You know you want to keep me, England.

So yesterday I sent my visa application to the Home Office (FINALLY OMG), and today I confirmed that they received it via the Royal Mail website. My immigration adviser told me that the turnaround time on these things is 6-10 weeks, but it's closer to 6 weeks at this time of year (presumably because most people want to keep their passports so they can go home for the holidays - excellent, this benefits me.) Now I just have to sit here for the next 6 weeks and worry until all my hair falls out. Don't make me go back to the States! I don't want to! Their chocolate is terrible and all their DVDs cost too much!

"I suppose this is why I'm an archaeologist and not a prostitute."

NEVER SAY THIS TO YOUR MOTHER.

Even if 1.) she started it and; 2.) her version of the pre-college "talk" was "I'm only paying for one abortion, so be careful."

Still alive. Just BORED TO TEARS.

So, as it turns out, although I passed my Master's and I'm getting a degree in January (not that anyone but me was actually concerned, but I'm tired of apologizing for my neuroses) the university cannot release a letter to this effect until December 7th, and without this letter I cannot send out my visa application. Why can't they release this letter, even though I have passed and been approved by their committee and everything? I have absolutely no idea. England is full of random insanity like this. Unfortunately, I still have no job and am now even less likely to get one as my student visa is expiring in January, and that just doesn't look good on applications. I am bored to the point where I am considering doing things like crouching on top of the wardrobe and gnawing on my toenails. I don't think being out of school agrees with me. Also, I am broke and cannot entertain myself very well without classes to study for, although I do get free books and sometimes I break down and buy cheap DVDs.

Once I beat my way through the last of the arbitrary roadblocks and send off this damn application (I'm guessing that at some point it will become necessary for me to grab someone by the collar and scream directly into their face, as politeness is clearly not getting me far) it will be 6-10 weeks to process, rather than the 3 I was told before. This means I will not be going home for Christmas, as the government will have my passport. I am less than broken up about this. I fully expect my mother to contact me soon and try to coax a tearful admission that I wish I were going home for Christmas out of me, but I won't be able to oblige. I'm afraid the best I will be able to do is a sarcastic "Oh, yes, I'm so upset. You know how I hate the quiet and how terribly homesick I've been over the past 15 months, and how I've missed the US and its inferior chocolate." There will be a brief discussion about my teeth, and that will be the end of it. I did consider using "But I'm going to be all alone in a creepy house in a foreign country for Christmas!" on the university's registry department in an attempt to get my paperwork faster, because boredom and frustration have made me into a terrible person, but I refrained.

So, that's it. I would like to update more often, but there is NOTHING HAPPENING and it's making me INSANE.

Progress is made

Well, today that place I interviewed at actually called me back (FINALLY) and said they had hired someone who had actually done that exact job before, so at least I feel less like I totally blew my interview or something.

Also, my parents and NephthysWrath both said that, given that I was told I would have my official results by late October or early November, it was time to storm the castle, so I went up to the university and ran around demanding an explanation from people. But, apparently, if I come back next Friday they should be out, and I can get a printed copy rather than waiting for them to be mailed to me, so I can maybe, hopefully, if things actually go my way, have my visa application out by next Saturday. I am not at all sure I used enough commas in this paragraph, so here is another one.

I would also like to say that the boiler in the house just went out, so there is no heat or hot water, and it is freezing and pouring rain and the wind is actually howling, so this is all splendid. And of course I discovered this when I went to take my shower, and the water wouldn't heat up, so I'm sitting around in a bathrobe waiting for the landlady to get here and do something. (What she will do, I'm not sure, but I will be extremely agitated if I have to go to bed without a shower.) I guess at least the boiler went out before I managed to get in the shower at all, so at least I am not freezing and covered in soap.

Boredom

So, I'm still unemployed. I actually managed to get an interview with one place, but I was obligated to make my immigration situation clear to them (the amount of work I can do on my current visa is restricted), and you could see it not going over well, and it's been nearly a week and they haven't called me back (which kind of makes them assholes, actually) so I'm pretty sure that was a complete waste of my time. I submitted a bunch of applications for Christmas temp work, and no one's contacted me about that, either, which I think is because of both the visa thing and the fact that I have no retail experience. (Actually, it was also brought to my attention partway through the process that the master's degree is probably causing problems as well, but if I don't put that down they tend to wonder what my silly accent and I are doing here.) It's starting to really scare me, though, because I'll probably be okay until January or February with no income, embarrassing as it is to be mooching off my parents at the age of 25, but after that I'd better find someplace to hire me quick or I may have to give up and leave England, and no one wants that. I'm hoping I'll have a better time once I have the non-restricted visa and can apply for real jobs I actually qualify for, and after Christmas, because around this time of year no one wants to do any hiring except for retail jobs.

