every shimmer is a searchlight, every planet is ours
Very Very Important Public Service Announcement, or at least where "public" means me, seeing as it's my services I'm promoting: Now you can subscribe to my paid blogs by e-mail. Because maybe then you'll comment or at least click on them and then I'll get pageviews which means money? Still doing travel-blog stuff at Dusk Through Narrow Streets and book reviews at Lost Quite Classically. Or of course you can subscribe with something like Google Reader. Either way I don't have much in the way of readers, which makes me a sad sad panda.
Basically, it's really been One of Those Days. Skipped three classes so I could write up a Request for Exception so I maybe won't have to pay for two classes I'm registered for but probably won't be taking once my UEA credits FINALLY TRANSFER, WHAT THE CRAP GUYS, and stayed just long enough in one of the two remaining classes to take a quiz and then book it out of there, because I had to pick up some forms and take them to the University center to drop them off so I could actually sign up for my thesis and waiting until after class was going to cut it way too fine.
So I'm in a hurry anyway, and of course I slip on the ice outside the library and bang up both legs, and then when I get to the elevator since CAS is on the third floor and I hate walking up stairs anyway, much less with bruised knees, of course there's some dude in it fixing...something. I don't know. Whatever, it wasn't working. So I go find the one other elevator in the building. It's not working either. I'm about to go limping up the stairs anyway when another student waves to me from down the hall.
"They're done with the service elevator," he says. "You can use that one."
"Service elevator?" I say intelligently.
"Yeah, it goes up from the loading dock all the way to the roof. Technically students aren't supposed to use it." He dangles a key at me. "Side benefit of being a math major: I'm around here all the time. I know stuff."
"Oookay," I say, but I follow him, because my knees are throbbing in earnest now. I'm trying to think where this building would have a loading dock--or the need for a service elevator, for that matter. The only one I can think of is in the Arts building, and they need it for props and stuff. Oh, and the one in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror; I think about making a joke about this and realize I'll just sound stupid. So instead I say, "You're not telling me the SSB has secrets? It's too boring."
"Every place has secrets," he says very seriously. We get to a hallway that I think runs behind IT Services, maybe parallel to the library, and yes, there's an elevator--the door's kind of dinged up, but it looks...elevatorish. He sticks the key in and turns it, and the doors grind open.
I step in and juggle with my books to push the right button, finally getting it with my elbow. The other student steps back, a half-smile on his face, only he looks...a little sad? Okay. That's weird. The last thing I see as the doors grind shut again is him touching two fingers to his eyebrow in a sort of salute.
Yep. Weird.
The elevator lurches painfully upward; I swear I can hear every individual gear groaning. I rock back and forth, already thinking about the form I need to pick up and whether I can get it to the University Center and back in time for my next class. The elevator seems to be taking an awful lot longer than it should--it's only going to the third floor--but then half the elevators at UAA are crap, and anyway I'm impatient so of course it seems long.
I finally get to the third floor, step out--and stop. The floor is one gleaming length of polished wood, not dingy carpeting, and the ceiling lights look like...I don't even know, I think maybe gas lamps. I've been gone three months, sure, but I was in this building last week, and I know how long it takes them to renovate buildings over here.
Something is ticking.
The clock on the mantle is broken, I think, because I'm a nerd, and go down the hall where the CAS office is. Everything seems to be in the right place, but the decor is still different, and the ticking's getting louder. No, not louder, there's...more of it. More than one clock? There aren't any clocks this loud in the SSB.
I go into the office anyway, because I'm still in a hurry, and only sort of half-notice that the furniture is all heavy wood, sort of neo-Victorian, and there's...quills and ink-bottles on the receptionist's desk? Well...okay then. I start to ask for my form--
And that's when I notice her computer.
It's basically open in the back so I can see right in where all the circuit boards and wires should be, and instead there's...gears. Lots of tiny gears turning in precision, all in burnished iron and bronze and maybe gold, clicking over each other, and they're ticking. Her computer is ticking.
It's a clockwork computer.
