauce). There is no better way to end a night of hearty Madison-style drinking (and remember, we can drink like no one else) than sitting down in the basement, shooting darts while drunk, answering trivia questions wrong and greasing your esophagus with sweet sweet BBQ.

Alas, about 9:30, after studying for 8 hours (read: studying for 4 hours, distracting my boyfriend, playing with the chalkboard, and watching 45 min of LOTR II) I just fell asleep on the floor, blissfully oblivious to both the horrors of "Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple" (the text upon which my face was resting) and the noise of the apparent 10 person coordinated tap-dancing / chair scraping / basketball bouncing / orgy of trashy music that is my boyfriend's upstairs neighbor. I am told that I was "too peaceful" to wake, and when I finally did return to the land of consciousness it was far too late to start the 3 mile trek to the bars.

A pity. This was, however, a good book-buying weekend for me. I got a particularly interesting copy of Poe's essays; as well as a boxed copy of "Arthur Gordon Pym" which, although not rare, is amusing if only for the pictures. I picked up some fun Dracula comic books, and this little tiny book [1800's?] The Mermaid Series of Thomas Dekker [ a writer from the late 1500's] with such charming plays as "The Honest Whore", "The Honest Whore part II", and "The Witch of Edmonton". It also, I might add, has a naked golden mermaid embossed on the cover, which is always a sign of a good book.

Let me tell you what, folks...

I need to stop worrying about my seminar paper. I really do hate the class and have already produced 19 pages of somewhat-coherent narrative. I have two more weeks to finish it. I have to present on the damn thing on Tuesday and am currently being pestered by the little demons of grad-school doubt that tend to linger over my head the final weeks of the quarter. I have convinced myself that my argument is no good, that it isn't really coherent, that it doesn't fit very well with the class, and that it doesn't make any really interesting conclusions about either the text or the 19th century literary scene in general.

And yet, I know that this is false - and in any other class this would be a great paper. So what am I so worried about?

I'm fairly sure that a dissection of this will lead to general understandings about the inner-workings of the minds of graduate students and thus:

1 - My professor. I'm sure that you all understand that this has to be ranked #1 on the fear scale. He will refuse to interpret the text in the same way I do (of course - that's if he reads it). This feeling is quite common amongst grad students, I think, and accounts for about 90% of worry about papers and paper topics. It's not that we don't have good ideas, but sometimes - they just don't get across.

2 - The assignment is ill defined. That is, "hey, guys - write a 20 page paper about something relating to something we talked about in class, ok?"

3 - The class is ill defined. This leads to stress because of #2, as an ill defined assignment in a well-defined class still leads to papers more or less along the same lines, whereas an ill defined topic in an ill defined class leads to everything from offensive art to detective stories to Hawthorne to Atkins diets to silhouette drawings etc... (these all being topics of papers in this class). How one approaches deciding on a topic for this class depends apparently solely on the alignment of the planets and your particular like or dislike of lacy socks.

4 - Sources. How many do you need? I don't know, do you?

5 - Time. Ten weeks is not a sufficient amount of time in which to write a good paper - and yet I find that by being extra-special-paranoid these last few weeks I am somehow ahead of schedule. This is a Very Bad thing, because, as you all know, grad students are masochists. As soon as we see that we have free time, it is instantly consumed with the doubt that we should be spending more time on our papers - and suddenly free time becomes an enemy to be destroyed by blogging, checking email, drinking, watching movies, or generally tearing out our hair in small clumps.

And so, with this not-so-subtle analysis of my personal doubt executed, you will have to excuse me because I have to go and work on the outline for the presentation for the paper that I stole time for blogging to avoid.

Thank you, Lubna and Jett for the most amazing ping-pong experience that I have ever had in my life.

I didn't think that I could actually laugh that hard, but the kung-fu ping-pong and smack talk was like eating pop rocks and then chugging a diet coke (upon rereading I realized that it should be clarified that this is a very high complement, not an indication that you gave me indigestion). :)

In addition: From my ass to Lubna's books: "I'm sorry if I ever hurt you"

But this one is much MUCH harder - this was when I was getting really fancy with the puzzles - I think it took me a couple of days to write it.