It also sucks because if I do manage to get a retail job, I will not be going home for Christmas (and getting my teeth cleaned, because my mother is obsessed), but if I don't get one, my parents might insist I come home this year, and it would be nice to be able to start planning now-ish. Oh well.

Speaking of the non-restricted visa. I submitted my dissertation TWO MONTHS AGO. WHERE ARE MY OFFICIAL RESULTS? Why are you people so slow? I need them to apply for my non-restricted visa, and I need that soon, dammit!

I hate sitting here in limbo.

Because I am so eyeball-clawingly bored, I spend a lot of time at the used bookstore, and that is also bad. I think I have only once managed to leave that place without another book, and when you're beginning to be afraid that you're going to have to leave the country shortly, more possessions are the last thing you need. But they have expensive archaeology textbooks! And that book I loved when I was 10 and had totally forgotten about, and all those books I had to leave at home when I came here, and miss terribly! (Those are actually okay, though, since if I do have to leave in January, I can just donate them back and go home to my original copies.) And so I keep dragging them home and stacking them up against the wall of my bedroom, and there are lots of them now.

I'm also learning to cook for myself. My mother says cooking is men's work, but since I don't date, I unfortunately have to learn to do these things myself. I used to do some when I was living in the apartment in LA, but most of that came from cans, and I'm trying to do more complicated things now. It's actually not that bad - everything I've made so far has at least been edible, and some of it was really good. Earlier this week I made up my own recipe for seafood paella, and was extremely proud of myself. No one actually taught me how to cook, but I know most of the basics because I used to hang around in the kitchen annoying my dad when he was trying to make dinner, so I picked up most of the basics that way. But I can't say I particularly enjoy it, so I do things like make a huge batch of pad thai and then microwave portions of it for the next three nights.

But I believe my point was that I am bored, so bored I would even be almost happy to work retail, so you know it must be bad. Also, I hate not being in school And I really, really hope my search for museum jobs I qualify for goes better than my search for retail jobs that are totally beneath me.

Dear England,

Giant 20-minute fireworks displays, while pretty and very much appreciated, are not how you celebrate Halloween. Halloween is celebrated by dressing up in costumes, eating candy until you feel sick, and, if you're me, reading Poe. (Actually, when I was still living at home I did not get to read Poe, because my dad used to make us listen to the original radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, the one that freaked out everyone in New Jersey, but that is neither here nor there.) I know you guys like your fireworks, but it's Guy Fawkes in 5 days anyway. And it's not just one of you, there are at least 5 of you going right now. Try to restrain yourselves.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Antares

No, I am actually alive.

Sorry about that. First there was no Internet, and then there was laziness. Anyway, this is what I've been doing:

I went on vacation (in England, of course) with my parents. A large percentage of this vacation consisted of them trying to keep me out of used bookstores. "Look at that fascinating piece of architecture over there!" my dad would say. "There's a used bookstore right behind me, isn't there?" I would say. Other highlights included many, many archaeological digs and museums, because of course what I need right after completing a year of demanding archaeological study that I was completely unprepared for is more archaeology, just to unwind, you know. I got back at them, of course, by telling them in excruciating detail about the paleopathological conditions every set of human remains we encountered was suffering from, just to see my dad get the vapours. It serves him right.

I spent a week fighting with my Internet provider. It sucked. But I do have internet at the house now, although my router is in someone else's room. Thank god for wireless.

I looked for retail jobs, because I still have my student visa and have restrictions on what kinds of jobs I can have. I still don't have one. I can't decide whether it's my complete lack of retail experience (dude, I do not belong in retail, I'm only doing this as a last resort, and hoping to get through a few months without taking someone's face off), the American thing, or the fact that my master's degree makes me overqualified. But I can't leave those last two off because otherwise they will wonder what I have been doing with myself these past 6 years, and why I am talking so funny. Someone had better hire me soon, or I'm going to have to stop eating, and no one wants that. Trust me, you don't.