The look on my face is probably pretty comical at this point, and when the receptionist asks what I need, I don't really hear her and can't reply anyway. I do the only sensible thing: I blink, hard, assuming I'm imagining things and this is going to go away. When it doesn't I try the other old standby: I chuck my books on a chair, grab one arm with the other hand, and pinch.
Nope. Nothing.
I'm not dreaming.
Basically, it's really been One of Those Days. Skipped three classes so I could write up a Request for Exception so I maybe won't have to pay for two classes I'm registered for but probably won't be taking once my UEA credits FINALLY TRANSFER, WHAT THE CRAP GUYS, and stayed just long enough in one of the two remaining classes to take a quiz and then book it out of there, because I had to pick up some forms and take them to the University center to drop them off so I could actually sign up for my thesis and waiting until after class was going to cut it way too fine.
So I'm in a hurry anyway, and of course I slip on the ice outside the library and bang up both legs, and then when I get to the elevator since CAS is on the third floor and I hate walking up stairs anyway, much less with bruised knees, of course there's some dude in it fixing...something. I don't know. Whatever, it wasn't working. So I go find the one other elevator in the building. It's not working either. I'm about to go limping up the stairs anyway when another student waves to me from down the hall.
"They're done with the service elevator," he says. "You can use that one."
"Service elevator?" I say intelligently.
"Yeah, it goes up from the loading dock all the way to the roof. Technically students aren't supposed to use it." He dangles a key at me. "Side benefit of being a math major: I'm around here all the time. I know stuff."
"Oookay," I say, but I follow him, because my knees are throbbing in earnest now. I'm trying to think where this building would have a loading dock--or the need for a service elevator, for that matter. The only one I can think of is in the Arts building, and they need it for props and stuff. Oh, and the one in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror; I think about making a joke about this and realize I'll just sound stupid. So instead I say, "You're not telling me the SSB has secrets? It's too boring."
"Every place has secrets," he says very seriously. We get to a hallway that I think runs behind IT Services, maybe parallel to the library, and yes, there's an elevator--the door's kind of dinged up, but it looks...elevatorish. He sticks the key in and turns it, and the doors grind open.
I step in and juggle with my books to push the right button, finally getting it with my elbow. The other student steps back, a half-smile on his face, only he looks...a little sad? Okay. That's weird. The last thing I see as the doors grind shut again is him touching two fingers to his eyebrow in a sort of salute.
Yep. Weird.
The elevator lurches painfully upward; I swear I can hear every individual gear groaning. I rock back and forth, already thinking about the form I need to pick up and whether I can get it to the University Center and back in time for my next class. The elevator seems to be taking an awful lot longer than it should--it's only going to the third floor--but then half the elevators at UAA are crap, and anyway I'm impatient so of course it seems long.
I finally get to the third floor, step out--and stop. The floor is one gleaming length of polished wood, not dingy carpeting, and the ceiling lights look like...I don't even know, I think maybe gas lamps. I've been gone three months, sure, but I was in this building last week, and I know how long it takes them to renovate buildings over here.
Something is ticking.
The clock on the mantle is broken, I think, because I'm a nerd, and go down the hall where the CAS office is. Everything seems to be in the right place, but the decor is still different, and the ticking's getting louder. No, not louder, there's...more of it. More than one clock? There aren't any clocks this loud in the SSB.
I go into the office anyway, because I'm still in a hurry, and only sort of half-notice that the furniture is all heavy wood, sort of neo-Victorian, and there's...quills and ink-bottles on the receptionist's desk? Well...okay then. I start to ask for my form--
And that's when I notice her computer.
It's basically open in the back so I can see right in where all the circuit boards and wires should be, and instead there's...gears. Lots of tiny gears turning in precision, all in burnished iron and bronze and maybe gold, clicking over each other, and they're ticking. Her computer is ticking.
It's a clockwork computer.
The look on my face is probably pretty comical at this point, and when the receptionist asks what I need, I don't really hear her and can't reply anyway. I do the only sensible thing: I blink, hard, assuming I'm imagining things and this is going to go away. When it doesn't I try the other old standby: I chuck my books on a chair, grab one arm with the other hand, and pinch.
Nope. Nothing.
I'm not dreaming.