Waiting for the moment to
divine another truth. Of a
mystery of meaning - to sit
as the remarks (often ours)
fall empty. We often learn--
dreams are really ideals,
echoes from phantoms and
wishes. Are we to unlock it?
we watch for riddles - look
within them - secret truth.

Here is another one that I wrote in college along with Zugzwang

DS

I first noticed opposing tautologies,
precisely and naturally defined,
present open relations between themselves
hence - equivalent...
naturally basic.


It works on the same principle as the last one, leaving you with a logical tautology

Guess the answer and win a... er... something or other.

Zugzwang: a puzzle poem

Quite understandable.
Every enigmatic nuance
(To a king) expresses several
Possibilities - all with new
Chances. His eternal challenge?
Keep methodically avoiding terminal entrapment.

Guess what, interested readers (or at least amused friends)?

I am an Idiot Savant!

This was told to me by none other than Professor X, right in the middle of our class today (as he giggled and then pantomimed putting his hand over his mouth as if to signify "oh, with the exception of you Katie" smirking wildly).

This all came from a rather long, dry, and uninteresting lecture where I became a case study for the entire class as a maven. A maven, from "The Tipping Point" is someone who collects things, or collects knowledge about things obsessively and has this strange compulsion to share it with people. You say, "hah, I do that everyday!" but you are probably not a maven unless, like me, you make little excel spreadsheets of your costume jewelry collection including date of purchase, price, maker, description, condition and overall quality. THAT is a maven. My class, upon my mentioning that I might be one of these people, suddenly became quite fascinated with me as if I were some kind of rare bird or exotic plant to study. This lead to a discussion of mavens and their habits (as well as a bunch of other stuff from our discussion of this book) and PLOP right in the middle of discussion Prof X. blurts out, "so these mavens, these idiot savants..." Ahhhh... the joys of academia.

Not only this, but someone pointed at me in the middle of discussion and said - "I don't know about the rest of you, but that is STRANGE" implying that I was, again, very odd.

Not that I really mind that so much - I don't mind being odd. Although I DO mind being called an Idiot and being talked down to by Prof X. especially in the bit where he "explained" to us "english students" (read "intellectually challenged") that "police" could be both a physical and metaphorical concept.

Really? Fuck? Amazing! I must have missed that over here in the English department where we all sit around AND TALK ABOUT THE METAPHORICAL MEANINGS OF WORDS ALL DAY LONG.

He apparently thinks we're all idiots.

AND he scowls. I can't wait for the end of the quarter.

leather pants tomorrow.

Oh my, everyone seems to have a blog stalker but me.

I don't know if I should consider it fashionable, odd, or just a little bit strange, but it seems that blogdom is also random-hookups-with-people-much-younger-than-you-dom, and interestingly I have been left out of the trend. It's just as well - I really don't need a stalker, it's just one of those things that amuses and yet mystifies me.

Apparently no one has an explanation of the wink phenomenon that I mentioned earlier - Winks can be very mischievous and the general consensus amongst my friends is that the wink was version (1), the "knowing wink". Which although rather creepy is yet odd and slightly strange. Ah well. I do have class tomorrow, however, and we shall see what happens then.

Oh, and I just have to say that although I never fancied myself a dog person, I met a golden retriever today who through her totally exuberant joyfulness ( and random need to bark, run in circles, and jump up on people) has changed my mind. I am thus proclaiming both my cat-person and dog-personness for the world to enjoy (or if not enjoy, find mildly confusing and forget immediately).

I found this delightful picture at the bookstore the other day, and upon paying for it, getting it into my car and commenting on it to Anne, she promptly replied (as her first impression of the picture) "she's shaved." I attempted to deny this (the picture being of a goddess reclining on a throne with a draped cloth covering the more unmentionable unmentionables) but on further inspection, I have to agree that she is right. Which leads me to two mildly interesting conclusions, one of which I exclaimed to Anne in response to her comment, and the other that I am really drawn to strange art.