I had my birthday, and I turned 25, making me unbelievably old. NephthysWrath sent me blue irises, which are my favorite, and are incidentally the very first flowers anyone has ever given me. I know, I need a better social life. My grandfather sent me a card in which he expressed in not-so-veiled terms his incredulity at my decision to become an expatriot - this from the man who used to rent his house out every summer and use the money to go travelling in France. People in glass houses, that's all I'm saying. My parents sent me a new MP3 player, because the Nomad is now 5 and is beginning to show signs of acquiring a personality, which is not a quality you want in your electronics. The new one is also a Creative Zen, so hopefully it will be good for another 5 years. It has a color screen and can play video, and is so far removed generationally from the old one that it took me a full day to work through all the menu options, because they were completely unrelated to the ones I'm used to. David sent me X-Files Season 5, because that's what I told him to send, because whenever he has to buy gifts for women he consults me, and he can't have been learning very much.

Finally, I decided to volunteer at a used bookstore, because I'm getting bored sitting around the house. Actually, I passed "bored" a while ago, and now I'm moving into "psychotic." I hate not being in school, and I can't find a retail job, and the used bookstore people were all "Well, you can come here for a few hours a day and sit behind the till and read books, and also have some of them for free, we have plenty," and so naturally I said "YES PLEASE, I'll have some of that," and now I'm afraid of what my room is going to look like when I inevitably have to move.

There. You're all caught up.

The Dissertation...

...is done and handed in.

I can't believe it's over. More to the point, I can't believe I did this. This time two years ago, I did not expect to be announcing that I had finished all the work for my Master's in Archaeology.

Awesome.

Stuff

I need job interview clothes. This will probably be black pants and a button-down shirt in some color that isn't white, because I refuse to wear dresses or skirts (that would mean dealing with my leg hair. No). I was explaining this to my parents, because obviously they are very interested in my getting a job, and my mother said "Well, you will need to wear a necklace with that. And I will need to inspect your necklaces beforehand, because I don't trust you." Sheesh. You wear one lousy metal collar, and buy a whole bunch of ribbon chokers, and suddenly they don't believe you when you assure then that you do, in fact, know what appropriate necklaces are. Also, how stupid do I think this whole necklace thing is? So stupid. They'll be lucky if I remember to take out my four extraneous earrings.

I think I have moved into a houseshare in the Twilight Zone. My housemates do dishes every day. It's bizarre. I used to live with people who refused to do dishes until there were clouds of fruit flies in the kitchen, and then I would cave in and do them, every time. (At that point I wasn't as nasty as I am now, so I didn't leave the dirty dishes in their beds.) But these people do dishes every day. They don't steal food, they don't lock themselves in the bathroom for hours, they don't hog the washing machine, they don't even leave toothpaste in the sink. If they listen to music, it's inaudible to me. They turn off lights, they remember to lock the doors and the gates, and they're quiet when they come home late at night. I hardly ever even see them. The guy I share a fridge with cleaned out exactly half of it when I got there. And they're all in their early to mid 20's. It's so weird. I was convinced that I was the only 20-something in the entire world who was capable of behaving.

And also. The landlady? Last week I came downstairs to make breakfast, and she was all "Oh, hi, I'll be resealing the sink today, and I'm going to put a lock on the garden gate." My last apartment? I had to threaten the landlords with paying my water bill for the month to get them to get off their asses and fix my leaking sink. Suddenly, I am really motivated to try and find a permanent job in the area, so I can stay here in the Twilight Zone. I don't even care if the landlady is keeping us all here to serve as hosts for the larvae of the giant alien bug in the basement.

My parents are coming on Thursday, and I have about 10 hours of work left on the dissertation - inserting the remaining pictures, formatting, and editing. I want to be able to turn it in on Wednesday, or Thursday morning at the latest. I am starting to panic about whether or not it is good enough, but I'm trying to ignore that because it's not like there's much I can do about it now, and anyway I'm probably being irrational. At least it's almost over.

