I'm still not caught up on my sleep here, and it's not for want of trying. I think that the stress I've been feeling about finishing my degree and entering the job market has gotten to the point where my brain is just unwilling to shut itself off long enough for me to get a decent night's rest. The BFP is not so immense that I can't afford to lose a couple of days here to getting my schedule back on track, but at the same time it felt like I put off studying for my big exams for too long there, and the last thing I want to have happen is for me to wind up cramming just to get that paper done by the deadline.
(Before anyone asks, sleeping pills don't work for me. Trust me, I've tried them.)
As for tonight, though, I'm kind of going to hang out here on campus for a little while, so that I don't have to deal with trick-or-treaters in the neighbourhood. At some point I'll have to take off shopping, though. To give you an idea of how out-of-the-loop I've been, I didn't even know that Final Fantasy XII was coming out today until late last night. As it is, I may not buy it tonight, simply because I don't think it would be wise for me to have it around my bedroom as a distraction until after I get the BFP done.
I didn't even realize Sarah McLachlan's new album was out until late last week, either. There was a time in my life when I'd make a point of buying every new album of hers (as well as those of Björk and Tori Amos) on the day it came out, but now I just don't see myself doing that anymore. I don't know if this is a sign that I'm too busy, or a sign that I'm maturing. I just know that it makes me feel old. OLD.
I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep here. The nights before both tests I didn't sleep at all because I was so nervous, and in between I really didn't sleep too much because I was so focused on doing as well as I could on my Japanese test. Of course, it would figure that right after my Japanese test I would get a monster sinus headache (at first I thought it was related to exam eyestrain but it wasn't) which has yet to relent.
I haven't started in on the BFP yet, but I figure this weekend I was entitled to some time off. I just wish I could have actually enjoyed that time off instead of being stuck in bed with all this pain.
Oh, and in regards to the World Series ... sigh. I wasn't paying too much attention to start with (I knew that the moment the Tigers were predicted to win the series they'd blow it), but after Game 2 winning or losing became kind of irrelevant. I never liked Kenny Rogers to start with, and once he got caught with that gunk on his hand, the whole series was tainted. Even if the Tigers had won, their victory would have been strongly tainted at best.
I just got done with my Japanese exam, and good grief are my eyes hurting. I realize that pocket dictionaries, by their nature, have to use small text in order to fit in so much information in such a small physical form, but when it comes to looking up kanji I need bigger characters to look at. My eyesight is perfect, but after a while my eyes just seemed to fail me when it came to looking up kanji.
Now on to the BFP. Even though I'm done reading literature, I've got a bunch of theory stuff to read through, and I'll probably be spending most of the next couple of weeks or so buried in books. I just hope my eyesight returns to 100% here soon.
Oh, while I was out last weekend getting my Japanese dictionary (I'd previously used online dictionaries when it came to Japanese translation which weren't allowed for the test), I also picked up Keith Olbermann's new book. I'm not too happy that he just recycled his old "Worst Person in the World" scripts for the book and added hardly any new material at all, but I guess I still felt compelled to buy the book to try to move the marketplace towards Olbermann's direction. (Even though I don't like the increasingly disingenuous techniques he's using to characterize the right.)
MA Literature Exam: PASSED OMFG HOW
I don't take it any of you could look at this and tell me where I'm screwing up, could you? Sigh.
(The foreign language department still hasn't even told me when and where the test will be. This is getting distressing.)
NEVER AGAIN.
If I don't pass, then I'll just have to see what kind of job a BA in Creative Writing can get me, even if it involves heavy use of the phrase, "Would you like fries with that?" I am not taking that test again, even if someone points a gun to my head.
Goddess, that was fuckawful. I'm not sure what to think. On the one hand, I lucked out in getting essay questions which enabled me to focus on the texts I knew best, as well as having a William Carlos Williams poem to explicate (I've studied WCW* a lot both in undergrad and grad) and all in all I think I wrote fairly lucidly and did what I felt was a passable job. On the other hand, one of the two professors grading the exam has a well-earned reputation as the hardest grader in all of the English Department, and I have no idea who the second professor is.