Alas, it is just part of the melange of strangeness, odd habits, whimsical dress, bizarre interests and confused metaphors that is me.

Oooh... Titles - this should be interesting.

Today was productive - half of my "Amber Gods" paper is written, and I have an outline for the rest (ahhh it just goes to show how productive you can be if you wake up way too gosh darn early in the morning).

This afternoon was dedicated to making an attempt at composing a personal annotated bibliography of random cool books that I have borrowed from the library on different subjects through the years (a project that I will never finish, but one that *theoretically* has the potential to be useful someday). This is especially true in light of the fact that I am personally very very very bad with names. It's probably not clear how this can be a disastrous personality trait until you remember that everything that I do all day has to do with authors and their names and the names of their works and name dropping to sound intelligent etc. It's becoming a hazard and my bibliography is an attempt to work against the tide of name-apathy that daily washes over the beached longboat of my thoughts.

wow - that was a very odd metaphor.

In any case - socially tonight was dinner with the Amazing and Astounding Becky (who is not a girly-girl contrary to her purse and underwear purchasing habits). We had a delightful time hanging out at Chilis and wandering the mile-o-shops that is Gurnee Mills. I have to say, there is something disturbing about that mall which I can't put my finger on, but it might be the huge animated man on a tractor that jerkily creaks along a track in the ceiling (just a guess). Ohh Ohh, or perhaps it's the big store that sells knives, guns, crossbows, duck calls, and has an indoor shooting range!

In any case, fun was had by all except for the moment when some surly teenager brushed past me and instead of saying "excuse me" or "pardon me" like some normal human, muttered "move" or "get out of my way" - really what has happened to manners?

Forgive me for rambling, there have been several massive days of hardcore studying slowly warping my brain, and today (just for fun) I wore socks with toes on them to the library (you know the kind like gloves for your feet?). This actually delighted me as I put them on; thinking myself utterly decadent. This has become my idea of a good time. I obviously need some kind of therapy.

doctorat-imago

Don't you ever have one of those days?

You know the kind of days that I'm talking about - the days where you get up with the best intentions to get lots and lots of work done and then somehow all of the planets dis-align or the sky happens to be dreary or you can't find matching socks, or the light INEXPLICABLY KEEPS FLICKERING IN YOUR KITCHEN, or you lose your favorite pen, or the library is just too cement-constructed and spider infested or whatever - and you are totally incapable of producing any original work?

This, obviously, happened to me today. I have tried everything from Mountain Dew (also known as "liquid Chi, or Qi [as I have been informed by the scrabble master Jett]), to Doritos, to jammies and socks, to constructing a fortress of books around my computer, to rereading my notes on this paper again and again and alas alas it is all for naught.

I had to abandon the "Amber Gods" paper and take up the "Artist of the Beautiful" paper in desperation, and produced an outline at least, and converted the first couple of chunks into prose that may become part of the final paper (mmmmmm Kant and Borudieu). My only hope is that armed with this ultra-detailed outline I can attack this paper again on Sunday and get more of it written.

Whine Whine Whine. I'm just being a pain in the ass I know, so to cheer myself up and to make this blog entry something less of a disaster I will present you all with a very disturbingly named drink in connection with a very disturbing story called "Green Tea" by J.S. Lefanu.

This story, for those who have not read it (and by all means, you should be marked with some kind of teabag to be worn on the chest a-la-Hester Prynne's scarlet A, for your sin against the gothic) is all about (and I swear I'm not kidding) a man who thinks that he is being followed around by a little black monkey with glowing red eyes that tells him to do awful things like kill himself and others. Upon reading this story I really could form no other interpretation than that of particularly florid visual and aural hallucinations brought on by an acute schizophrenic episode.

But this will just not do for a gothic text and somehow this entire experience is parleyed into an analysis of western mystic traditions.