Day 21, and irritation has set in

You know what is driving me particularly batshit about this dissertation? Without getting into specifics, the researchers I am using are depending upon works of art to tell them things about life in the past, and they keep praising these works as high quality and taking them as the gospel truth. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these researchers have no idea what they're talking about. Some of these "works of art" suck diseased monkey balls and remind me of when I was learning to draw and couldn't get anything aligned properly. Irises that aren't symmetrical don't necessarily indicate that the subject had a neurological disorder. Sometimes, they just indicate that the artist sucked. I'm talking particularly about Fayum portraits, which set me off today, but it applies to almost everything I've looked at. Yes, some of the artists were brilliantly good, but talent varies, and people seem to not be taking that into account. Some of them did indeed suck, just as many artists today suck.

And that's all I have to say about that. Maybe art school made me all opinionated, but have these researchers thought of, oh, maybe showing these to contemporary artists and asking about the validity of them? Because they seem to be totally unqualified to judge quality on their own and should seek help.

The Houseshare

So I finished paying all my fees and first two month's rent and all, and got the keys and codes so I can move into the houseshare. The room is decorated in green and orange, so the stuff I got for the bed this afternoon totally clashes (black and raspberry) but I'm really okay with that. Tomorrow I can start moving stuff down there so I can live down there and just work on the dissertation up here.

I was describing the place to my parents, and I think they were surprised. We were all expecting that I would end up with a slumlord, what with the fact that I currently have no job and a temporary visa, but I got unbelievably lucky. Around the time I was telling them about the newly redone floors, they asked me how much I was paying for this place again? because the landlady is in fact undercharging for it, in our opinion. I kind of never want to leave because I'll probably never get this lucky again.

Anyway, I'll post pictures of this place on the locked journal sometime around Thursday. I do still have to get Internet installed in my room. And, of course, I have to finish this damn dissertation.

It seems all that tuition money was well-spent

So, I'm watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I enjoy Indiana Jones because it reassures me that I am not the worst archaeologist to ever exist. About 20 minutes in, I send the following IM to my parents:

"Have you noticed that in the classroom scene, the pot drawings are the wrong way round? They're British, not American. In the UK we draw ceramics with the exterior on the right-hand side and the interior on the left, and in America it's exterior on the left and interior on the right. His pot drawings are clearly British. I think the set designers picked up a reference book from the wrong country."

A full semester of archaeological illustration, and I may not be able to get a job doing it, but by God I can nitpick movies. Go me.

I'm not homeless next month!

So the realtor just e-mailed and said that the landlords have everything sorted out on their end and would I still like to move in on September 1st, which I'm pretty sure means that I got the room. Excellent. Once I am allowed to move in I will post pictures on the locked journal, because I suspect this is the nicest room I will have for a long time, and it's certainly nicer than my room at home. I should add that the landlady referred to the room I wanted as "the orange room," which would have totally put me off if I hadn't seen it first.

There is no internet in the room. I'll have to get it installed. Also, the university doesn't kick me out until September 19th, and I am still working on the dissertation and have all my gigantic, heavy library books up here. So the plan is that I will cook and sleep down there, and work on the dissertation up here during the day. I keep nonperishable food up here, which I can just have for lunch, and I can make breakfast and dinner down there and that should cut my food bills by a lot, because, well, food you don't have to cook is expensive. Also, the bed down there is a double, and the one up here is a twin. I don't care for twin beds anymore because you can't put books in the empty space next to you. Also, the lightbulb in the nearest WC has been burned out for five days now and I am just so over university accomodation.

So that is the deal right now. I have somewhere to go before the university kicks me out. I am also about 1/3 of the way through the writing part of the dissertation. The job is still a problem. I'm applying for a full-time temporary job at the moment, but I actually really hope I don't get it, because it's basically on the other end of the country and now is not a good time to be moving around, but since I can apply for it without violating the terms of my student visa, I may as well do it for interview practice. I'm actually planning on just trying to get a part-time job at one of the bookstores around here in late September or early October when they need extra help before Christmas. So hopefully that will also work out.

I haven't heard anything further about my aunt. I'm worried.

One problem down, two remaining.

So I think I have found myself an apartment. Actually, it's a room in a houseshare. Which was hugely concerning to me for various reasons. I had initially found a studio apartment near the university, but when I went to actually look at it it was on the ground floor, and had two exterior doors that were mostly glass, which was terrifying, as well as having an enormous water stain on the ceiling. And then I spoke to them about it and the tenant isn't leaving until October, which clearly isn't going to do. And all the other self-contained apartments I found were much too expensive, so that was over before it even began.

