Grrr. Argh.
Aug. 29th, 2006 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenOn telly right now, Hawkeye, BJ and Potter are singing in sepulchral fashion, "There's a long long night of waiting 'til my dreams all come true..."
Huh. I have had a very bad day. Very, very, very bad. I am going to tell you all about it. I wandered down the stairs this morning thinking it would be fine, it would be a good day, I would get things done. Okay. One of the things I was supposed to do today was, er, take my driving test. And it was going all right, finally, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hathy_col very kindly offered her mum up as ritual sacrifice as someone to drive me, and then the DSA, the fucking, fucking DSA informed me I had vanished from their computer system. Whatever the administrative fuck-up actually is, it's their fault and they'll give me the money back. But I don't have a driving test this week, or next week, or, in fact, until January. I would kill small furry animals just to be able to get in a car and drive.
So I spent most of my morning writing a long, rude letter to the DSA, a morning I meant to use for my feminism paper, and then I gathered up a bunch of things Pedar wanted posting and walked the half-hour to the post office. (When I have a driving license, I will not drive this distance. It's a stupid thought, to drive such tiny distances.) It had closed for lunch. I had a choice: hang around for an hour, or walk back, sit down for exactly one minute and walk there again. I, stupidly, chose the latter option. So after I had wasted two hours of feminism-writing time in favour of, er, wandering around the village getting steadily more irritable, I went home and made a cup of coffee.
Which, of course, I knocked over, half on my laptop and half on six weeks' worth of feminism notes. I got it off Loki, which is one blessing, but the papers are entirely soaked. I hung them out of the window like strange and crackly laundry and went to answer a ringing phone. It was Claire Curtis-Thomas's secretary, Rob. He's a lovely guy who has been fielding my calls since March, and he told me: forget it. I don't have an internship. She's forgotten about me, and he can't get in touch with her, and he's sorry for stringing me along for FOUR MONTHS but er... yes. I don't have an internship. I am not getting out of here in September. I can't explain to you how awful this is. I am going to go mad.
I was having a long, late lunch withquackaquacka and eternalwings, and I wandered down to the station and missed the train. (It was early, so I missed with that almost balletic grace with which I occasionally achieve when missing trains - think a full-tilt run culminating in a grand jeté leap that ends with the tips of your outstretched fingers brushing the closing doors.) I had had enough of leaping about and swearing, so I went to the newsagent for a large bar of chocolate and a newspaper. While I was paying for them, the guy behind the counter asked me where I live. I said, "Up in the pinewoods," as you do.
"I see you go past every day," he said. "Do you go to Range?"
"Er, no, I went to Merchants'."
He looked a bit uncomfortable. "You don't look that old."
The hell I don't. I thanked him, took the chocolate and went back to the station whilst musing on the fact that Range doesn't have a sixth form. That guy thought I was fifteen.
In short, yes, I am going to go madder than a trapped hare. I am stuck here. I have no driving license, no plane tickets to Europe (last month's debacle), no job. (I don't even have my usual job, because of course I withdrew myself from the bookshop rota because of the internship I was supposed to have.) Right now, I want to know what happened to my life. How did this happen, all of a sudden? I thought I was an adult woman with an education and a job and a place to live, and now I'm just thinking circumstances have conspired, the DSA and Easyjet-the-bastards and Curtis-Thomas and her lack of any organisation at all, to make me fifteen forever.
This is really quite awful.
In a neat twist of irony, an obscure Sky channel are showing XF episodes in completely random order, and today's was "Monday", which is a nice story about Mulder waking up, running late, to a flooded apartment, a bouncing cheque, "the longest meeting in FBI history" and finally, a bank robbery that ends in his being shot and he and Scully both dying in an explosion - only for the same day to happen again, and again, and again. In short, other people have shit days, too. It's a good episode and I will write something else about it when I am not so pissed off and worn out with the entire world.
Um - I'm leaving the country at the end of this week, so if you want to get in touch with me at all for anything, before Friday is best. After that I don't know how contactable I will be.
