aconite working in his blood like silver
Jun. 25th, 2004 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenWhat I said yesterday still stands, although probably with less sleep-deprived vitriol. Mr Evans spent the morning prancing round singing the Dutch national anthem (no-one has ever had the courage to ask why he supports Holland when he’s Welsh) whilst in the background, the boys put on re-enactments of scenes from Plautus’ Mostellaria. Let it never be said that my life is not thoroughly surreal. Apparently I have a thing for boys in dressestogas.
Actually, a lot of the things that I said yesterday still stand. I wrote most of what follows last night, expecting to delete it in the morning, but it’s still true.
I have sand in my ears from yesterday. This is despite two showers. I’ve given up.
Talking of giving up, some stats from the last few days. Since last Thursday, when I went back to school, I have not done very much. Specifically, I have skived five double lessons, handed in precisely zero pieces of homework, turned up in time for registration once, gone to bed before midnight not at all, and missed more trains than I can count. I’ve also caused at least one outburst of temper along the lines of the following: “Iona! You have whinged more this one afternoon than you have in an entire year! Shut up!”
I am tired. Not physically tired, although there is that; this is bone-deep, soul-jarring tiredness that manifests itself in everything I do and say. I’ve been tired before. I’ve also been lonely, unmotivated, lethargic and ill, but never all at the same time before, and never so much. It’s reaching the point where I’m sitting here in the dark at midnight writing this, knowing that I have to get up again in six hours’ time but not caring particularly, because I am so tired that a little extra lost sleep won’t make a particle of difference.
I was actually supposed to have tomorrow off. But we’ve all been told if we don’t turn up for our first doubles, we’re all going to be gated. I now have the wonderful choice between another day of abject exhaustion, or, alternatively, a week of confinement. I think I may bite the bullet and drag myself out of bed tomorrow. I am so tired.
This phenomenon is not confined to me. I have to admit I can understand why the school have chosen to make us go back to school following exams, because, well, what else could they do, but it’s still the lesser of two evils and therefore still an evil. While walking down to the station the other day, Julie asked me if I’d noticed the way no-one in the entire Lower Sixth seems to be able to complete a sentence first time round. I took care to listen for this, and realised she’s right – the entire year group is so dazed and exhausted that no-one can formulate words. I can’t really write, either. This morning, I attempted to write notes for my and Fidan’s little speech on the benefits of the library committee for sixth form induction, and I couldn’t think of a damn thing.
My lessons now consist of whining and wailing and people petitioning for early departures, lessons outside in the quad, and license to watch taped BBC documentaries on Othello/Ronald Reagan/sand dune ecosystems/all of the above. It’s not really conducive to actual learning. No-one is at all motivated, as no-one can muster up enthusiasm for exams in January and June, especially when August the nineteenth has yet to roll around.
I get the feeling most people think that being in the Lower Sixth is not an important year. Well, it isn’t. But I’ve attempted to be conscientious and hard-working since September. I’m tired now.
Jumping forward to this morning, I did go to lessons. I did. I’m still following procedure like a good little sheeplet. While I don’t know if it was worth going in for, we did do the infamous Tollen’s reagent practical again (last time we did it, we gassed ourselves with conc. ammonia). Producing your own ethanal is harder than it looks. It involved all kinds of quick-fit apparatus and fiddling about with reflux reactions, which generally involve acidified potassium dichromate sputtering and turning green.
But the good bit is the actual Tollen’s test. We made the reagent up fresh – silver nitrate, precipitated ammonia and the whole lot shaken up so it went back into solution – and added the ethanal. Sarah and I made it yesterday and had all of three drops of it, so I took some of Fidan’s. I actually quite like ethanal. It’s an aldehyde that looks like water, but it smells gorgeous – exactly like apples. The whole lab smells like an orchard now.
So, yes. I added the ethanal by dropping pipette, put the test-tube and put it in a water bath. It’s like cooking or witchcraft, possibly – if you look at it in a way it deems offensive, it refuses to work. So we all attempted to ignore it entirely while it was sitting on the bench. Wonder of wonders, the technique worked. I am now in possession of a test-tube with an internal lining of pure silver. It looks very pretty, shining in the light, and as it has rendered the test-tube itself useless, it looks like being a permanent addition.
So going in this morning wasn’t a complete waste of time. But I am glad to be home again. My head hurts beyond belief and I may just go to bed now. Maybe lunch first. We shall see. One other thing I want to do is write a commentary for Love Is Not Love, because I had such fun writing it and I’m going to start forgetting the details about how I wrote it fairly soon. In fact, I might upload all my other commentaries to Sleeping With Ghosts and just add this one on. It seems rather self-indulgent, though.