So I started looking at houseshares. And houseshares are hugely worrying to me for a lot of reasons, but mostly because you don't get to pick your roommates, and I could end up with a houseful of party types who bring their drunk friends home every other night, and obviously I would have no choice but to kill them all and bury their bodies in the basement, or break my contract and move into one of the abandoned houses in the woods. But I can't afford self-contained apartments, apparently, and I have to have somewhere to live, at least until I get my work visa and can find a real job and maybe move to a smaller town. So I made an appointment for yesterday to look at the most promising houseshare, which said that it was cleaned every week by a professional. At least, I thought to myself, if my housemates spend all weekend puking in the shower, I won't have to be the one to clean it up.

So I met with the realtor yesterday to see the house, and oh my goodness, it's gorgeous. Hardwood floors and a newly remodelled kitchen and a Jacuzzi tub. And the room I would be renting has stained glass windows and an amazing view of the city. Basically, the realtor walked me through it, and I said "I would like to go back to your office right this minute and begin the application process." So all that was left before I can apply was to meet with the landlady and see if she approves of me, which is what I did today.

The situation is totally perfect for me. Apparently the landlady is very particular about meeting with her tenants before letting them apply because she is looking specifically for quiet people who can follow the house rules like doing washing up immediately and keeping things put away. She said that she was very clear to all her tenants about this not being a party house (which was a concern I had voiced, because drinking is such a cultural thing here), and given how nicely it's maintained, it obviously isn't. The atmosphere is supposed to be quiet - people can go out drinking, but they cannot bring drunk friends home or anything like that. She approves of me, obviously, so I've started the application process and hopefully I should get the room.

Now, I just have to worry about the dissertation and finding myself a part-time job.

Why hello there, life suckage.

I'm not doing too well. Besides the thing with my aunt, which I am mostly watching helplessly as people send me updates over Skype, I am trying to find a job and an apartment while I write my dissertation. It's not going well.

Oh, I do have appointments for apartment viewings lined up. But they all want four or five references and I just don't have the ability to give them references from my current employer or landlord, because I don't have either of those. So I'm going to have to ask them if they'll take references from the school and from my parents' employers (my parents did offer; they don't want me moving home any more than I want to move home) but that just doesn't make me look good.

And a job. Oh my God. I cannot find a job that pays me enough to live on and doesn't violate the terms of my visa. The problem is that I can't be in a permanent position while I'm on a student visa; it has to be a temporary one, and there just aren't that many of those. And even though I am quite happy to work in a bookstore or whatever, or just work two or three part-time jobs for a few months until I have my visa changed and can have a permanent position, the economy is so bad with all the store closures that no one is hiring. This is not good; I can't afford to stay here if I can't mostly support myself. There are some temp agencies that I will try as a last resort, but I don't know how steady an income I will be able to get if I do that.

So...this is all very worrying. I have seriously considered giving up and moving home. It would make sense - the decision to stay in England is a stupid one in a lot of ways. There are so many ways it could go horribly wrong, because immigration here, while not as soul-crushingly awful as in America, is extremely difficult. But, ultimately, I know that if I give up and move home, I will spend all my time regretting it and trying to think of ways to get back here, and at that point it will be even more expensive and impossible. So, even though it feels expensive and impossible now, this is the easiest it will ever be, so I may as well stay and struggle through. I can't help but wish I weren't trying to write a dissertation and worry about a family member at the same time, though.

I don't know what to call this

My dad just forwarded me a horrible e-mail. It said, in essence, that my aunt (my dad's sister), who has had Lou Gehrig's disease for more than ten years, is probably going to die. Evidently, the rough estimate is that she has approximately two weeks left, probably less.

It's not a surprise, really. My parents made sure to take me to see her last September before I left, and they told me then that they were doing it because they didn't think she would be around very much longer, and they didn't know when I would be coming back again. And she has been getting worse all year - my parents send me updates, and her health has just been spiraling downwards.