Huh. I have had a very bad day. Very, very, very bad. I am going to tell you all about it. I wandered down the stairs this morning thinking it would be fine, it would be a good day, I would get things done. Okay. One of the things I was supposed to do today was, er, take my driving test. And it was going all right, finally, and
hathy_col very kindly offered her mum up So I spent most of my morning writing a long, rude letter to the DSA, a morning I meant to use for my feminism paper, and then I gathered up a bunch of things Pedar wanted posting and walked the half-hour to the post office. (When I have a driving license, I will not drive this distance. It's a stupid thought, to drive such tiny distances.) It had closed for lunch. I had a choice: hang around for an hour, or walk back, sit down for exactly one minute and walk there again. I, stupidly, chose the latter option. So after I had wasted two hours of feminism-writing time in favour of, er, wandering around the village getting steadily more irritable, I went home and made a cup of coffee.
Which, of course, I knocked over, half on my laptop and half on six weeks' worth of feminism notes. I got it off Loki, which is one blessing, but the papers are entirely soaked. I hung them out of the window like strange and crackly laundry and went to answer a ringing phone. It was Claire Curtis-Thomas's secretary, Rob. He's a lovely guy who has been fielding my calls since March, and he told me: forget it. I don't have an internship. She's forgotten about me, and he can't get in touch with her, and he's sorry for stringing me along for FOUR MONTHS but er... yes. I don't have an internship. I am not getting out of here in September. I can't explain to you how awful this is. I am going to go mad.
I was having a long, late lunch with
quackaquacka and eternalwings, and I wandered down to the station and missed the train. (It was early, so I missed with that almost balletic grace with which I occasionally achieve when missing trains - think a full-tilt run culminating in a grand jeté leap that ends with the tips of your outstretched fingers brushing the closing doors.) I had had enough of leaping about and swearing, so I went to the newsagent for a large bar of chocolate and a newspaper. While I was paying for them, the guy behind the counter asked me where I live. I said, "Up in the pinewoods," as you do."I see you go past every day," he said. "Do you go to Range?"
"Er, no, I went to Merchants'."
He looked a bit uncomfortable. "You don't look that old."
The hell I don't. I thanked him, took the chocolate and went back to the station whilst musing on the fact that Range doesn't have a sixth form. That guy thought I was fifteen.
In short, yes, I am going to go madder than a trapped hare. I am stuck here. I have no driving license, no plane tickets to Europe (last month's debacle), no job. (I don't even have my usual job, because of course I withdrew myself from the bookshop rota because of the internship I was supposed to have.) Right now, I want to know what happened to my life. How did this happen, all of a sudden? I thought I was an adult woman with an education and a job and a place to live, and now I'm just thinking circumstances have conspired, the DSA and Easyjet-the-bastards and Curtis-Thomas and her lack of any organisation at all, to make me fifteen forever.
This is really quite awful.
In a neat twist of irony, an obscure Sky channel are showing XF episodes in completely random order, and today's was "Monday", which is a nice story about Mulder waking up, running late, to a flooded apartment, a bouncing cheque, "the longest meeting in FBI history" and finally, a bank robbery that ends in his being shot and he and Scully both dying in an explosion - only for the same day to happen again, and again, and again. In short, other people have shit days, too. It's a good episode and I will write something else about it when I am not so pissed off and worn out with the entire world.
Um - I'm leaving the country at the end of this week, so if you want to get in touch with me at all for anything, before Friday is best. After that I don't know how contactable I will be.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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on 2006-08-29 10:06 pm (UTC)*joins you in the trapped-at-home-and-jobless brigade*
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on 2006-08-29 10:14 pm (UTC)*starts support group*
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on 2006-08-29 10:10 pm (UTC)I find that a great deal of the appeal of "Monday" is how gorgeous Scully looks, plus gratuitous Mulder!pajamas (pyjamas?) when he's at the apartment and Mulder!tummy when he's bleeding all over the floor several times. Mmm.