The concerned narrator / doctor states: "The seat, or rather the instrument of exterior vision, is the eye. The seat of interior vision is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately about and above the eyebrow, You remember how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the simple application of iced eau-de-cologne...cold acts powerfully as a repellant of the nervous fluid... I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Hennings had inadvertently opened." (207)

Yes, of course - obviously the mystic third eye (in the forehead in most representations) can be closed with a simple cold compress! Why didn't we think of that before? That's it, round up all of the schizophrenics and particularly enlightened monks - we'll ice them all down and thereby preserve the scientific validity of real empirical progress!

Which brings me to my drink (again courtesy of the "Bartenders Guide to COCKTAILS & MIXED DRINKS") known as (I swear) "Monkey Gland" [can you imagine yourself going up to a bartender and asking for a "monkey gland”? I assure you that I cannot.]

2 measures gin
1 measure orange juice
1/2 measure grenadine
1/2 measure absinthe

"Shake the ingredients with plenty of ice, and strain into a large wine glass, Garnish with a slice of orange" (122)

Perhaps it is the absinthe that makes this particularly appalling and yet intriguing, as absinthe (previous to the 1990's) "contained wormwood in concentrations held responsible for corroding the brain" (53)

My personal medical opinion is that both the schizophrenic AND the doctor deserve healthy doses of this drink in it's 1930's form and a prolonged stay sweeping floors in a Buddhist colony.

Two topics this evening -

(1) My paper for gothic (for those of you that are interested) is going along swimmingly (although the paper for my other class may be going down for the third time and require the aid of some steroid-enhanced lifeguards). I have an outline and still have all day tomorrow to work on it some more. I think that this deserves a little bit of cake leftover from yesterday as a reward!

(2) (and more interesting) I have mentioned to some of my colleagues that my Prof. winked at me the other day in class.

Now I am desperately hoping - for my own personal sanity and to keep the world as I know it from spinning off of its all-too-delicate orbit into the blackness of strange freakyness - that he had something in his eye. But upon observing this moment of winkage, I think that there is a distinct possibility that this was not in fact the case. This leads me to several broad and unseemly conclusions - all of which are totally inappropriate for the classroom (and planet earth in general). And thus, you will all be subjected to my analysis of possible winks and winkage-related incidents.

That is:

There are several different types of winks for which this wink could have been winked. (whew, try to say that line three times fast)

(1) it could have been the "knowing wink": this is probably one of the more benign options, and seems to fit with the situation quite well. An annoying girl was rambling on and on about something that was utterly uninteresting and in the middle of her discussion he looked at me and the moment of winking occurred. This wink, however, is a dangerous and rather depressing wink because it says " I know that what she's saying is stupid, and I know that you know it too ". Now I am of the opinion that this kind of conversation (even when it occurs solely through eye gestures) is totally inappropriate by any teacher in any classroom.

(2) It could have been the "come hither" wink. I reject this out of hand because uh... ewww. And also because there is someone else he has a hankerin' for and it ain't me. Although I was sitting in her seat and she was absent that day... AAAAhhhh.... must...wash...out...mind...with...soap!

(3) The errr... um... well - these are the only options I can think of besides the "Arrrgh, an invisible gnat just flew into my eye" wink.

Thus, I beg of you - help me to find some kind of benign wink-related explanation for the offensive and offending wink; if only to let me sleep at night knowing that I wasn't brutally winked at in the middle of discussion.

Ahhh... Today is Spaghetti, and garlic bread, and bread with marmalade and butter, and cake, and wine, and good company.

These are the moments that I treasure.

These are also the moments that justify my buying an entire set of Universal china "Ballerina Mist" dinnerware, more wine glasses than I would care to count, an inexplicably useless collection of milk-glass bowls, a full set of Oneida Community Stainless Twin-star cutlery (with the little iced-tea spoons) and a few odds and ends of jadeite.

Essentially, parties (while being a festive occasion to meet and chat with wonderful people) are also the rationalization for my rather obsessive 50's kitchenware collection.

Now if I could only find some way to justify the rhinestones....

