I woke up spontaneously at a quarter to five this morning, which means it must be a random day ending in "Y", and bugger insomnia, anyway. Since I am functionally incapable of getting back to sleep once I've woken up, I did the usual, which entails stealth!tea (the plumbing in this house makes loud, weird noises in the neighbour's roof if you don't ( Read more... )

I woke up at 3.30am this morning, because I had incautiously judged it to be Winter enough for horrible insects to have their evil probosci frozen right off, and hadn't deployed the net, and a PESTILENTIAL MOSQUITO woke me up at ungodly o'clock by somehow getting UNDER one duvet, three blankets and two cats, and biting me on the left boob. This ( Read more... )

Gawsh. *blows dust off blog*. Apparently I am not in a blogging space, much, right now, which I attribute to the inevitable fog of exhaustion with which the hell-time of my year enfolds my luckless person. In this particular iteration my post-registration punch-drunkness is manifesting partially as extreme glandularity and frequent nausea, but ( Read more... )

Completely bizarre faculty board meeting yesterday, in which a senior professor attempted to railroad an item through the agenda proposing that the faculty remove all meat products from all its official functions, on the grounds of cruelty to animals. I cannot get my head around how he could possibly think that an article of personal/moral belief ( Read more... )

Things Hobbit has killed recently:

1. Two geckos.
   
2. Several moths and a sort of demented cranefly thingy, loudly, at 2am.
   
3. The sleeper chair in my study, repeatedly.
   
4. The living room carpet, repeatedly.
   
5. My hand, repeatedly.
   
6. My left foot, when I incautiously moved it under the blankets at 4.30am this morning. (I awoke abruptly, flung my calf into cramp, ( Read more... )

I think I'm getting better at this, possibly because therapy. The student can tell me about her depression and anxiety as a result of her mother committing suicide at the end of last year, and I can be sympathetic and practical and hold off dissolving into tears about it until the poor child has actually left my office. The other student earlier ( Read more... )

I've managed, over the last few months, to get back into something of an exercise routine, which is a bit erratic at present owing to potential heat-stroke, but averages out at a brisk walk around the Common every second day and is making me feel exponentially better about life on a number of fronts. Exercise, who knew? It takes about half an hour ( Read more... )

Last night I dreamed that I was faced with the difficult choice between re-training as a doctor and re-training as a sailor. I went the doctor route (alongside Jo, sorry, Jo, it's probably about your family), and after a few slightly frantic scenes of digs cooking with fellow med students, woke up feeling vaguely terrified about having to learn ( Read more... )

Good lord, my sleep patterns are horrible. Last night I was totally, absolutely and completely uninterested in anything resembling this strange "sleep" of which you speak until about midnight, at which point I forced myself to put down the Avengers slash and back away slowly. Then I spent large tracts of the rest of the night wandering ( Read more... )

I woke up on Friday morning with "Me and Bobby McGee" on my brain, where it has remained throughout the weekend. I grew up with the Kris Kristofferson version, which I actually prefer to the Janis Joplin; Janis gets a bit strident for my taste, although I love her whisky-soaked huskiness. I have attempted to exorcise the earworm by hauling out my ( Read more... )