after one long season of waiting

I currently feel like a zombie. I'm offically halfway done with finals, but there's a long way between now and noon when I have to have this other paper done (I've got a page, pretty much, and that's it. It's slowly developing into a workable outline, but... slow going, since I'm so zombified, having spent most of this afternoon trying to turn my graphic novel crap into something workable). I think I'll be sleeping today between noon and three. That is... going to work out weirdly. But at least I'll get sleep, and hopefully in that hour and a half I can cram in enough studying for my graphic novel final (stupid, stupid evil unreasonable class).

I'm glad to see that LJ users have gotten the apology we deserved for the recent strikethrough messiness. Hopefully it'll be followed through properly, and LJ fandom won't be left in shambles. I've been here for four years, I don't want to go. And reading through all of the massively addictive information (and lack thereof) has eaten way too much of my time and brain capacity. So I'm doubly glad that this has come to something resembling a conclusion now, so I can maybe try to focus (except... tired!).

Argh.

If I'm really good and manage to write 300 words every half hour, I'll have this done in another five hours. Then I can sleep for five hours this afternoon. That'd be nice. (It's not going to happen.)

Edit 8:28: Got an hour and a half of sleep (was aiming for half an hour, oh well). I now have three and a half hours to write about four pages. It's doable, especially since I mostly haven't added quotes, but I think the thing I'm looking forward to most is the sleep I might get between noon and 3. Mmm, sleep. I can barely type right now, and that's never a good sign. I need very strong tea.

Edit 2 10:24: Hour and a half left. Page and a half left. My strong tea doesn't seem to have had enough of an effect. But there's little I can do at this point. I'm just going to hope that I don't inadvertently fail this paper. It's certainly not my best, but I don't think it's awful. Oh goshdarnit. Stupid end of the quarter. Think they'll take pity on me for being a very, very tired senior? (I feel like the end of this quarter's kind of been a disaster, and the only reason I was told I got honors is because the world likes to tease me, and it'll probably get taken away after my grades come in. But I guess that's because I'm always pessimistic about my grades. Argh.)

Five pages into my paper (finally) and it's kind of moving along smoothly now.

I've kind of been interrupted by my playlist now, though. Because I can't listen to Queen's Don't Stop Me Now without pausing to think about battling zombies. So that's what I'm doing.

I have until ten to finish this. At the absolute latest. Then I'm free! (For certain definitions of free. Technically, I need to be working on my Graphic Novel research, because I need ten sources for that by Friday, and it needs to be five to six pages long. And I need to do my reading for Medieval English Lit, because I'm finding myself kind of fond of The Vision of Piers Plowman, and I'm probably going to want to write my final paper on it. Except I can't if I haven't read it. So yeah. Yaaaay finals.)

Woo, song is over. Back to writing. (Can I pull off three pages in an hour? Is it possible? I have ten more minutes, and half a page to write... we shall see.)

Edit [8:33]: Tired. Want to sleep. Still have at least a page and a half to write. Whyyyy. (I hope my computer comes today. That would be a nice reward/break from this.) Tired. Want to sleep. Must find apartment and job. Must do other reading. Ahhh. My thesis is too broad and I don't care bwahahaha.

Dear English Language,

Why... why do you have to make my life more difficult? I have a lovely argument for my paper here that says Viola's choice of Cesario as her sexless (meaning neither male nor female) alter-ego is evidence of her careful tricks of language. To prove it, I need to be able to say that Cesario can be seen as a reference to Caesarian birth, bypassing the vagina, making it a reference to her adopting a male (though eunuch) persona. According to the OED's usage notes on Caesarian, I am off by a decade for that definition. A DECADE! A freaking decade! It's not fair! It's such an interesting point. (Okay, it's total BS, but it takes up space and sounds good.) Screw you, English!

SCREW YOU!

Minus fifty ♥s,
me

P.S. This is a public entry. Should I have used "hoo-ha" instead of vagina to protect innocence?

P.P.S. (Completely Unrelated) How many more Starbuck icons do you think there are on LJ now since Sunday? I'd bet on at least a 20% increase. I'm seeing them in the most random of places.