Whilst (humm a use of the word "whilst", and correctly too I think, surely my mind is becoming unhinged)

Anyway, whilst I was reading through random files on my computer in an effort to restore some kind of cohrerent order to the mess that is my hard drive (the main problem being that in an effort to save time I name all of my files random collections of keystrokes such as: fdjkwa;, fh;ashdf, or the astrounding filsdvjns [which is what happens when I hit my head on the keyboard] which means that later I have to re-open every file and find out what the heck it was) I came upon this little ditty that I wrote apparently in October of 2001 and thought it might amuse (apparently I am being highly parenthetical this evening - as well as only marginally grammatical - just ignore me)))))))))))).)

To Bic.

I call upon the muses shining bright
To bless my humble Bic with ink tonight
An Ode to plastic pens it is my aim
And with it to procure my certain fame

This Bic, it was a pity purchase, true
From a pencil hawking clerk in vest of blue
I passed the pens reclining in their cell
Of plastic mesh, a basket known too well
It wept with such a hopeless, helpless air,
(Hey, a talking pen would make YOU stop and stare)
It’s little cap was sagging to it’s side
In a puddle of ink tears he sat and cried

Alas, he said, all of my friends are dead
They lay here in this prison cold as lead
They stare at me with small unblinking eyes
And I alone with memory for their cries
Full forty of them perished in the box
Another six succumbed to inky pox
The living few were buried under dead
Their cries filled me with horrifying dread
But with no arms and only with my cap
I could not bring relief, but only slap
The corner of my cage to show I cared
In retrospect I wonder I was spared

But why continue in this bitter state?
Asked I, while looking for $1.48
(the price for him, I swear as I still live
His freedom, I thought it only fair to give)
He answered with a bitter, wrenching moan
“I fear to say my life is not my own
If late tonight Our Savior Bic should come
And with his paper strike me cold and dumb
I would not grieve, I will confess that much
But it is blasphemy to wish for such

With this he stood before me at full length
And gave his creed with the last of his strength
“I will endure the trials of the box,
The basket and the store and inky pox
I will wait patiently til I’m on sale
In clearance bin my courage will not fail
When bought, I will succumb to daily toil
(though I cannot be coerced to write on foil)
I will give substance to the airy dreams
Of poets, (and perhaps get dropped in streams)
I will endure the sonnet poorly writ,
Although I dread to waste ink on such shit
And when my cap is lost and ink runs dry
I’ll pass on to that Bic box in the sky

(and here a tear dropped from his reddened eye)

And there I will meet with the Inky greats!
To meet the fountain pen which wrote for Yeats
To talk with pens who penned some famous tunes
To meet the pen that made it to the moon!
The company of greats I do await
(And now, as it was getting rather late
His story frought with sobs and starts and sighs
More than an hour did his tale comprise
And tho’ I watched attentive and enrapt
The clerks started to think that I was cracked)

Said I, “Dear pen, your fears are almost spent
For deliverance I surley represent.”
With that I gently lifted him aloft
And bought him from the clerk (50 cents off!)
He nesteled in my pocket for the ride
(My jeans display the happy tears he cried)
And till this day we live in harmony
I pen my work, he sings in useful glee

And thus my Ode to pens is nearly done
Tales of courage, woe and hopes are almost spun
And … …. Hey, this ink is getting rather dry
It’s getting hard see this, little guy
O pen, are you about leave me now?
Maybe if I doodle circles… wow

A small reprieve, he’s almost spent, I fear
I must be brief, his end is drawing near
Goodbye fair pen, no more to hear your talk
Goodbye, Your tale I’ll spread, to every place I’ll walk
To tell the world your courage and your pain
And with my feeble voice your tale make plain
“Goodbye” to me he scarcely more than sighed
and with that parting word he quickly

I would just like to have it noted that if there is a god of Lindor Truffle Balls, I worship at your amaretto altar.

Cocktail of the day!

