Failure on an EPIC scale...
This presentation on "medical privacy in an electronic world" is currently killing me. It's supposed to be done in pairs but, of course, being me, I insist on doing all the work. Why do I do this to myself? So I need to write a paper (on which no guidelines for format, content, or length were given. At all.) and come up with an outline as well as familiarize myself with the relevant concepts well enough to be able to teach other people about it (without instructions, again, as to the format of the "discussion" or length.). Preferably without sounding like an unprepared dumbass whilst doing so. Given the complete lack of guidelines given, the grading better be as lax as the directions given...
But bleh. By Wednesday it'll be a thing of the past. And good riddance.
Anyway, I was rather stressed out on Saturday while my partner and I were "preparing" for this presentation (by "preparing" I mean delegating all responsibility to me. I hold no ill will against her, seeing as I insisted on it...besides, I'm a huge fan of "winging" things and that is exactly how this will go down...). So I decided to take a walk down to the county library. Besides allowing me to clear my head, I decided to make the trip really worth my while by finally taking advantage of my student status and signing up for a library card. Afterall, one can only put up with the crappy Discworld versions that I downloaded from the internet which are riddled full of grammar, format, and spelling errors. For instance the world "clock" was often spelled as "dock" because the rounded part of the "d" resembles the "c" and the stem the "l". Clever, but definitely not amusing. So after standing in line for 30 minutes to do so, I went to the "Pratchett" seciton of the Science Fiction aisle. They had only four of his books. I was horribly disappointed and almost couldn't believe it. I mean, Mr. Pratchett is rather well-known and prolific. I thought it was a travesty that there wasn't a greater representitive of his works there. So I picked up, Thud!, the one Discworld book that I saw that was a part of the "City Watch" series (I really wanted Jingo...). Also, I was only issued a paper card; my real one is going to be mailed to me. So I left and got to walk back to my dorm in the rain (actually, I enjoyed it...). Then, I got back and got a call from my mom. She suggested that I check to see if the other branch libraries carry his books. I thought that was a great idea, so I checked the online catalog...
...only to find that the library I had just been to did indeed have almost all of the Discworld series. They were shelved in Adult Fiction.
I felt stupid. I would have gone back today, but I also lost my paper card (which is a very weird thing for me to do...). Thud! is rather interesting, though, so I'll probably finish it before I go back. At least I now know that they're as well stocked as one can expect of a main branch library...But, I mean Pratchett? In Adult Fiction? Who'da thought?
Also, as I exited the library yesterday, some random dude called out to me saying, "Hey there, sexy." It belatedly occurred to me that he was talking to me, so it was very easy to not even glance in his direction or indeed give any indication that I had heard him. Is it any wonder that I'm not the biggest fan of people?