grrr, aargh
I am catastrophically grumpy this morning, mostly because of (a) waking up, and (b) spending an hour in the traffic department after getting lost twice in the rain, failing dismally to book a learner's licence. (Because I didn't allow enough time for queuing in the wrong queue to pay, being told I should be in the other queue for the eye test, and realising I didn't have time to re-queue before my first plaintive student of the day). In retrospect, I am also homicidally grumpy because (c) the traffic department has clearly violated my religious principles, viz. LOTS OF CLEAR, UNEQUIVOCAL NOTICES TELLING YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO BE. I could probably sue them for abrogating my constitutional rights.
I am possibly also imitating the surly action of the badger because I'm halfway through the extended ending to Mass Effect 3 and have stopped in sheer boredom. Because really, being told exactly why in excruciating detail the three choices you have are equally lousy and don't allow you to role-play your character with any consistency, does not in any way prevent them from being three equally lousy choices. I have decided that I am probably mostly furious because the only choice which would allow my Shepard to live is a no-no in roleplaying terms, and I strenuously object to a game which requires that I rescind any further imaginative investment in the character via a pointless death I have no way of intelligently avoiding. If I want pointless death, there's a lot of real life for that. I thus have very little motivation to actually complete the game, as the imaginative investment ends the moment I do. Phooey.
On the upside, however, my mother arrives from the UK tomorrow, which is a Good Thing. I am also booked with plane tickets and accommodation for the Great Dual Conference Trip in August/September, am surprisingly unbankrupted by above, and almost have a Nesbit paper for the one. The other paper is on Catherynne Valente poetry and I kinda know what I want to say, so levels of academic angst about the whole thing are pleasantly low. Also, being a keynote speaker at the last one was a pleasing exercise in perspective. These two papers are 20-minuters, and I am a fundamentally obscure academic so no-one will really care if they're not plug-you-in-the-eye wonderful. It's a remarkably liberating feeling which bizarrely increases the chance that, joyously unpressured, I will actually write a good paper.
On a related note, I am planning on being in London for a sort of quantum period somewhere between the 1st and 5th September, and propose to drift happily between as many different venues as wish to see me and are able to offer me a horizontal surface upon which to sleep. Offers gratefully received, and will instantly solidify the quantum dates by observation.
I am possibly also imitating the surly action of the badger because I'm halfway through the extended ending to Mass Effect 3 and have stopped in sheer boredom. Because really, being told exactly why in excruciating detail the three choices you have are equally lousy and don't allow you to role-play your character with any consistency, does not in any way prevent them from being three equally lousy choices. I have decided that I am probably mostly furious because the only choice which would allow my Shepard to live is a no-no in roleplaying terms, and I strenuously object to a game which requires that I rescind any further imaginative investment in the character via a pointless death I have no way of intelligently avoiding. If I want pointless death, there's a lot of real life for that. I thus have very little motivation to actually complete the game, as the imaginative investment ends the moment I do. Phooey.
On the upside, however, my mother arrives from the UK tomorrow, which is a Good Thing. I am also booked with plane tickets and accommodation for the Great Dual Conference Trip in August/September, am surprisingly unbankrupted by above, and almost have a Nesbit paper for the one. The other paper is on Catherynne Valente poetry and I kinda know what I want to say, so levels of academic angst about the whole thing are pleasantly low. Also, being a keynote speaker at the last one was a pleasing exercise in perspective. These two papers are 20-minuters, and I am a fundamentally obscure academic so no-one will really care if they're not plug-you-in-the-eye wonderful. It's a remarkably liberating feeling which bizarrely increases the chance that, joyously unpressured, I will actually write a good paper.
On a related note, I am planning on being in London for a sort of quantum period somewhere between the 1st and 5th September, and propose to drift happily between as many different venues as wish to see me and are able to offer me a horizontal surface upon which to sleep. Offers gratefully received, and will instantly solidify the quantum dates by observation.