Archives: September 2005
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I'm in love with this game. Soooo satisfying. Use your mouse for added kicks.
(via Crooks and Liars)
See what a wonderful world this is without a thesis hanging over anyone's shoulder?
My paper is printed and sitting next to me. I hesitate to say I'm done until the damn thing is copied, bound, and plopped into my professor's box, but I'm coming closer and closer.
Considering I didn't start writing until three weeks ago, I think I've done pretty damn well. This is my first real exercise in working slowly and steadily. It's an interesting technique. I like it.
Read more »The Boy and I have spent over seven hours correcting my thesis. We got in two arguments in the process. He has nonetheless agreed to help me for another three or four hours tomorrow.
That's love. Right there.
I would be shitting my pants if he hadn't just dropped everything to help me. It's incredible. What do you think I can do (when all this madness is over) to show him what that means to me? Don't forget - I currently have a negative bank account.
The paper is not going to be turned in tomorrow, as I had hoped. I am shooting for Thursday now, with Friday looking more realistic. Still, Friday is fine by me. Just get the damn thing out of my hands, really.
Oh - and one more thing: my French? Very embarrassing. Academic writing in a second language? Apparently not my forte. That's a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but there you have it. Luckily, I only have to write one (really bad) paper in French per lifetime.
The end is in sight. That's all I can say. It's the only thing giving me the strength to go forward. That, and my man.
A young man comes charging up behind me near the steps to the metro exit, with a great big smile splashed across his boyish face. He's probably in his early- to mid-twenties, button down shirt, pressed slacks. Average height/weight, brown hair, reasonably good looking.
Him: Excuse me, Mademoiselle, do you mind...?
Me: ::: turning around cautiously :::
Him: I just wanted to say... this is sort of weird... (gets a little awkard)... um... I just wanted to say that I find you really beautiful. (sheepishly smiles and sort of giggles)
Me: Oh... that's nice. (internal voice: what a little dorkie-pie!) Thanks. (continue climbing up metro steps)
Him: Yeah. I just wanted you to know.
Me: Thanks. (rounding the corner and heading out the doors, internal voice: Wow, and he didn't take it a step further! So he really DID only want me to know that. Hey! He's nice! Sweetie little dorkie pie!)
Him: (Comes busting out the doors behind me)
Me: (Turns around in shock)
Him: And? And? I'm a shoe-shiner. I wanted to know if I could shine your shoes?
Me: Shine my shoes?
Him: Yes! Yes! I'll do it for free! Free shoe-shining!
Me: Um. No.
Him: Please? I'd really like to...
Me: I'm going home.
Tell me that's as creepy as I think it is.
Even creepier is that I was madly looking for shoe polish yesterday to polish my boots -- something I have only done ONCE in my entire LIFE. (Obviously, I didn't find any)
So I was trying to fall asleep last night when it suddenly hit me that a character in an 80's sitcom's name was Boner.
I was sure it was "Charles in Charge", but then I remembered Charles' best friend's name was Buddy. I also thought that "CinC" was way too classy to pull that kind of stunt, because I think Scott Baio would have called red light on that.
I figured it out. Mike Seaver's best friend's name was Boner. So that's "Growing Pains" for you. Remember Boner?
So my question to you is: how did that go down in the meeting? Was some big shot like, "Ok, guys, and then we've got Mike's best friend. I was thinking we could name him Boner?" as if that were totally normal. And then everybody else stifled laughter out of respect, maybe somebody else laughed but then pretended it was a cough, and then the name was just sort of approved? Because I'm just trying to wrap my head around how that name could ever get the thumbs up from the show's writers. What made them think that was a good idea?
Of course, I watched the show for years before I found the name at all strange. In fact, it didn't hit me until September 15, 2005... probably almost a decade after the show got cancelled.
13 pages to go, everybody. 13!!!
Here's what I am realizing: when I write this damn paper, things just go along dandily for a moment. Then, suddenly, and without warning (there was a TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN!) (tell me you recognize that), I just can't write anymore.
Plus, I get a little weird and I feel like I'm all amped up on caffeine. That would be how I feel right now. I almost feel like I should go for a midnight (midnight-forty, actually) jog around the block. There is definetly an excess energy issue, a lack of being able to harnass it for any sort of good. I can't sit still and my brain goes shooting in seven different directions. I don't even have the patience to listen to a song all the way through. Poor Nina.
I don't really think I have any sort of ADD or anything (considering I work for six hours straight before the insanity hits) but it makes me able to empathize with those who do. It's just so annoying, and I would really LIKE to be able to concentrate, but um... no. Not gonna happen.
But hey! I'm so close to finishing this colossal project that has been hanging over my head for a freakin' YEAR. I can almost taste the relief.