It's just that I feel so horribly, horribly guilty, and so helpless. Helpless because I'm over here and I can't get over there, and it's the first time I've really resented it. And because - what am I supposed to do? Should I e-mail her? What would I say? "I'm sorry you've been in hell for the past ten years, I'm sorry I could only talk to you once or twice a year, I'm sorry it hurts, I'm sorry you're dying"? It isn't like when my grandparents and great-grandfather died - by the time they died they were so far gone it was a relief for them. They were so sick they weren't aware. She is. She's in pain and on drugs and her body has turned to crap and she can only communicate by wiggling her eyebrows but she's still all there and completely aware. She must be terrified. What do you say? Do you say anything? I don't know. I wish someone could tell me what to do. I wish I could know that in ten years I won't still feel guilty for whatever I decide to do right now.

And I feel so guilty already, like I've already blown it. Because I knew when I came over here that she was probably going to die, but I was so preoccupied with feeling stupid and terrified and trying to keep up with everyone else and not lose my mind that I hardly e-mailed. I did, a couple of times. But I could have done more. I should have. And once you get an e-mail saying someone is dying it's impossible to think of things to say to them. It seems completely idiotic to talk about what I normally would, yammer on and on about my dissertation and my visa and my life when the person I'm saying it to is going to die. But what else do you talk about? You can't talk about them either.

I don't know what to do.

Technical Difficulties

The laptop I brought to England was never particularly good. My parents got it for me as an emergency backup when I was still at USC and had the desktop as a primary computer, and it was only supposed to be good enough to take notes in class and play movies to entertain me when I was trying to draw (why yes, I am horribly spoiled, why do you ask?) If I had needed a new laptop to be my primary computer, they would have gotten me a better one, but this one was never supposed to be more than a glorified typewriter.

Then, this whole England thing happened. They didn't really see it coming. Neither did I. But I couldn't bring the desktop, and my other laptop is 6 years old and was starting to show signs of computer senility about three years ago (my parents brought it over in December, to be an emergency backup in case this one died, but I'm kind of afraid to turn it on at this point). So I brought this one and I'm stuck with it, and it's beginning to act eccentic, which is never a good sign when you have a dissertation to write.

I keep Skyping my dad to beg for help, because the laptop only has half a gig of RAM, and playing music while running Word is at the very limit of its capabilities, and it's beginning to develop bizarre issues, like its recent refusal to insert more than one image into any given Word document (images are slightly crucial to my dissertation) and its inability to work with the software for my printer. (Also because I have a degree in art and I'm finishing up a degree in archaeology, so clearly computers were never my top priority.) And I have to give him credit. All his answers have been helpful, like "Why don't you try reinstalling Word, and installing Open Office if that doesn't work, and how about seeing if the computer stores in town have a scanner you can buy for under 50 pounds so you can at least grab all the images you need for your dissertation?"

As a totally random aside, he has done a good job of educating me about computers against my will. Last September he handed me a box and said, "NewEgg was having a sale on DVD burners. I got you a new one. Go install it in your desktop." And I did, because I knew how to, because he had made me build my desktop from parts he gave me, and I knew how to hook a DVD drive up. I was actually vaguely creeped out by the whole experience. I suspect, however, that if I ever get my desktop over here, he will amuse himself by giving me upgraded hardware "only if you can install it yourself," so it's good that I actually learned. He is, much like my mother, secretly evil.

Anyway. I feel it would be well within his rights for him to exclaim "Hey! I wrote both my master's and PhD dissertations on a typewriter! And I didn't like it, as a matter of fact, but by golly you can use the school's computers and stop whining to me about how you can't play music and run Word at the same time!" I am, in fact, very fortunate to be the offspring of a man who thinks that the perfect afternoon is an afternoon spent trying to reconfigure an obstinate hard drive to run with his operating system (as this is what he spent yesterday doing.) Still, I think I'm going to ask for a new laptop for my birthday in two months.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, Part 2

Look, I'm trying to write a dissertation here, and it's driving me a little bit crazy. I need to be able to go for walks at night without running into anyone. Please understand that, after sunset, the forest is mine to run around in, and I don't want to encounter anyone, especially anyone who is going to talk to me, because I really don't like that. I don't know why you're riding a bike in there when there's a foot of mud, and I especially don't know why you're hitting on me in the middle of the woods at night, because that is a really special level of creepy right there. Just go away. Please. You can come back when it's light out.

