Having got Delaware sewn up, Joe Biden needs 267 electoral college votes to be president.

[raven]

So much for being a good person. Having spent the last two days being nice, and looking after Ben - he spent of the time deliriously muttering about jazz, physics and Weetabix, and finally woke up the light of day yesterday night, at which point it was dark - he has given me his horrendous flu-like scourge. I am not feeling well at all, and it's all his fault. In his defence, he seems to acknowledge this fact and came by this afternoon in order to apologise profusely. I merely glared at him and retreated to bed, where I alternately slept, read Locke and perused ridiculous amounts of blogging about Senator Joe Biden, Village Idiot for Delaware. As long as the American election campaign is ongoing, I always have ways to waste time.

Seriously, though. What an idiot. Quite apart from his bizarre comments a couple of days ago, I've discovered that in the 1988 presidential campaign, he plagiarised an entire speech that had actually been written for - wait for it - Neil Kinnock. Oh, my. Speaking of Neil Kinnock, I want very much to get him as a Cerberus speaker for this year.

(Have I explained what Cerberus is? I think I have, but just in case, it's Balliol's in-house PPE society, longstanding and somewhat pretentious. The tutors appoint three Triarchs for each academic year, of which yours truly is one. We get in internal and external speakers to give talks on usually unashamedly left-wing topics, and college pays for the wine. Everyone wins.)

Either Neil Kinnock, or the current commissioners, from whom we got an absolutely delightful letter addressed to "Ms [my last name], Triarch of Cerberus, Balliol College" (yay, pretension! my incredibly brief postal address is one of my favourite things), detailing how pleased they'd been to be invited, and we must let them know next time they were in the country. And there was a proper signature, too. Much love for my non-elected representatives.

But the only confirmed speaker we have for the rest of this term is fairly exciting on his own. It's Dr. Morison. As in Morison and Pooley. OMG, yes. Because he specialises in philosophy of the ancient world, I plan to extend invitations to PPEists (naturally), but to classicists, classical archaeologists, all philosophy half-breeds and just for the hell of it, economists too. And undoubtedly they will all come, because everyone was so crushingly disappointed at the total lack of Morison and Pooley General Philosophy lectures this term. It is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Ack, I think the ibuprofen is wearing off. I am being informed by my flatmates that I am not walking in a straight line, no matter how personally great being doped up to the eyeballs makes me feel. Walking in a straight line is, I believe, much overrated. Tomorrow I have to not only walk in a straight line but write an essay about Locke's abstract ideas and possibly be productive in other ways as well. So I should probably go to bed.

Probably. But I've been asleep all day and am thus disposed to whine, or at least, procrastinate madly rather than reading about Locke or Berkeley. One thing I definitely need to do in the next couple of days is sign up for remixredux, but I'm in a quandary in that it's been about a year since I've updated Sleeping With Ghosts, and I don't know if I should just bite the bullet and do it, or whether I should create an LJ post with links to all my fics and put it off even more. There's a ridiculous amount of fics that need adding - maybe about fifteen? - and I need to mess with the structure of the site to incorporate maybe five more fandoms, so I have no idea.

And I also think I should probably write a piece of fic, something, anything, before I sign up. The last thing I wrote was Cassandra In The Rain, way back in November, and I've done nothing since. I still have on my hard drive the unfinished epic of an X-Files fic, which I bothered amchau incessantly with over the summer and now have promised to finish for narahttbbs, and I also promised a campaign Josh/Sam West Wing fic for absinthe_shadow. I am indecisive. And a little lacking in confidence as to whether I can still write. Actually, a lot lacking in it. Of course I know that my writing is hardwired into my brain, I'll lose the ability to walk in a straight line before I lose the ability to form words on paper, but I walked into a door on my way here after dinner, so, yes. There is that.

Now I babble. See me babble. I think I need to go to bed and take more pills, not in that order.

Comments

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you'd be able to wander around London over the weekend ^^?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ack, tragically not. I really can't leave Oxford next week, because I'll be busy catching up with all the work I'm not doing now! What brings you down south?

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Morison as in The Mozza, evil tutor at Exeter College...? Because if so, at the Scholar's dinner at the start of my second year - or rather after, and hence after all the alcohol - my friend was trying to discuss with him whether it was possible to fuck a chicken (erm, c.f. Exeter Freshers' Week talks... long story_ while Mozza was trying to flirt with me while I was trying to to fall down the stairs into the SCR and onto the top of both of them *shakes head* alcohol is bad. It makes evil tutors leches.

In other news, sympathy for flu-ness, I am only just out of the trippy delirium stage... hope you feel better soon.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Presumably so! The man appears to be followed around by colourful anecdotes, with a given value for "colorful."