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on 2006-08-29 10:18 pm (UTC)And oh, yes, definite agreement on Scully looking pretty. She manages to look pretty even in the bits where Mulder is bleeding all over her. Hell, he looks pretty during those bits.
Pyjamas! Yes! *laughs* Every scene in his apartment is so funny and sweet. I giggled a lot when he wanders around the place trying to catch the water in saucepans.
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on 2006-08-29 10:23 pm (UTC)They're both so gorgeous during Season 6.
Where are you going on your trip?
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on 2006-08-29 10:30 pm (UTC)I am going to the States! Indianapolis, Chicago and Boston, almost in that order. Part of it is family reunioning, part of it is my father wanting to visit Harvard and other touristy things, and part of it is meeting fannish LJ friends, so the trip kinda covers all the bases. *g*
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on 2006-08-29 10:33 pm (UTC)You are coming to the States! What a joyous thing! Have fun at Harvard - it is lovely, though I liked Yale better (not that I got into either of them, bah). I wish I were going to Chicago. I haven't seen my stupid best friend/ex since May, but then again, he's at home in Calcutta at the moment, so he wouldn't be there until next week anyway. If I ever wander over to the UK while I'm in France, I may say hello!
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on 2006-08-29 10:41 pm (UTC)Do, do come and say hello, that would be fab, and the best friend/ex is Bengali? I am amused; I'm half Bengali, although you'd never be able to tell.
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on 2006-08-29 10:50 pm (UTC)He's actually not Bengali! His family's from Rajasthan. They just live in Calcutta. He speaks Bengali. Kind of.
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on 2006-08-29 11:08 pm (UTC)Bengali is a dreadful language to learn. Which is why I have never learnt it. Groan.
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on 2006-08-29 11:10 pm (UTC)At least Bengali looks pretty! All pointy. I have some Bengali newspapers lying around here somewhere, from wrappings of things. I always think it looks like a language, though sometimes I thought Tamil just looked like swirls. Um. But I'm not a language racist or anything. It was just hard to get used to.
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on 2006-08-29 11:40 pm (UTC)I know what you mean. To me, it looks like a language, but one too ornate to get a grasp on. Can you read Hindi script? It doesn't have the beauty of Bengali, but it does have more detail than Roman script.
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on 2006-08-30 12:11 am (UTC)It looks like a language to me now, but still something puzzling and very decorative. I could make it a wallpaper border and no one would be the wiser! Except me and the other 40 million people who know Tamil. I can read Devanagari, yeah, or at least riddle it out slowly, enough so that I could tell when the stupid rickshawwallah tried to take us somewhere in Jodhpur that wasn't our hotel. I can write it too, sort of, my name and some other bits. I really enjoy it!
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on 2006-08-30 12:25 am (UTC)Perhaps if you knew the Tamil for "If you can read this, you're too close!"
I love Devanagari, too, but my writing skills suffer a lot from lack of practice. I have always meant to take a year out at some point and go back to India just for this purpose.
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on 2006-08-30 12:28 am (UTC)If only I knew the conditional! But all I've got is simple past, present, and future. When I study up. Which I should do.
The first time I tried to write my name in Hindi, I wrote "Maro" instead of "Meri" (I think) and Saurabh laughed at me for about three hours and kept telling me I'd died. But it's weird trying to do it out of the book. That's my excuse.
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on 2006-08-31 12:44 am (UTC)Ah, well, you've got me beat. I know exactly no Tamil at all. But I kind of have to join in with the laughter there. Khabi khabi hum marjathehe!*
*er, just so's you know, I can't transliterate worth shit.
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on 2006-08-31 03:24 am (UTC)Arré! Okay, I was laughing too. So it goes.
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on 2006-08-29 10:30 pm (UTC)You are. You actually, actually are; and that is a bizarre thought because presumably that means I am too. Goodness. If it's any help, I don't think you look fifteen, and in no way do you act it - you are rather amazing, in fact, in your maturity and realness and the fact that you tried to get an internship in London, in Westminster (you may have noticed this really rather impresses me), and the only reason you didn't is because some politician is too wrapped up in her own little world. And yes, you trying does nothing for a CV, but it means you're doing more than many people who sit at home the entire summer and don't even look for a job, or think of their future at all.