Also, if I see any more large black dogs running around in the woods at night, I'm confiscating them and keeping them (I've only wanted a dog for, oh, MY ENTIRE LIFE, and I've wanted a large black one for two years or so, ever since NephthysWrath told me about Big Black Dog Syndrome). You people are taunting me and it isn't nice.

Teeth, Part 3

As I avoid writing up an entry on the vacation (it was great, but it's going to take forever) I just have to share this one thing. My parents are coming out in September to "help me move" (which will apparently take 12 days - evidently we will be carrying individual socks along the city streets to wherever my new place is) and I wasn't sure if they were also going to come out for Christmas again, meaning that I will have to think of something to do about my driver's license, which expires in January. This afternoon, however, my mother Skyped me to do two things - demand that I send her Stephen Fry In America (it's not out there yet? What are you people doing over there?) and also to inform me that I have a dentist appointment on December 23rd. Apparently, the fact that I have not seen a dentist in 10 months is making her agitated. (She used to make me go every three months when I had braces.)

Yes, I am going back to the States just to get my teeth cleaned. And maybe do some things of lesser importance, like deal with my driver's license, celebrate Christmas, see NephthysWrath, and pry some of the books my dad has claimed away from him. But mostly, I'm getting my teeth cleaned.

Epic Adventures

Yes, it is in fact 4 in the morning. I am up at this horrible hour so I can get to the train station to go meet NephthysWrath's plane, and we can go have epic adventures for two whole weeks. I don't promise that any posts will get made this entire time on either the public or private blog because, you know, of the whole "I haven't seen my best friend in nine months" thing. However, after that, there most certainly will be posts.

Back July 20th!

Ulterior Motives

Since I can't start looking for a real job until probably December, I have to find someplace to live and a way to support myself until then. My plan is to stay here and look for work at the university (this would be things like shelving books in the library) or at one of the temp agencies around here, and find myself a cheap furnished apartment of some sort. That way, if I end up finding a real job around here (I really, really like it here, so that's what I'm trying to do), I don't end up moving to a completely random city and then moving back here, and also, once I apply for a real job they're apparently supposed to pay my travel expenses when I go to do interviews, which is awesome. So I won't be moving very far in September.

Last night my parents Skyped me to confirm the date I get kicked out of the dorm, and to let me know they're planning to fly out to "help me move." This is a transparent lie. I tried the "well, I'm staying in [city], and I know very nice people with cars, and even if I didn't I have suitcases on wheels, and it would probably only take a couple of trips to move all my stuff, and even if I decide I'm too lazy to do that, taxis aren't very expensive" logical approach, and they pretended I hadn't said anything and continued with the "Yes, mid-September? And we'll get there on a Friday? Very good."

This worked better for them when I was living in L.A. I genuinely needed their help to move around every so often because the people with cars generally left before I did and moving your stuff between storage facilities and apartments sucks, and sucks hard. And you can't do the suitcase on wheels approach when your stuff has to go into storage across the very, very large city because the dorm kicks you out in May and your apartment lease doesn't start until August and you're flying home anyway. They could pretend they were being magnanimous and, as long as they were there, suggest that we maybe take a trip down to San Diego or up to Monterey just for a few days, as long as they were there anyway, it might be nice to see, you know.

When I was in high school, I wondered why they didn't object to my looking at universities so very far away from home. I knew a lot of people whose parents wanted them to stay within neighboring states. Only once I had gotten into a California university, and it was too late, did their ulterior motives become clear. They can tell their bosses "Yes, we need time off to help our children move, it's terrible but the poor things are so far away, and so helpless, and we want to be supportive" and then take off for a week or two and travel. This is the real reason why my declaration that they will have to pry England from my cold, dead hands filled them with glee rather than horror. They have a lifetime's worth of excuses to go to Europe now. I don't know how long it will take before they have reached the point where they are claiming that they have to go to England to dogsit for a weekend, but I bet they can stretch it out until retirement at least.

