The highest light

The last two days have been somewhat dreamlike. I can't really explain it, but it's something to do with no exams, no revision, for a grand total of four months. Here and now is not the place for another rant over the British school system, but everything I have said formerly still stands. Anyway, I was sitting in a Biology lesson on Friday afternoon, making a (hopefully) intelligent point about the increased humidity in the neighbourhood of a hedge, and when I stopped talking everyone else started to laugh. When I looked nonplussed, Fidan said, "Look at your hand."

It seems that rather than gesturing with my right index finger, as planned, I had been enthusiastically making my point with a large pink marshmallow.

That sort of began it; I mean, that sort of thing only happens on a Friday afternoon anyway. I don't know who's on food for next week, but if it's me, there will be no marshmallows. Of any colour.

Friday's Stargate episode was There But For The Grace of God. I become interested in this show every time Sky repeat it from the beginning, then lost interest again post-season six. Anyway, TBFTGOG remains one of my favourites - I've seen it enough times to know the dialogue - because it's so well-written. There are about a dozen different threads going through that episode, and they're neatly tied and resolved and set-up and finish with a delightfully whumped Daniel, which is always of the good.

Yesterday, I pulled myself out of bed at some obscene hour (ten) in order to go to work. I'm now officially working at Pritchard's (a couple of hours yesterday, five hours from next week) and earning next to nothing, but I don't care. The shop is tiny - you can cross it in ten steps - and overflowing with books. There are the usual books on shelves, on top of shelves, on the floor at the base of shelves, on the middle of the floor, on the counter and under it and above it and in the window, in three huge stacks in the back, in the big boxes, in the sink and above the toilets, balancing on taps, blocking the fire exit, everywhere. It's dusty and musty and comforting.

My job is to sell books and shout at the computer. It's ancient - that is, it has a broadband connection and runs on XP, but is still ancient. The till is even more ancient, and I get the feeling my mental arithmetic skills, dusty from disuse, are going to be required again. I'm not bad at it, actually. When I say I'm bad at maths, I mean grown-up maths, like quadratics and stats and logs to the base ten and those funny curvy lines on proton nmr spectra. I can add and subtract just fine.

Tony's not doing Saturdays at the moment, so I'm in the enviable position of never actually seeing my boss. Niall (tall, funny), John (immensely taciturn), Gary (effeminate), Steph (friendly) and me do the rest of it. It's definitely a good job to have, and I don't have to wear any kind of uniform beyond jeans.

Also, I've just discovered Pritchard's have a website Oh, my. I'm amused to note it's mainly a link to the ancient computer in the shop - if you order something, you still have to come in to get it!

So I earned eight pounds for doing not very much at all (customers? what are they?) and went home and spent most of the rest of the day on the internet, reading through the pegasus_b archives. I still can't put my finger on why I like it so much. I haven't written Stargate fic in years (literally - there was that AU fic, and Coming Into Being, a year ago, and then all the dross from three or four years ago which makes me think thirteen-year-old-me should have been shot) and Pegasus isn't Stargate fic exactly. It's something new but the same to play with.

I make no sense. Anyway, my favourite of the stories is Stella Maris, mostly on its own (considerable) merits, but also because of a strange coincidence or example of telepathy, however you like to look at it, which means it and my own story, Walking Barefoot..., dovetail exactly together. Same themes and ideas, almost the same characterisation. It makes for interesting reading. Actually, despite the fact it's technically a free-for-all, Pegasus B has some lines that not one writer has stepped across. I may think about that some more later.

Interspersed with fic reading, we have the Indigo Girls. thunderemerald, I have run a disc cleanup for the first time ever and now have a gigabyte of space to fill with music. I downloaded the last three you sent me just now, and will listen shortly. I've never loved a band so much on first listen. So far, my favourites are Galileo, All That We Let In, Closer to Fine and Cold Beer and Remote Control, but there are none I hate or even don't care for. And I even like the live versions, and in some cases I like them better than the studio versions.

Yesterday was in fact that obscure beast, the good day. I like bookshops and fic and music, and I like responding to feedback and writing more fic (yes, more - I hate to even mention the "beta" word) and I don't even mind writing essays. After weeks and weeks of nothing but revision, it merely seemed a pleasant change to sit down and write an essay on the Senate as compared to the House of Lords. Fifteen hundred words later I'd actually done a piece of homework on time. Things are good. I hope they stay that way. Touching wood as I write.

Tomorrow is the entrance exam - I get the day off, lucky me, but darling quackaquacka has been press-ganged into going in and showing the little ones around! - and in the afternoon, Pedar and I are going down to London. He has something to do at the college tomorrow, I don't know what, and I have an interview at UCL on Tuesday afternoon. The prospect of a medicine interview terrifies me. I know, I know, I don't want to do Medicine, I don't, but it doesn't mean I can't be intimidated. Sigh. I hope it's okay.

In fact, the one thing that has marred this weekend so far is the fact purplerainbow is in Anglesey for her annual drama-type-thing. She's just texted to tell me the drama group asked her if she'd ever kissed a girl.

Nothing like being someone's dirty secret. Heh. That came out unintentionally bleak.