it really doesn't pay to be a gloomy pill; it's absolutely most redic, positively sill
So it's been quite awhile since I last wrote, tho it doesn't feel as-such; indeed, February has flown by and tomorrow quietly bites the proverbial dust, for better or for worst. It has been an intense month, tho substantially better than this week in general, which has been quite the crap in some ways.
My massive paper was finally completed and handed-in on Wednesday; I wanted to hand it in on Tuesday but, as is my won't, I missed my self-imposed deadline. I do good work - seriously, I really, really do - but I blow at deadlines (which is not a good quality, at all, in someone who wants to be a journalist) in large part because I work best when I work against them. I generally make it just within the deadline, but the work that makes it in, while usually really good, always could just be SLIGHTLY better, IF ONLY I had had another ten minutes (not to speak of an hour) to work on it - ten minutes which I would have had I actually started to work on it on time. The paper got those extra ten minutes (in reality several hours), and that was good, but I'm not sure my professor will see it until next week, which is...anticlimactic, I suppose. Let me give you the run-down on this:
All of last week I worked frantically on this paper, staying at school until closing time nearly every day in order to directly access all of the reference books that went in to the final product. (I researched the shit out of this paper - 35 cited sources, and even then I left out tons (TONS) of quotes from other sources - tho I do feel a slight twinge of perfectionist guilt for not having, say, actually spent days in the archives and quoted from the original newspapers of the era instead of relying on published compendiums of press accounts from the period.) We're talking going to class and then spending an additional 8 to 9 hours in the library, mind you - not even kidding, I was getting massive migraines from being on the computer for too long and the tips of my fingers were completely raw from typing and using the touch-pad mouse. Oh, and in the course of checking a fact I even made friends with a priest. Fine.
I thought all of that would bring me up to speed by Monday, and even allow me ample time to go and do a final follow-up interview with the guy that evening, but no way - Monday found me hysterically trying to get the last things checked. Tuesday was supposed to be the real, final wrap up - quick grammar check, then print, and wham: turn it in. Not so. I was still doing the index at 9.30, and given the printing room shut down at 7.45 I was damned out of luck. Wednesday, finally, I spent the morning doing a final wrap-up, and the Minister even came by to give it a quick spell-and-accent check; meanwhile, I laid it out, added the pictures, gave it a generally smashing look, and fully expected it would all be printed and turned in by noon.
So, then, begins my printing saga.
I go from the library down to the printing room. The computers are down, and even tho they should be back soon apparently they won't let you print in italics. Fuck that, says I; most of the footnotes in my paper are in italics.
Off I go to the School of History (about 10 minutes away, through a small wood) where I recall that one can print directly within the computer lab as long as one brings one's own paper. So far so good, but foiled: the computer in the computer lab has different, locked settings on their Word program, so I have to restructure the paper and re-do all the page numbers in the index. Still, whatever, no worries - there goes an hour, but soon enough I have that ready, or as ready as it will be because they're shutting down the lab: it's lunchtime and the guy who manages it needs his daily portion of tortilla or whatever. I go over to give him the paper so that I can print and he's like, "Remember, you can only print five pages, max." My paper: 79 pages. "What, are you crazy? Try the printing room."
Fuck. Fine. I save, grab my shit, go down to the printing room. Printing room in the School of History is closed for the day.
Fuck. Back through the woods, back to the School of Communications: I'll print it without the italics, I don't even care anymore. The computers are back up, I insert the pin - and it won't be read. I'm about to cry, but instead I get ballsy and decide to address the workers there directly. Generally this is a completely pointless act as pretty much all employees of the University follow it's strict bureaucratic procedures to the letter of the page, and therefore if something doesn't work, tough balls - they won't do anything to help. Incredibly, tho, one of them offers to let me try to open the document on one of the printing room's private computers...and it works. I print. I have them bind it.
Back through the woods to history. Up the history tower to the tenth floor. Find his mail-nook.
I put it in the professor's mailbox.
It's damned near 4 p.m.
And the list by his doors says that his office hours are only on Monday.
The rest of the week has been similarly retarded, and generally it just hasn't been a good time at school, tho generally everything else is going generally well; things are really good in the flat (tho my room continues to be a fucking mess - I haven't seen my glasses in well over two weeks now), things are pleasant enough socially. Still, today was especially idiotic, between a fight with the Minister (we made up five minutes later, but still) and a grade dispute with a professor (I think I swayed her, but still), combined with being forced to miss the Velazquez class (which I do not like to do as recovering from a missed hour in that class requires 50 pages of dense reading, and I actually like the professor) plus some unexpected bad news from another class totally had me stressed out, and it had generally been a very, very shitty day.
Imagine, therefore, how totally day-brightening it was to come home and find this in my inbox:
Aitor - did you get my last e-mail? I don't think you did. Anyway I don't feel like typing all of that again so let me summarize.
Since Aitor left the land of Thimbles -
- Had this pimp-ass gallery in my back yard area. It was my mum's boyfriend's paintings, her photography and my graphic art. Set up lights, bought a truck load of wine and invited half of the grove - pretty cool, didn't sell much through - shouldn't have invited only our friends
- We built this pool out back with a deck around it. It's not very big but it's pretty awesome that a week ago I didn't have a pool and now I do. I'll send you a picture
- I'm currently applying to U.M. - don't know how that's going to go but I'm trying anyway
- My birthday is this saturday - The 1st of March which also happens to be Marley Fest in downtown. Awesome . . .
- And that's about it Aitor (I keep wanting to type Itor) E-mail me back to certify that you received this and tell me all about your sordid adventures filled with debauchery and godlessness as you tear rampant and naked through the shady back allies of the rough part of Madrid - the Pope and the Federales hot on your tale. (Or are those only for Mexico?)
- Alright then, I have attached a few of my pieces from the show, let me know what you think and Meg says that she misses you. We went to Churchill's last Monday and it was nothing without your satire and subtle giggling -
Miami without Aitor (fuck it) ITOR is like a body without bones - your the glue that binds us all together and we're all wobbly and gross without you -
- Murray -
That kid = SO awesome; it was like a virtual Murray-hug at just the right moment! And so, hurrah, that was a pleasant reinforcement to have arrive at an otherwise unpleasant time.
The Murray mail hopefully marks a change in fortunes that should well-manifest itself next week: indeed, tho I have another dispute with a professor scheduled for Monday and a major exam on Wednesday, my noblest of consorts arrives for a visit on Thursday, and I've just received a dispatch from the Home Territories informing that not only has the earlier-damaged iPod been restored at no cost to my person (by virtue of some long-standing warranty), but that it is ready to ship and should also arrive at some point in the next fortnight. Armed with all of that, I can only hope that it signals an improvement in general things tho, again, we stress, save for some tumultuousness at school (and the usual home-worries) things are, all in all, pretty good.
On a pretty-good level: this is actually pretty awesome and surprisingly free - or it would be, if I could access it from Europe. Fortunately the U.S.-based members of this forum can enjoy it, if ever they have Time Enough At Last.
This, everyone can enjoy:
Click to viewAll for now, kids.