If the graders were any of the English professors I've done extensive studying under, I would be fairly certain of a passing grade right now. As it is, I just don't know what to think.
I'm taking the rest of the evening off from my studies here -- I can only hope to have enough energy to get through the Tigers game, let alone the late Red Wings game -- but then I get to turn right around tomorrow and bury myself deep in study for the Japanese exam I have next week. Then after that I have my BFP (BIG FUCKING PAPER) to take care of. Assuming there's even a point in doing any of them after I get the results of the exam back.
(* Anyone who makes the obvious joke here will receive a swift kick in the naughty bits.)
Don, we will avenge you.
Now if only I could be so certain about passing Saturday's exam ... *cry*
The MA exam is now just four days away, and of course I'm feeling that there is absolutely no way I can get this thing passed. Even with as light of a load as I've had this semester, and even with as much attention as I've paid to all the books on the list for the exam, I am just not feeling anywhere near the level of competence that will be necessary to pass this exam and give myself a shot at actually being able to get my degree at the end of the year.
My feelings towards this exam have moved through several stages already, and right now I'm at what could best be called the resentment stage. I resent the fact that I'm being forced to take this test when I've already got all the credit-hours I need in order to graduate. I resent the fact that the English Department thinks that a test like this -- something I've never had to take in any of my literature-based courses through my undergraduate and graduate careers (except for take-home exams where we could do things like consult the texts, use the Internet, and not have a significant time limit imposed) -- is necessary for me to prove my mettle as an English scholar. I especially resent the fact that even though the English Department on the one hand tries to cater to the fact that English grad students tend to be night owls by offering a plethora of late-afternoon and evening classes, the exam is scheduled to start at nine in the morning. On a Saturday. *headdesk*
The greatest part is that I then get to turn around the next week and take my big Japanese exam, and not only am I pretty much unable to study for that exam while I'm hip-deep in lit land, I still have no idea what day or what time the Japanese exam will take place. Guh. Oh, and then there's the 20-30 page paper that I haven't even been able to start pulling references for yet.
In short, if I write even less than usual here in the next couple of weeks, that's why. I've just got a little something called a career I could enjoy and make decent money at on the line here, and that's just a wee bit more important than blogging about weather or sports. At least for the time being.
DON, IT'S UP TO YOU. LET'S DO THIS.
In another sports-related bit, piss on local television for not carrying the Bengals game tomorrow, especially considering Tampa Bay's starting quarterback was UT's starting QB less than a year ago. :P
It sounds like the snow that made its way across all the Northeast here made a fair bit of news, so I won't linger over that too much. Like I said, though, Monday we were up in the mid-70s for highs, which made yesterday contrast all the more.
Even with as little as I've gotten out lately, I can tell that this is really going to screw up the foliage season around here; even looking outside my window now things seem dead as all get-out. Normally it's around this time of the year that I go out to do a foliage shoot for the Website, but even if we didn't have last night's super-early freeze to contend with, I just don't have time for that now.
The MA exam is a week from tomorrow. More on that later. Possibly AFTER the test itself, but hopefully not.
Well, yesterday I was going to make a post here saying how Little Caesars could continue to get my pizza orders wrong as long as the Tigers kept winning games there, but when word came out that it was Cory Lidle's plane that crashed into that high-rise I didn't really feel like making that post any more.
That's the least of our problems at the house, though, because two of my mother's cousins have died in the past week. I'm not following the details all that closely, but needless to say this is kind of making things hard for us here.
Oh, and while Monday we reached a high of 76, it was snowing fifteen minutes ago. More on that when I have the time to write about it.
On the way home tonight I picked up a large cheese pizza and a Crazy Combo at Little Caesars to eat during the first game of the ALCS. I had to go to a different Little Caesars than I normally go to, since the roads around my usual Little Caesars are all torn up and it's nearly impossible to get in and out of there.
When I got home the pizza was cold. And it had pepperoni on it.
Should the Tigers not win the World Series this month, I will remember this. Oh yes.