I meant to post all of the above this morning. Unfortunately, something inside my brain went click and started making "Waaah!" noises; in other words, I only just woke up. I don't even remember falling asleep.
Actually, a lot of the things that I said yesterday still stand. I wrote most of what follows last night, expecting to delete it in the morning, but it’s still true.
I have sand in my ears from yesterday. This is despite two showers. I’ve given up.
Talking of giving up, some stats from the last few days. Since last Thursday, when I went back to school, I have not done very much. Specifically, I have skived five double lessons, handed in precisely zero pieces of homework, turned up in time for registration once, gone to bed before midnight not at all, and missed more trains than I can count. I’ve also caused at least one outburst of temper along the lines of the following: “Iona! You have whinged more this one afternoon than you have in an entire year! Shut up!”
I am tired. Not physically tired, although there is that; this is bone-deep, soul-jarring tiredness that manifests itself in everything I do and say. I’ve been tired before. I’ve also been lonely, unmotivated, lethargic and ill, but never all at the same time before, and never so much. It’s reaching the point where I’m sitting here in the dark at midnight writing this, knowing that I have to get up again in six hours’ time but not caring particularly, because I am so tired that a little extra lost sleep won’t make a particle of difference.
I was actually supposed to have tomorrow off. But we’ve all been told if we don’t turn up for our first doubles, we’re all going to be gated. I now have the wonderful choice between another day of abject exhaustion, or, alternatively, a week of confinement. I think I may bite the bullet and drag myself out of bed tomorrow. I am so tired.
This phenomenon is not confined to me. I have to admit I can understand why the school have chosen to make us go back to school following exams, because, well, what else could they do, but it’s still the lesser of two evils and therefore still an evil. While walking down to the station the other day, Julie asked me if I’d noticed the way no-one in the entire Lower Sixth seems to be able to complete a sentence first time round. I took care to listen for this, and realised she’s right – the entire year group is so dazed and exhausted that no-one can formulate words. I can’t really write, either. This morning, I attempted to write notes for my and Fidan’s little speech on the benefits of the library committee for sixth form induction, and I couldn’t think of a damn thing.
My lessons now consist of whining and wailing and people petitioning for early departures, lessons outside in the quad, and license to watch taped BBC documentaries on Othello/Ronald Reagan/sand dune ecosystems/all of the above. It’s not really conducive to actual learning. No-one is at all motivated, as no-one can muster up enthusiasm for exams in January and June, especially when August the nineteenth has yet to roll around.
I get the feeling most people think that being in the Lower Sixth is not an important year. Well, it isn’t. But I’ve attempted to be conscientious and hard-working since September. I’m tired now.
Jumping forward to this morning, I did go to lessons. I did. I’m still following procedure like a good little sheeplet. While I don’t know if it was worth going in for, we did do the infamous Tollen’s reagent practical again (last time we did it, we gassed ourselves with conc. ammonia). Producing your own ethanal is harder than it looks. It involved all kinds of quick-fit apparatus and fiddling about with reflux reactions, which generally involve acidified potassium dichromate sputtering and turning green.
But the good bit is the actual Tollen’s test. We made the reagent up fresh – silver nitrate, precipitated ammonia and the whole lot shaken up so it went back into solution – and added the ethanal. Sarah and I made it yesterday and had all of three drops of it, so I took some of Fidan’s. I actually quite like ethanal. It’s an aldehyde that looks like water, but it smells gorgeous – exactly like apples. The whole lab smells like an orchard now.
So, yes. I added the ethanal by dropping pipette, put the test-tube and put it in a water bath. It’s like cooking or witchcraft, possibly – if you look at it in a way it deems offensive, it refuses to work. So we all attempted to ignore it entirely while it was sitting on the bench. Wonder of wonders, the technique worked. I am now in possession of a test-tube with an internal lining of pure silver. It looks very pretty, shining in the light, and as it has rendered the test-tube itself useless, it looks like being a permanent addition.
So going in this morning wasn’t a complete waste of time. But I am glad to be home again. My head hurts beyond belief and I may just go to bed now. Maybe lunch first. We shall see. One other thing I want to do is write a commentary for Love Is Not Love, because I had such fun writing it and I’m going to start forgetting the details about how I wrote it fairly soon. In fact, I might upload all my other commentaries to Sleeping With Ghosts and just add this one on. It seems rather self-indulgent, though.
I meant to post all of the above this morning. Unfortunately, something inside my brain went click and started making "Waaah!" noises; in other words, I only just woke up. I don't even remember falling asleep.