The only reason I am still living right now, and not a drooling oozing pile of lack-of-sleep and stress, is that my photo prof gave me until ten tomorrow morning to finish my portfolio. I can't even express my gratefulness. The only problem now, though, is that my short stories paper is due at five, and I've got about eight pages of it down already... and somehow most of those pages aren't things I'd like to set fire to yet, so it's really hard to keep writing (I keep telling myself, though, that it'd be very, very nice to get back into the darkroom before five... I should also remind myself more that once it comes time to organize everything in the final draft of this, it's probably going to drop at least two pages. And I need to make sure I have time to get to the post office to get stamps.)

So yes... must stop with the distraction. (Ah paper-writing entries.)

So far, I think the most pretentious sentence in my paper is "Their identities are the embodiment of the metonymy that defines them." I'm not even entirely sure it means anything.

[Edit 2:36]: Also, I think I should point out that a few minutes ago one of my roomies got back from playing video games in the lounge and found me hopping up and down on top of my physics book, then on top of Locke, Nietzsche, and How to Design Programs. Seems the first use I've had for these books in years is weighing down the edges of my prints so they sit flat. I just need to make sure my shoe is moved from on top of Aquinas, because if my other roomie gets back and finds that I'll be beaten and kicked out.

[Edit 3:15]: I just realized that I've unconsciously been listening to my CDs in alphabetical order. Huh.

[Edit 4:54]: Erm, this paper isn't done. But academia must be taking pity on me or something, because since no one really clarified where or when these were due, I've got until midnight. I simply cannot express my relief. However, I need to keep plugging away at this (9.25 pages, wee...) since I have to get to the darkroom tonight. Eep.

[Edit 11:27]: I feel like I'm going to die. And I have to get up at 6 tomorrow and go to the darkroom. Whyyyyy?? Every time I feel like I'm on the home stretch, I suddenly have longer to fret and less I can do about the state things are in.

[Edit 6:44]: I feel like a zombie. At least the sunrise is interesting? (I have to keep reminding myself that this encouraging note I wrote to myself last night is about tea, not Ten.)

Ah, this paper is driving me nuts. I can pull tons of stuff out of this story, but I can't get myself to limit it to one section (which is the idea with this length of paper, apparently). So I'm just sitting here going over the story and writing outlines about the characters in some vain attempt to get to something that's both interesting and... possible to write about without branching out to the entire story until the final paragraph or so. It was so much easier last quarter when I could limit myself to a word and talk about the entire story.

And the more I read this story, the more I'm frightened by how much I was/am like the main character. I really don't like him. I think he's boring and rather stupid. But I've got this terrifying feeling that, had I stayed at home for college, I'd be a lot like him. And that makes me mad at him, since I can't be mad at a version of me that could have existed, but doesn't. And I think the really scary part is, until I'm more removed from who I am now, I can't be certain that I'm not still like him. Though at least I've left home, so I'm not snobbily sitting around looking out my window and thinking about how much better I am than everyone else without realizing that that's I'm doing. Maybe I've been thinking too much lately about how much people don't change when they don't leave home ever. Mostly because my sister seems to be certain she's not leaving for college. And that makes me sad. I think it'd be about the worst thing ever, because she can just stay the same. She needs to be dragged out of Youngstown, exposed to the real world. She needs to realize that the stupid things people do in podunktownarmpitoftheuniverse are not... universal. That clubs in Chicago would never let you in with a YSU ID just because it's a college ID and that implies you're over 18, that not all black people sound like the bus driver she overheard while I was on the phone with her, that identifying an accent doesn't make you racist, that... gah. Staying in Youngstown/Akron just isn't good for you. You adapt to one place, and if you never go away, you don't learn that there are other ways of looking at things. It's depressing. I mean... so is being a total relativist, but... I don't know. There's something about staying all neat and tidy in one little world that bothers me. I can't relate to it anymore. Maybe it's a sort of nostalgic jealousy. But I'd prefer to think it isn't. Even though I'm such a freaking snob for wanting to be able to look down on it or something, and I'm not sure I've moved away from it myself. Then again, there are people who can go around everywhere and never move outside their world. I've met a few of them. Well-travelled, static people. So maybe it's more about learning, I don't know. And now that I think more about it, those're really the two poles these characters inhabit. Unchanging travelly and unchanging stationary. So great... I'm having trouble narrowing this paper down to one section, and in thinking about it I have decided to expand it to cover the whole of human existence. Go me. I guess at least you can kind of excuse the stationary guy, since he doesn't have the experience/is too innocent to know any better (which is drilled into your skull constantly. Gee thanks, James Joyce). The other dude's just an obnoxious git.