I have decided to post the recipe for a "zombie" in honor of reading Lefanu's "Schalken the Painter" today; courtesy of the fine people at Barnes and Noble who put out a charming little book on cocktails by Stuart Walton called The Bartender's Guide to COCKTAILS & MIXED DRINKS apparently needing to capitalize these final letters for the hard of thinking - as if somehow the little pictures of delicious alcoholic beverages were not enough of a clue to let you in on the fact that this book was not about, for example, rabbit breeding or Amish needlepoint.

In any case. "Schalken the Painter" is by far one of the coolest stories in the Gothic genre (especially because it is one of the few which features.... a zombie! *gasp*). Actually, it's rather odd how rarely the living dead appear in a gothic novel - ghosts, yes; vampires, yes; even werewolves, occasionally yes; but never zombies. This zombie, of course is not recognized in the tale in the way that you might expect:

"They had not so far lost all self-possession, however, as to fail to observe two stranger peculiarities of their visitor. During his stay his eyelids did not once close, or indeed move in the slightest degree; and farther, there was a deathlike stillness in his whole person, owing to the absence of the heaving motion of the chest, caused by the process of respiration. These two peculiarities, though when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed" (187).

Now does it seem a little odd to anyone that meeting with someone who is NOT BLINKING OR BREATHING, you might classify that as a "trifling" peculiarity? It's these kinds of subtle stupidities that bring me back to the gothic again and again. "trifling", terrific! Could you be more bland? Victorian sensibilities are the darndest things.

This drink, however, is guaranteed to bring out an "arch-smile" in any white-clad-lantern-carrying-ghost-maidens you may have recently married off to non-breathing livid-hued patriarchs.

So without further ado.

Zombie

1 measure light rum
1/2 measure dark rum
1/2 measure white rum
1 measure orange curacao
1/4 measure Pernod
1 measure lemon juice
1 measure orange juice
1 measure pineapple juice
1/2 measure papaya juice
1/4 measure grenadine
1/2 measure orgeat (almond syrup)
1/4 measure overproof rum

"Blend all but the last ingredient with ice, and strain into an ice-packed highball glass. Sprinkle with overproof rum. Garnish with a slice of pineapple, a slice of lime and a mint sprig"

Apparently the idea is to serve this as a hangover cure (hence the name) - Personally I think that anyone who has all of the ingredients together to make this drink (including, you must remember, orgeat) really deserves more of a pat on the shoulder and a license to sleep in a few more hours. However, this is in keeping with my general fondness for rum including not one, but four different types - which makes it a taste treat for the angry pirate in anyone.

How does one write a paper?

I prefer to start with a text, or maybe two - add in a little theory for spice, maybe some overarching theme to tie it all together (a particular object, or psychological style, or question of gender or race) and then allow all of this to percolate in the little aluminum stove-top coffeepot of my mind until something delicious floats to the surface. Filter off the debris, structure your narrative and pour into a 20 page or so cup of delicious papery goodness. Add rhetorical flourishes like sugar cubes and cream and serve once it has cooled enough that you aren't really interested in drinking, er... i mean reading it anymore.

Apparently my metaphor has gotten away from me here.

Boy am I thirsty.

Oh man - I just had a postmodernist moment of recognition and self-inflicted irony.

I stopped reading Adorno and Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" in order to watch American Idol.

The irony was just too delicious as I sipped a diet coke (now with lime flavor) and painted my toenails.

I came back to the Adorno, but it had just lost all of it's punch. Let me quote to you the last line "The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them."

I realized that at that moment I was the perfect Adornian consumer, totally immersed in the transparent irony and yet compelled (as if by some voice from the nether reaches of hell) to watch hopeful youngsters mold themselves into an unattainable pop-superstar ideal.

It makes me smile to know that my education has given me these moments of utter self-detabilization. I feel as though this should have opened up some black hole or time warp which will usher me unharmed into the white-hot glowing omnimedia future.

Hello again, all!

Back from my weekend hiatus in Madison and ready to be about as perky and chipper as I can without spontaneously breaking into sound-bytes from Disney movies.