Err ... would it help at all, re: getting out of the house, at least, if I were to perhaps make it up to Liverpool to meet you for real? If you are free, and if you would like to, that would be really quite nifty.
And aha! Obviously I have seen more X-Files than I thought, although I'm sure I don't know when, because I have seen that episode. It was bizarre, and I don't even remember how it ended. *sigh*
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on 2006-08-29 10:58 pm (UTC)And as I will, now, be home for September, I think that's a great idea. I'll definitely be free, and I'll be home after about September 15th, so name your day. :)
I think it will be one of those episodes I harbour a secret love for. It is sort of marvellous. It ends when the gunman's girlfriend, the only person who knows the day is repeating itself, manages to make Mulder remember that everything keeps happening again and again, and eventually gets shot in his place. Not very upbeat, but at least not everyone dies in the explosion!
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on 2006-08-30 08:31 pm (UTC)Also, new layout! 'Tis rather nice.
Enjoy the USA, just in case I don't speak to you again before then!
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on 2006-08-29 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-29 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-29 10:50 pm (UTC)I had a week almost like that about a month ago: my house in New Zealand was threatened by a landslide which demolished the house up the hill, I was rejected by two different people I fancied, my best friend from primary school suffered a stillbirth, 3 different things went wrong with my computer, I cut my foot quite badly, and I was already feeling pretty depressed about my thesis and other things. Thankfully, at least some of these problems got resolved.
On the aargh-must-escape-in-September front: is there any chance at all that you could delay your return from the US, and find people to stay with/things to do? Or could you try to return to Oxford early, perhaps finding a temporary job and a temporary room?
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on 2006-08-29 11:00 pm (UTC)Oh, on that front I really wish I could. Sadly, my return flights are non-negotiable, and so is my lease. I can't get to Oxford earlier than the first of October. Otherwise I think I might go there the first moment I could, or stay in Chicago the whole month rather than just one day. *g*
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on 2006-08-29 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-29 11:45 pm (UTC)Till the day when I'll be gooooooing down that long long trail... with yoooooouuuuu
on 2006-08-29 11:12 pm (UTC)Good lord, your day sounds like a cosmic conspiracy made manifest. *shakes fist at the skies* I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I actually do think you look your age, insofar as anybody does. And also, people do that to me all the time; e.g., once someone at the Columbus airport told me I needed a parent to fly with (you have to be sixteen to fly alone), while one of my coworkers this summer guessed that I was still an underclassman in high school (around fourteen or fifteen, WTF). We can start a club. We'll wander around looking innocent and unsoiled, and then CORRUPT THE WORLD.
Is there any way you can get your job back at the bookshop? Certainly they must want you back if it's at all possible.
Re: Till the day when I'll be gooooooing down that long long trail... with yoooooouuuuu
on 2006-08-29 11:57 pm (UTC)It does a bit. *shakes head* I shall resign myself with the thought I must have paid off a lot of bad karma all in one go, there. And, also, I deserve good-karma world-corruption time. OMG. OMG!
Re: bookshop, definitely worth a try. I'll look it into it when I'm calmer.
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on 2006-08-30 12:02 am (UTC)If you're desperately craving something vaguely-academic (and don't mind meeting up with a stranger) I'm still going to be at the University of Liverpool - at the very least, you could attempt to blag into the Syd.
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on 2006-08-31 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-30 12:10 am (UTC)*hugs* At least the DSA will pay for your failed test. The last one I did, admittedly a while back now, they wouldn't let me sit it & my instructor had to pay for a replacement which I then cancelled so I still wasted money on it.
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on 2006-08-31 12:31 am (UTC)Why didn't they let you sit it? I thought only hell or high water actually stopped a booked test going ahead.
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on 2006-08-31 11:05 am (UTC)tbh it was a good thing because I was too worked up about it & cause of the nerves & stress I nearly burst into tears when she said I couldn't. If I'd sat it I most probably would have failed.