Um, on a less obnoxious front, it's been ages since I've posted pictures. So here are some random ones from October, mostly the aftermath of the crazy storm we had. I haven't gone through all of them yet, so there might be more later. But for now, I'm just happy to have gotten the stuff off my camera.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(Okay, it's really not that bad...)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(I just wanted to have this paper done hours ago... and it's sort of still without a thesis. And kind of two pages short. And kind of not organized.)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(The shouting represents my powerlessness against too-high standards.)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

(I had a weird dream last night that involved saving some sort of fish from having to swim in a dinner plate... this was slightly after discovering I was part of some sort of underwater adventuring team, though I was the odd one out because I was unfortunate enough to have been given the breathing apparatus that didn't work (it was sort of like a lottery) so I ended up in this attic/cabin with this weird little boy that reminded me of someone from Mushishi. Anyway, as I gave this fish water in the sink it came back to life for a bit, then sort of died again, and while I wasn't paying attention it turned into this strange orange sugar-cane crab (like those exist). It had really cute eyes, though, so I was taking pictures of it, but I couldn't get the camera to focus and my roomie kept sticking her face in front of the camera and looking surprised. The scary part is, I can trace almost every element of the latter part of this dream back to real life things. Including a dream my roomie had the night before last. And there... now this entry is more than just complaining and screaming.

And I want one of those crabs now. I'm going to have to invent them. They're cute.)

(P.S. GAH! Wikipedia! Leave me alone! How did you trick me into sitting here reading about Regulus Black? Seriously!)

P.P.S. DONE! Finished at 3:23, caught the 3:30 bus, ran to the bookstore and bought the folder and envelope I needed, ran to Harper (3:40), fell up the steps, ran to the USITE lab (3:47), printed everything (3:51), briefly forgot where Rosenwald was (3:54), found Rosenwald (3:55), waited ungodly long for elevator, got on elevator (3:58), turned in paper on fourth floor (4:00). Two more papers to go! Ahhh!

Grr. I can't focus at all right now. I think it's because I haven't had a full night of sleep since Tuesday... no, wait... that's not right. I was definitely flipping out on Tuesday. Last Thursday? Though I could've sworn there was a night with 8 hours in there somewhere. But... gah. I just need to find the quotes I need and tidy up my argument. I want this finished, and turned in, and done with. Heh. I got up at nine, turned off my alarm, and went back to sleep until ten. It probably would've been good for me, too, if I hadn't had a dream that I was in class and supposed to turn the paper in, even though I hadn't finished it. I really wanted to have this in by two, but since it's 11 now and I haven't gotten anything done... somehow I doubt that's going to happen. Ah well... I think I've got until five or so, when they lock the doors on the buildings on campus.

Edit 1 [12:00]: Goshdarnit. I'd even rather be trying to write porn right now. Porn! That's right. I'd rather be forced to write porn than finish writing this paper. Freaking college. (What? Can you picture me writing porn? That's how hard this paper is for me to write! It is actually a step below porn on my list of things that I cannot/willnot write. Gah!)

Edit 2 [12:10]: Okay... Snakes on a Plane has been hovering around forever now. But what is it? Is it really a horror movie? Is it meant to be serious? Wtf is going on here? I mean... here is the trailer. It almost seems serious... save for the guy hitting another guy with a snake. And the one guy who holds the snake, screaming, then turns to the camera. Oh, and the boob-snake. I have no idea what to make of this. What is this movie trying to do? It's already... just... how could this movie possibly take itself seriously?

Edit 3 [1:34]: Two people in a row have called me to ask me if I'm done... and while I appreciate the sentiment, right now, between them and my mom, I just feel like crying or going back to sleep or screaming, but not all three because that'd be impossible because the screaming would keep me awake. I wanted to be done with this crap Wednesday. This is just ridiculous. No one should have to work this much on papers. No one else I know here ever spends this long on papers. How do they get away with it? Why am I not done with this yet??

Edit 4 [2:02]: Okay... think happy thoughts. At least the paper is kind of decent, as far as arguments go. It's just disorganized and currently lacking sources. And in two and a half hours, it will be done. No matter what. And... all right... those aren't particularly happy thoughts. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts... hmmm... Well, Hughes is nursing a mild concussion from Pope Urban II. At least that's an amusing thought. And by some liberal definitions, Roy's now a cyborg. Yay!