Ack, everyone has it! Hope you feel better, too!

[nerves-patterns.livejournal.com]

I find Locke pretty interesting. We read him a little for our 18th Century British Lit class - although I really don't know a lot.

I hope you feel better!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

He is very interesting. I just heap abuse on the man because I'm too lazy to work. :) And thank you.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Feel better soon, you. And of course you can still write.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear. On both counts.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I too ought to be reading Locke, and am not.

You must finish the epic X-Files fic! I really, really, want to read the final product. Also, you should write Josh/Sam fic. It's been too long since I had time to watch The West Wing, but it's a much-needed antidote as the American election gathers pace.

Hope you feel better soon.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I'm trying! I still have the notes you sent me, which are great, because they remind me of what I was originally doing with the story, but beyond that I'm a bit clueless. Oh, well, and then they done sex.

...or something.

And TWW fic is definitely on the agenda. It's barely a year until the NH primary, which is probably going to become my excuse for everything TWW-related, I think.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

It'll come to you. I often find if I keep a story or a peom in the back of my mind and bring it out to play with when I have a spare moment that it's not long before something gives ways and it starts to work gain. Not so with the latest peom, of course, which merely keeps degenerating into strings of bad puns, but that's Alex's fault for having an easily punnable surname.

A fine excuse if ever I heard one. And hey, any excuse which leads to fic is fine with me...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I don't think he was thinking. And absolutely fair point on the current POTUS. Articulate is a lovely word which does not apply.

Ah, you know I mock economists because of my HUGE GINORMOUS inferiority complex.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely turn up to see Neil Kinnock, if non-PPEists were invited....

As for the writing, I've done nothing on *my* epic. I seem to be writing only in fragments at the moment, but I'm having fun, so heck with it. That's really the important thing about writing... not the confidence, but whether you enjoy doing it. Hopefully both will return for you before too long.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I could certainly stand to read some American election fic too! Even though I'm not a huge West Wing fan, I've observed some presidential campaigns at quite close range, because they're great fun. That's what comes of living in New Hampshire.

(Speaking of which, another of these crazy ideas of mine is to write a story where Mulder and Scully are called to investigate some weird happenings during the presidential primary in New Hampshire. I think it could work.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ack, forgot to reply to this. Coincidentally enough, the fic I was idly plotting is set in New Hampshire. This is probably a sign that I should go ahead and write it.

(YES. That would be AWESOME. I would explode from geeky squee.)

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Yay, New Hampshire! I think we'd both explode from geeky squee! I'm thinking about writing a nostalgic LJ entry about my experiences with presidential primaries as a way of reflecting on the idea. We'll see what I can come up with. And I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, Neil Kinnock. It would be wonderful if he did come. I must work on that one.

I have read all of the parts of your epic you sent me, and enjoyed them thoroughly. And I could offer substantive comment, but instead I'm just going to bounce up and down and demand to know what happens next, eee!

I think you're right re: enjoyment of writing. I'm still in a weird place where that's concerned; I'm sort of doing it because I know it's what I do rather than because it's what I do, if that makes any sense at all. I'm hoping it will come back naturally. In the meantime I am producing a small trickle of writing on the looooooong epic, which is at least progressing.

(And oh, look, Cher just came on. Siiiiigh.)

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Glad that you liked it! It sounds like you're progressing on your epic more than I am on mine, but I know it will come along in the end...

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

There needs to be an equivalent to 'articulate' that isn't a covert racial slur, because with the current POTUS, politians being articulate isn't really a given...'bright and clean', though? Jesus, what was he thinking?

and just for the hell of it, economists too
Oy!

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Speaking of PPE, btw, when you are feeling better I may beg to have coffee and pick your brains over IR, in a comparing-notes-with-someone-actually-following-the-departmental-reading-list way...*looks hopeful*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes! This is a fabulous idea. I am completely lost with IR, partly because of mentalness and partly because I've just got no clue. I need to pick your brains. *looks even hopefuller*

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Yes. Would Monday afternoon be good? I might as well wait til I've done my globalisation reading, so we do have topics to compare notes on thus maximising the gains from trade :P...which topics have you done so far?

[lizziwig.livejournal.com]

Ick. I'm swinging garlic around people with this lurgy; I've had enough illness this term. Hope you feel better soon.

btw, did you get those cds I pidged to you?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*ducks waving garlic* Yes, I did! My apologies for not having got to them sooner. I will do them for you, I promise.

[lizziwig.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, there's no rush. I just deeply distrusted the concept that I could give something in at my college and it could get to yours. The porter had to reassure me about six times. This is just further proof that Oxford is magic :)