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on 2006-08-30 02:45 am (UTC)But! You are going to Chicago! Which is possibly my favorite city in the country next to the bastion of libreal left-leaning homosexuals, punks and nerds known as San Francisco.
This,
taken on a disastrously cold November day last year pretty much sums it up.
Also, are you flying it at night? I did, and perhaps it was the 2 1/2 hour delay, or the impossible turbulence, or my never-flown-before friend squeezing my hand terribly hard, but damn, Chi-town is the most beautiful city I've ever seen from the sky at night.
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on 2006-08-31 12:32 am (UTC)Sadly, no - I'm flying in at nine am. I'm flying out again at nine pm, though, so I will get to see it by night as I leave!
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on 2006-08-30 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-31 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-30 06:58 am (UTC)Is there any way the bookshop might have a few free slots for you next month, so you don't go completely up the wall?
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on 2006-08-31 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-30 08:10 am (UTC)I don't know if it's possible, but I will give some thought to other ways I can come and see you in September. For a day trip, Liverpool is a bit far, and I don't have that many days spare after September 15th; but perhaps there's somewhere in the middle we could meet for a few hours? Having told the man at Watford station that I would go and see you in September, I'm very relucatant to let that plan go entirely.
{{hugs}}
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on 2006-08-31 12:35 am (UTC)I'd hate for us to break our promise to the station man. *g* I'll give it some thought while I'm away, and I'll be in - sporadic - touch.
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on 2006-08-31 08:53 am (UTC)At the very least, can I call you tonight-- Thursday-- for a chat?
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on 2006-08-31 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-08-31 10:59 am (UTC)Also, I wish to second all of
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on 2006-08-31 01:02 am (UTC)You are so far from shit. You are entirely undigested food.
...I dunno, I fail at funny metaphors.
Anyway, it's not your fault that the job didn't work out, or that your travel plans fell through, etc.--none of that is your fault, so really you are not the connecting thread at all, except in the sense that a lot of crap has fallen on you lately. Which sucks, and I'm sorry. I wish I could do more for you than offer you a theoretical bathroom floor to crash on. (Well, actually I offer you an inflatable mattress and/or a fold-out couch, and/or my very own bed, but you were the one who expressed interest in the cold cold tile.)
*hugs* You've made plenty of things of your life--I've watched you do it for a couple of years, so I know--and you have plenty of time to make more. This is a bad stretch, but it'll get better.
On to frivolous matters. I can help you out a little with TWW....
--I like anything by
--Another long story for another time:
--Also anything by
And--oh, I have no idea how to summarize the reams and reams of good J/S fic for you. The whole fandom is so full of talent it scares me. I'm sure there's someone on your flist who was actually in it, and he/she will probably have a better idea of where to start.
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on 2006-08-31 01:55 am (UTC)And recs! Thank you for the recs! I am skimming the crossover as I speak and eeee, Scully vs. Bartlett = best thing ever. And, oh, Sam/Josh. Love. So much love. I want to see more of this show, so much.
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on 2006-08-31 02:41 am (UTC)And I laugh at gags about undigested food and cold cold tile (and I spent the morning vividly imagining crab viscera and the eating thereof)
Hee. I'm glad to hear it. I woke up this morning (or, well, stopped dozing) and thought, "Did I really write an email about crab viscera last night? What was I thinking?" I am perhaps a little over-enthusiastic on the subject, and sometimes I even creep myself out.
if I'd known in advance that just one of my plans would work out, I'd have picked this one
Aww. I don't really have many other plans, but of course this one is my first priority, too, and would be even if I had plans to... go back to Sydney or something. I know that one day can't make up for a sub-par summer, but we'll try to show you as good a time as possible.
I have The West Wing S3 here, because I'm in the process of rewatching, and I was thisclose to packing S1 as well, just in case you wanted to see it. But then I realized that (1)I had absolutely no extra space in the car and (2)you'd probably rather spend your limited time in the city anyway.