Yahoo! News: University of Toledo basketball player Haris Charalambous dies after collapsing in practice
For all of the sports-related deaths that have made headlines these past few years, I certainly never expected them to hit so close to home. I'm especially surprised to have this happen in basketball, since all the deaths I can recall hearing about were in football and usually related to practicing outdoors in super-hot weather.
It goes without saying, but my thoughts, along with those of everyone else at UT, are with Haris Charalambous' family right now in their time of grief.
Well, the family hasn't killed me yet. Those first couple of minutes after the Tigers' victory yesterday were pretty tense, but now everyone seems to be taking everything in stride. I'm a bit put off at all the champaigne celebrations I've been seeing in baseball, though; of course you break out the bubbly after winning the World Series, and I might even see doing so for winning the LCS, but for winning a Division Series? That strikes me as overkill, big-time.
By the way, I want it known that I still don't believe in either the wildcard or the three-division realignment of the last decade, which means that basically I don't think that the Tigers should have even been in the playoffs to start with. Sorry, but for all my political liberalism, I have a bit of a traditionalist streak when it comes to my baseball.
That all being said, there's something I've been wanting to get off my chest for about a decade now, and I suppose this is the best opportunity I've ever had to say it.
Ahem.
YANKEES SUCK!!!
That makes me feel a whole lot better. Of course, I'm fully expecting the Athletics to make mincemeat out of the Tigers to get back at me for Gibby's home run back in '88, but at least we made it to the LCS for the first time since the Reagan administration.
Don, just four more victories apiece and we're there, dude.
Two weeks to go until my big MA exam, and I'm still not all that confident in my ability to get it passed. Oh, and the real joy is that after I finish that exam, I'll have a big Japanese test to do the following week, although right now I'm not sure on the date. After that I'll have one last paper to write before I can get my degree -- twenty pages minimum -- but after the tests I think my life should be able to return to some semblance of sanity.
My main question right now is where I will go to do my exam reading today. Normally my first instinct would be to clear out of the house while the Tigers-Yankees game is going on, but if I leave the house for that then I'll miss the season opener of Hockey Night in Canada proper. (The show was on Thursday, but it was "bonus coverage" and Grapes wasn't in the studio.) Things would have gone much smoother if I'd managed to get out of the house last night, but I kind of lost track of time there. Eeesh.
About an hour ago I was ready to write about how I had Little Caesars in my tummy, Red Wings on my television, and that life was, if not good, at least as close to good as it gets.
Now the Wings are down 3-0, and the family is reminding me that I'm Public Enemy Number One around here thanks to the Tigers' victory earlier today while I was in class.
No, this doesn't make life suck, but this sinus headache I'm starting to develop doesn't help me any.
A couple of weeks ago the power steering went out on our old blue minivan. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that Mark uses our newer silver van to go to and from work, so this meant that I got stuck on an off-day from school driving my father out to the auto repair guy we've been using for years now, which is in kind of an out of the way, not very nice part of town.
Had this happened just once, this wouldn't have been an issue. However, as soon as we got the blue van home, the power steering went out again, which again forced me to drive my father out to pick the van up once it was fixed. Then, after bringing the van home, the power steering went out again. (In all fairness to the auto repair guy, he's done all the subsequent repairs for free.)
I thought I'd just take father out to the auto place again today and that would be the end of it. Silly me. As soon as I got home, my mother met me at the door and told me I had to go back to the auto place to pick up my father. Apparently as soon as he got out on the road, he discovered his brakes weren't working.
I'm not sure if this is because the van is so old or something's going on at the auto place or what, but I sure am getting sick and tired of it, and I don't even drive that van. This is ridiculous.
Seriously, did the Twins just try to hand the division to the Tigers, only to have the Tigers go, "No thanks, we'd rather go to New York and get pulverized by the Yankees" or something like that?
Yeah, so can anyone recommend any places around town I can stay until the Yankees advance to the ALCS? And can I please just get through one of my family's teams beating one of my teams in the playoffs without also losing one of our star players to injury?
I hate sports. Seriously.