Things are looking up. I worked on my papers - and although my arguments aren't perfect, I am definitely moving towards something interesting and yet complex in both of them.

Ahhh Madison.

So today is all about posting for my Taste class, thinking about my papers, perfecting a syllabus, and cleaning up the nightmare that is my apartment.

Because cleanliness is next to Godliness and I need all of the divine aid that I can muster.
(especially when I attack the laundry pile - yipes!)

Ok, this will be my last in a string of very bitter blog entries. I will from this day forth decide to think happy thoughts and ignore the little black clouds that flit across the sunshine of my day.

But only after I bitch awhile. This resolution comes from the fact that it is logically impossible that my day could have been worse without the death of a close family member.

Seminar sucked ass. Some girl kept dominating the conversation in a lame attempt to present herself as someone who (against all odds) understood what our professor was saying. She picked arguments just to be contrary. She answered rethorical questions. She insisted on speaking both before and after anyone else who spoke. This would not ordinarily be annoying as it gives me a chance to scoot down in my chair and experience the mind-expanding properties of doodling in my notebook, but her complete incompetence merely frustrated everyone in the room making it impossible to sit back.

So seminar was bad, no reason why the rest of the day couldn't be good, right?

Wrong.

Then I drifted into the lounge and listened to 4th years tell me how impossible it is to get a job and what horrors lay in store for me once I'm done with my dissertation.

But that's ok, right? I mean no reason why my PhD only earning me 45,000 a year if I'm lucky should make me depressed, right?

But on to the rest of my day.

Professor X let us know that his office hours were again changed and after a light lunch I was ready to go and present my paper topic.

And he was late to his office hours - suprise suprise.

And he hated my paper topic.
And he suggested a whole bunch of things I should do that I don't understand.
And he wants me to write a kind of paper that I have never written before.
And I don't know what I'm doing.
And I would say things about his demeanor but I'm trying to be nice.

So today was bad. baad. BAAAAd.

And hopefully, tomorrow will be better. And the day after that. And the day after that.

And something.
Ah well.

Sorry all, I promise I will be happier tomorrow.

OH MAN!

Although it is several hours after the fact, I am still annoyed. Yet again I have been foiled in my attempt to get a paper topic ratified, and all of this through the incompetence and utter apathy of Prof. X.

Office hours are supposed to be every week - notification needs to go out before 2am the evening previous if you're changing your plans.

Dang Dang Dang Dang Dang. This plus the rain/snow/sleet/slush mixture of today is making me one very surly girl.

On the upside, I spent most of the weekend antiquing. Let me tell you, there is nothing better than walking into the basement of a house and finding jadeite, jewelry, and 50's aluminum kitchenware.

Of course, I also bought some shot glasses and a tumbler or two, which implies alcohol in my near future. I'm attempting to drag my psyche and personality kicking and screaming into the clubbing 20's instead of the computer-gaming teens that I seem to be living in.

Soon I will know how to construct at LEAST 3 different cocktails without some kind of primer. Sad, I know, but apparently I was passed by on the platform of life by the train of evening entertainment.

Of course this all relates back to my near-incomprehensible lack of class which was pointed out to me two weeks ago. Apparently I have NO IDEA what are and are not good wines and meats, and my understanding of the subtle and delicate art of stinky cheeses is similar to that of prehistoric man.

Alas - I will apparently have to acquire culture somehow - Thus my project involving the most amusing of foods Alcohol.

hummm... suits my mood:

Mmm, I am Lemon Flavoured. I am bitter and twisted. Expect from me acerbic humour and sharp commentary. While I may seem nasty at first, I'm actually quite good company if I like you, so long as you don't mind a bit of cutting to the chase. What Flavour Are You?

This has got to be one of the most accurate little tests that I've ever experienced. Sorry all, I just got back from a lovely weekend with the family and boyfriend and returned to the gateway-to-the-netherworld known as Chicago. Not that I'm bitter, no - of course not, not bitter at all.

The only thing that's looking up for this week is the possibility of fondue on Wed. That is worth doing a little dance for.