Edit 5 [2:18]: I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts (deedly-dee)... there they are a'standing in row (bum dum dum). Big ones, small ones, some as big as a--OMFG WHY IS THIS PAPER NOT WRITING ITSELF?!

Edit 6 [3:08]: Gah. Almost done. Twelve pages is twelve pages... even if I've only got a few lines on it. I don't care. This needs to be done. It needs to be done now. I still have things I need to cite. This is just... all right. I think the problem is that I don't want to turn in a paper I know isn't perfect, so I always wait until the last minute to turn it in, because that way I know I had no choice. Fine, brain. Fine. The rest of me hates you sometimes, you know. You're acting like a jerkface. Everything else is just as tired as you. Just because you can keep going when you're tired doesn't mean the rest of me can.

Edit 7 [3:33]: I still feel like screaming. But... well, no matter what I'm getting out of here in an hour and turning this in. Gah. One more hour, and this quarter will be over. I just need to keep going...

All right, world. I am sitting down right now. (Actually, I'm sort of half-laying, since I'm on my bed.) I will no longer be tempted by Snow Crash, as interesting as it's getting. (I have no idea what prompted me to start reading it during finals week... probably the general need to read something that was not written by Chateaubriand, nor about Japanese script reform. Though, on the plus side, at least I haven't had to read anything by Chateaubriand about Japanese script reform. Because that'd be bad. I can see it now... the kanji would be secretly in love with katakana or something, and run off to be on their own in order to hide their secret, and then someone (probably a couple of emo furigana) would run off and join a convent in this strange pseudo-death ceremony during which they'd profess their love for kanji, because omgtheirloveissomakingobscurekanjiunderstandable... and, erm... then kanji would run off to the US and join an Indian tribe? Omg my brain hurts so much I can barely think anymore. And I have a headache.)

But the roomies are at dinner, so now is probably the best time to get more writing done. Write write write. And I've convinced myself that if I can finish the Fragments essay tonight (which is totally doable), I'll have most of tomorrow to hide out in the library finishing the Cult-Evo essay. As long as I don't drag my feet on this and take until five tomorrow, when it's due. Because then I have 21 hours to finish the paper, with no sleep in between. If I'm going to pull an all-nighter, it will be... um... never, because I can't write well on no sleep, and if nothing else has taught me that, I can look at my first Civ paper this quarter. Because ow. That one was bad.

Determination! (This entry is going to get edited to heck, yay!)

Edit 1 [7:06]: Dearest "Person whose name I've removed because he's way to easy to find's Music" on the wireless network. I heartily agree with your taste in music, and plan on facebook stalking you as soon as I figure out who you are, so I can go leave some sort of weird post-it note on your door. You have every band I had any hope of finding on the network here. Woo!

Edit 2: [7:20]: Wow, it is way too easy to stalk people if you know how the network works. He's one of the freshmen living in the room that should've been mine this year! (Not that I mind this one, but I do sort of miss the fifth floor, all things considered. But I so didn't just admit that.) Goshdarnit. Oh well, it makes leaving a post-it on his door easier. Darnit. More proof the fifth floor is cooler this year than it was last year. I guess it does fluctuate every other year.

Edit 3: [11:11]: I think I'm permanently stuck at six pages. Gah. I requested an extension on my Evo paper, because I'm going to need it. I'm near-dead. I think if I can get to 8 pages, I'll go to sleep... but somehow I'm afraid that won't be happening anytime soon. Sigh. Um, so... I still haven't heard anything on the creative writing class either. But right now I just really, really want this quarter to be over. I'm lonely because I'm busy and can't run away from my books and can't be myself. And I have a headache. I just want to sit down and read a book for fun. Write a little. Talk to people. Bler. Freaking winter quarter.

Edit 4: [11:36]: I'm torn... do I do my laundry now and stay up until three or four, or sit here and finish up the 8th page and go to sleep early? Decisions decisions. Laundry will probably involve reading more of Snow Crash, hmm... I wonder how much money I have left for laundry. Crap, not enough.

Edit 5: [11:47]: I suppose it'd be frowned upon if I went out into the hallways singing "It's the End of the World As We Know It", huh? Then again... if I sing it loud enough, for long enough, and get all the words right, maybe I'll get committed or something, and that'd get me out of writing these papers. Hmmm.

