every day that you get up and force your cards

[raven]

Dear self,

You are not profoundly unemployable. Even if you don't get the job you interviewed for yesterday, and there's a hefty statistical chance you won't (850 applicants, 8 places, etc.), that does not mean that the very first thing your interviewer said to you, after pouring out the coffee and asking about your journey, was, "Well, you have a CV to die for, don't you?"

Definitively yours,

you.

It wasn't the worst experience ever, in other words. Five am really sucks, but it's very nice to be on a train rolling through a pre-dawn landscape be met with a giant, beautifully lit celebratory banner above a station. Dear inhabitants of Leamington Spa: a very happy Diwali to you too.

(Dear Network Rail: a day return from Oxford to Northampton, right. A distance of almost precisely fifty miles. £58.90? Seriously? On top of five am, that was injury on top of injury.)

Today, it's a bright and beautiful morning but I am somewhat out of cope. One of the long-term issues the swine flu has raised has been a series of sharp, piercing headaches that usually result in my taking to my bed at three in the afternoon in manner of heroine of Victorian novel. A lot of running around with GPs has resulted in my being prescribed something called triptan, which has resulted in further running around when it transpired that this is quite difficult to get hold of (also, I originally thought he said tryptophan and had several hours of confusion as to how that would help with a headache).

The GP also notes I am "sensitive to medication" and should maybe split my amitriptyline into two, and Victorian-heroic as that is too, I am feeling very unromantically run-down. I keep trying to stay in bed and let life wash break gently in quiet waves over my head, but this strategy has stopped working for possibly the first time ever. I keep getting up and going to class. The universe doesn't help - I've been playing with Google Calendar the last couple of weeks, and one thing it does, that I may have to stop it doing, is email me every morning with what I have to do that day, complete with locations, times and consequences if I don't do them. When even Google thinks you should go to class, you're out of ideas.

Today, I have to do my first piece of advocacy, which is - let's see - positively terrifying, and tomorrow, I, er, graduate from Oxford, something which is supposed to be a momentous occasion in one's life but keeps slipping out of my head because, well, it's been a year and a half since I left Oxford and I have so much to do it's landed, again unromantically, on the to-do list: things to do Sat, graduate.

Sigh. I think I should maybe go and figure out what I'm going to say to the judge beyond "Good morning, your honour, I represent the Claimant", and maybe then stretch so far as a shower.

(One final, unrelated point: incidentally, you are all fired. Why did no one mention that there was a new Indigo Girls album? Why has no one mentioned this since March? I, er, didn't much like "Despite Our Differences", and I was looking forward to this.

Anyway. "Poseidon and the Bitter Bug". So far I only have one song, but I like it. Back to work.)

Comments

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Get your GP to give you special liquid amitrip, which is what I had. Then you can take it in much smaller doses, but, more importantly -- It's SUGARY!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. I'm a little concerned as to whether splitting the 10mg pills will do any good, as they're already tiny...

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Admit it, though, sitting there with the hammer and chisel and tiny plastic bags would be amusing.

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

I'm quite fond of 'Sugar Tongue' (the acoustic version moreso) and 'Dairy Queen' off PatBB, as well as 'Driver Education', which I like better than the Amy solo version from about five years ago.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips! I like "Digging For Your Dream", but it's the only one I have right now!

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

So when you say graduate, do you mean you are forced to wear an uncomfortable robe, walk across a stage and shake many hands of many (supposedly important) people, and get a little piece of paper that says "You've done it!"* Also, why a year and a half later? I've noticed people here are furiously registering to graduate in November.

Also, the Indigo Girls are from Decatur, Georgia, which is where I sort of live, and they own a restaurant there. You should go some time. I am a bad Decaturite/part-time lesbian for not liking them.


*Except you just get a blank thing, and the real one gets mailed to you weeks later.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

...sort of. My robe looks not-at-all uncomfortable - is trimmed with fur - and there will be a lot of ceremony, a lot of reciting things in Latin, etc., but Balliol will serve up a free lunch afterwards and it will all be very civilised. The funny thing about Oxford is that you don't graduate automatically. If you haven't done it, the university will still issue bits of paper to potential employers to say you can collect a degree at any time, so in practice it makes no difference. And then the ceremonies fill up, you get busy with other things, it slips your mind. So I'm only just getting around to it.

And, hey, that's kind of cool. They own a restaurant? That really is awesome.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

I had to wear a dress under my robe. And heels. They glared at you if you wore flats.

And, well, I guess it's only one of them. I've never been because I am poor, but I do frequent the Flying Biscuit Cafe, which is more reasonably priced and has the most amazing (American) biscuits you have ever had. I think Emily Sailers invested in it at one point, but it's since been sold/spun off. Still delicious, though.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

you get busy with other things, it slips your mind

It's not just you. I haven't graduated yet, so two + years for me. And Jessie's on three + years and not organised it yet :)

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Me too. I keep putting it off on the grounds that I was only close to a few people in Wadham, it probably wouldn't mean that much - but I haven't investigated which colleges share days etc.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

As far as I am aware, there is nothing stopping you booking for any graduation ceremony as long as there are still places left - you don't have to stick to your college days.

[dr-biscuit.livejournal.com]

Yay you. And yay Leamington Spa!
See you tomorrow - fur trim and all!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! See you tomorrow!

[just-the-ash.livejournal.com]

Happy Diwali, Iona. Light, light, light, and more light to you.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

And to you, my dear! Thank you very much!

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

I thought graduating was pretty pointless. I only did it because I knew my parents would enjoy the experience.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

How... nice? For me, it has value, so I'm doing it.

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Well, that's good, then. I just meant that since it happened a year after exams and with only 2 people from my year, it all seemed a bit removed from the actual Oxford experience. But I didn't mean to suggest that it wa sinherently valueless or anything.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed graduating apart from the part where I ewas the only BA from Lincoln and had to go up on my owwn. But I booksed it to graduate where I matriculated from Exam Schools. If was very satisfyingly circular. i felt completed and like the finals demons were exorcised a bit. Sorry rambling!

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

To die for. That's you!
Congratulations on graduating! I hope you have a great time.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It was lovely, thank you! <3 <3

[tau_sigma]

Enjoy your graduation! It will always amuse me that you had a postgraduate qualification before you got your undergraduate degre. *g*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* It dawned on me again when I realised I'd been wearing a fur hood for the previous graduation - that I wasn't entitled to...