Right, well, then. That seems to be it: the official length of contiguous time during which I can handle the degree of stress occasioned by orientation and registration in evil-minded tandem is, in fact, four and a half days. At around lunchtime, when yet another crisis reared its ugly head, there was a sort of audible snapping noise in the key of ( Read more... )

Also, typing this on stv's computer owing to still-being-in-exile-from-horrible-home, and the keyboard has everything subtly in the wrong place, which is playing merry hob with my touch-typing. I'm very, very tired after a twelve-hour day ending in two hours being badgered, foxed and boared with angsty questions by nervous first-year parents. Have ( Read more... )

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So, this time last year (i.e. the Friday afternoon of the first orientation programme) I was in hospital with a dislocated patella. I am certainly tempting bodily injury to state that I consider myself to be worthy of congratulation to have reached the same milestone this year refreshingly undislocated, and in the face of ravening parents, scatty ( Read more... )

Aargh! Staggered home last night at about 7.30 after the First Day Of Orientation, of which I shall not speak, dreaming gently of a quiet poached egg and bed, only to be met on the ruins of the patio by the Evil Landlord, palm up in a "You Shall Not Pass" sort of way. He'd clearly been lying in wait for me ( Read more... )

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Hmmm. The day the Army of Reconstruction arrived, both the clocks stopped. I'm having difficulty not seeing that as some sort of omen. As the Evil Landlord says, it definitely bodes. Other negatives: there's a smelly chemical toilet next to the front gate, no surface on the patio, and the toilet cistern in my bathroom has sprung an exuberant leak, ( Read more... )

'Tis a momentous day, oh yes. Today is the day that the Army of Reconstruction, or rather the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Army of Reconstruction, rolls in with its panzer division and proceeds to lay waste to all before it. I came home to a house infested with a choking pall of dust, through which the kitties peered all wide-eyed and ( Read more... )

You know, there might be a zeppelin in the garage and elephant catapults on the roof, and he still cannot master the complex topographical processes of loading the dishwasher, but I still have a damn fine Evil Landlord. Apart from his cheerful acceptance of lawful-good-tenants-in-law occupying the house for months at a time, the fact that he keeps ( Read more... )

My Ultimately Big Boss had one of those Touch Base sort of meetings with me this afternoon - as an abstract concept, the kind of token buzz-word get-together which fills me with a sense of lowering doom. However, my belief in her ultimate support of my academic nature, self-definition and overall happiness has been materially improved by the fact ( Read more... )