Edit 6: [1:26]: Still not committed. Still writing paper. I'm so sick of you, Chateaubriand. So very sick of you. (Don't even look at me, romaji. I see you over there, out of the corner of my eye. Don't you dare make that face at me. I'll get to you tomorrow.) Please let me have an extension please let me have an extension, please...

Edit 7: [1:41]: Sometimes I worry that it's a bad sign that I actually need to remind myself that if I keep throwing the bouncy-ball at the wall, eventually it's not going to go where I expect and knock something over. Maybe I should stop throwing bouncy balls at the walls. Goodness knows I've lost like, four. They tend to turn up a week later under the couch or something.

Twelve hours ago I'm pretty sure I wrote something about intending to write my Civ paper and then didn't post it (because I knew it was a lie). Okay, maybe slightly less than twelve hours ago. But still a while ago. Yeah... I have a sentence written. The paper is due in eight hours. On the plus side, I'm not terribly tired yet. ... Unfortunately, it takes next-to-nothing to distract me from this paper. And I would like to get some sleep tonight. Eventually. (Okay, this morning. Tonight will be over long before I have enough of the paper done to take a nap). Oddly enough, I think this is a slightly better situation than I'd be in if I'd worried, fretted, and pecked away at it over the entire weekend. That just makes me sick of the paper. So, provided I can sit myself down soonish and get typing (at least I have an outline) I should be okay.

My roomie just came back... humming that blasted Fall Out Boy song. chocolatemoose? I'm blaming this on you, too. Even though it's probably more related to her unfortunate taste in music than your flat-out evilness.

I think I'll apologize to this entry now, because it's likely to have the crap edited out of it as the night goes on. For now, though... I promise myself I will get off the internet for an hour and write!

Edit 1: [4:45 AM] And, you know, since I forgot to mention this before... piratehughes@uchicago.edu is now a functioning e-mail address. And he will respond if you e-mail him. I haven't gotten around to the facebook account because, really, I have no idea what to put as his name (Pirate Hughes isn't something he'd write as his name, and going as far as Mad Hughes the Constant pushes it into the level of inside joke that will have the rest of facebook reacting with the wrong sort of wtf). I... clearly think way too much about totally random things. You should see the plot I'm about to start over at the rp. (Actually, it's best you don't. It involves time travel and the Hitchhiker's Guide... and possibly Ishbal War angst and the FUTURE.)

Edit 2: [5:57 AM] (One page) I've seen far too many sunrises this quarter. Oof. At least the Xenogears soundtrack is sort of making for good writing music. And, for the most part, I haven't actually hit the point where I don't know what to write about anymore. That's sort of a good sign, right? (Nevermind that I only have six mor hours to finish this.) And I have more than one decent point that I'd like to make. Maybe I'll be lucky and that'll warrant more than a B- on this paper. (As long as I don't get a C in this class, I think I'll be happy.)

Edit 3: [6:23] (One page) Oh. em. gee. Someone please turn off LJ or surgically remove my word processor from my computer/the internet. Ahhhh I have no desire to write this paper ahhhhh. Also, the sun turned the sky somewhat pretty for about fifteen minutes... and now everything is grey again. I'll blame my not-writing on that.

Edit 4: [6:33] (Page and a half) After trying and failing to convince myself that maybe thinking of Newton and Descartes as a pairing I had to justify in canon would help me write this, I have told myself that if I get this page done before seven, I'll let myself stand angstily by the window for a few minutes because that seems like a cool thing to do. ... Good morning, isn't it lovely that I always go nuts a little after six?

Edit 5: [7:38] (Three pages) Man, I'm bored. Now I have to start talking about Newton, and compared to Descartes' random assumptions and insanity, he's all... logical. And so I don't have much to say about him. Yay, these are his three laws, and they all make sense because he did actual experiments and believed that you could actually rely on your senses, because if you can't do that, what good does it do you? What's the point of conclusions from things you can't observe? Ahhh. I know it's going to be nine or something and my eyes will barely be open anymore and I'll really wish I'd gone to sleep instead of wasting all the time I did earlier. La la la.

Edit 6: [8:05] (4.5 pages) Well then... another page and a half and I've hit my requirement... and I think I still have a fair amount to say. I haven't even gotten into Newton's attacks on Descartes. This might just be a good sign. Woo! Maybe I won't fail this paper! Oh, and it's going to be warm this week! Almost 60 by Saturday, if the weather channel is to be trusted (which it isn't more than three days in advance). But I'm totally up for it being 47 today. Maybe that'll keep me awake.