On Sunday, I am shoving the entire thing in the face of my poor French friend who didn't know what he was getting into when he said he would correct my grammar. Bless his overly generous soul. After that, however, I will be more or less home free.
My best friend from high school, Fredericka (not her real name), believes in manifesting things. I'm not sure how it works exactly, like if there's an actual technique to it, but I get the general sense: think of things, believe they'll come to you or eventually happen, and they will.
So I am manifesting the glorious moment next week when I hand in my damn thesis and am FREEEEEEEEE!!! I'm envisioning my teacher's inbox meeting my thesis with its freshly-bound pages, perhaps in a paper envelope for protective purposes. I am seeing myself dropping off the thing at the correct, totally arbitrary hours that his office is open. And then I am manifesting the gurgling, bubbling, uncontrollable giddiness that will erupt from my chest as I walk out of the Sorbonne empty-handed. I am manifesting the bottle of champagne I will drink with my friends in celebration, and the quiet calm that will overcome me the next day when I realize that my life is actually MINE again, and I can live freely like everyone else.
It will happen. Oh yes, it will.
And afterwards, I will promptly organize my record collection. It's been driving me crazy for at least two weeks.
So I think I might be living in some parellel dimension. Certainly, this can't be France we're dealing with here.
School registration opened at 9.00 today. Because I was up late last night, "working" on my paper (I was more just thinking about it, really, but it still counts. I even brought my pages with me to the bathtub to correct them...), I slept way in, and ended up getting to registration around 11.00. This made me upset, as I was sure there would be desperate students, crowding around small spaces, clawing to hand in their forms and photos.
But no. Nobody was there, just a few people ready to welcome me and asking if I needed help. Help, did I hear? Are you offering me help? What a strange and novel concept. At a school? Huh.
So, I went in, sat down, answered some questions, shuffled along, paid, signed a paper, and was in. Bam, bam, bam. Registered in under 30 minutes.
Had in not been for all the beautiful woodwork and ornate molding, I would have thought I was in America, for Christ's sake. These people were organized, anxious to help, and even - dare I say it? - FRIENDLY.
That's it. I'm signed up and paid for school, with a grand total of 527 euros. That would be: one year's tuition, social security, and added medical "mutuelle" (which is what tipped me over the edge - school itself only cost 124 euros). Until next September.
Sometimes France is fucking unbelievable.
So I'm gonna learn some more Arabic, which is s-ah-weet. I choose classes in two weeks.
Afterwards, I went to a bad movie ("Broken Flowers" - what the HELL was up with that shit?) and then drank lots of wine with Kathypath at the cafe next door to the theater. We gabbed and acted like teenagers, and then I went to the grocery, made dinner, and am about to eat it. So, you know, not such a productive day, really.
But hey! I enrolled! It took me four full days of hell to get that accomplished at the Sorbonne, so maybe I'm just really three days ahead of schedule...
Aside: I've gotten back into Nina Simone. How had I let her slip away like that, all these years? Oh... so nice to get back into the habit of listening. Newest redisovered favorite: "Ne Me Quitte Pas"
Oh my God. As I slowly climbed my way towards the 60-page mark, agonizing over every page as I wrote, I learned the most upsetting thing possible:
Read more »I sort of promised myself not to talk about Katrina here, although it has been on my mind. So many people have said what needs to be said far better than I could. Also, I know lots of people out there are hurting and worrying about family, friends, etc. I'd like their words to come first. Anything I could say takes a backseat to their concerns, for sure.
However, I did want to pass on an important link - a survivor's story that marked me more than any other. Charmaine Neville is an inspiration, and her personal story clues us in to what was really going on in a way CNN can't. This will never make it to the mainstream media, but I think it's important everyone see it. Go here, and download from there.
Update: This is also great. Make sure you see it with sound. Very intense.
13 pages 21 pages 39 pages down. 87 79 61 to go.
I promised myself I would do 35 pages of my thesis by Friday. So here I am... not working on them.
Dude, I'm sorry, but it's HOT out there. And plus? If I'm going to do this, I need a solid 8-hour block. I know my writing style: crunch it all up into an intense, hard-core jam session and get a shit ton of words down before my eyes start going blurry. If I do that two or three consecutive times, I'll have enough stuff to edit down to my required 100 pages. Maybe not the healthiest technique, but it works.
I'm feeling better, now that I've gotten over the readjustment period and have caught of with friends again. Yesterday, I managed to go a little overboard and stay out until six am. Very responsible behaviour when staring down that impending thesis gun barrell. Still, seeing the friends was necessary and good. I've been using the I-need-to-get-my-bearings excuse for awhile, though; I think it will officially no longer be valid as of tomorrow.
I really, really cannot wait to NOT have this thing hanging over my head though. This will all be over in a few weeks...