They've now had six years with California, since David followed me there. They'll get at least two more, since he's going to grad school out there as well, and he may even move there permanently, what with all the aerospace programs there. My dad began by seriously hating on L.A., being all "It's all faded and gross-looking and it all looks the same," (..."you could have picked a school in San Francisco, you know" - he did not actually say this) and now he knows where that great hole-in-the-wall Ukranian restaurant is and how to get everywhere without using a map, a skill that apparently impresses his colleagues when they go out there for conferences. And now they're doing the same thing with England. They will come out here several times a year on a transparent excuse, like "we needed to help you move!" or "it's Christmas and you refused to come home!" They will get to know the area (they are already well on their way, and didn't need maps by the time they left here in December.) They will learn where all the good restaurants are and how to get to all the neighboring areas without using maps. They will consider retiring here (nooooooooo!)

They had kids so they could have an excuse to follow us around.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

When Connie Willis published Passage in 2002, I went out and got it and spent pretty much the entire summer reading it over and over again. One of the chapter headings had a quote from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, (the "Do you think death could possibly be a boat?" line), and I discovered that one of my parents had a copy of the play (I suspect it's my dad's) so I stole it and read it and it became my favorite play.

(Oh God. The Student Guildhall is playing Spice Girls at top volume. That has nothing whatsoever to do with this post, I just thought I would spread the pain around.)

Okay. Where was I? For some unfathomable reason it's suddenly really hard to think. Anyway, the next year was my senior year in high school, and we did Hamlet that year. I was in honors English, so we also had to read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (it may have been only part of the play, I don't really recall now) and watch part of the movie. I didn't remember anything about it really; I think we only watched about 40 minutes worth and called it a day. The only thing I seem to have retained from that experience is that loose sheets of paper were an ongoing visual motif.

So this past week I thought maybe I should actually watch the movie the whole way through, what with this still being my favorite play and all. And I'm usually really wary of watching movies made from books that I'm really attached to, but 1) this was a play, not a book, so it's meant to be performed anyway; and 2) Tom Stoppard directed it, so I figured he wouldn't screw up his own work.

Yeah.

I don't want to be one of those insane people who claims they know the author's work better than the author does, and that they're totally doing it wrong (see: Harry Potter fans). Those people need to stick their heads in a bucket of ice water. But either I've been totally misinterpreting this play for the past seven years (I admit this is a distinct possibility) or Tom Stoppard mangled his own play, or maybe the producer stepped in and mangled it, I don't really know. But in the movie, the ending is very different, and I think it really changed the play, and I didn't like it.

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern disappear. Hamlet sends them to England and we never hear from them again; in the last scene we find out they were killed, but they never show up again and we never see them die. They just fail to reappear. I had assumed that part of the point of Tom Stoppard's play was a commentary on the way they just vanish and are never heard from again. Guildenstern has a line in Act 2, delivered to the Player, that was a reference to this:

No, no, no...you've got it all wrong...you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen - it's not gasps and blood and falling about - that isn't what makes it death. It's jut a man failing to reappear, that's all - now you see him, now you don't, that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back - an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

And then, later on, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are killed, but we don't see it - it happens offstage, and we hear about it in the final scene.

In the movie, however, this line is cut, which made me mad because it's one of my favorites. What really pissed me off, though, is the fact that we see them die. I mean, either I missed the point, or the movie just went off in a totally random direction that ended up doing away with the original point of the play. I don't know. I thought the fact that they vanish in both plays and are never heard from again was the point, but maybe they needed visual drama or something.

I also didn't like Tim Roth's Guildenstern at all. Not one bit. (I always identified with Guildenstern and...no.) But that's a minor matter compared to the fact that either I've been misinterpreting this play for the past seven years, or Tom Stoppard allowed it to get mutilated this way.

More random stuff

You know what doesn't seem right to me, somehow? The fact that, if I pay money for a DVD, I get subjected to obnoxious anti-piracy ads that I can't skip through, whereas if I download the DVD (by that I mean, "Skype home and ask my dad to download it and send it to me"), or borrow it from the library and rip it, I'm not subjected to this irritation. I wonder what exactly these ads are supposed to accomplish. Somehow I don't think encouraging me to stop buying movies altogether and start pirating exclusively is the desired effect, but that's what they're doing.

Now that I have nothing to think about besides my dissertation and, eventually, trying to find a temp job and a shitty apartment, I would like to get some drawing done. Unfortunately, I'm so drained that I can't seem to have ideas. I used to have this sketchbook that I made when I was working on that Cabinet of Curiosities project I did during my senior year. I was practicing using a proquill pen and just collecting random material I thought was cool-looking, and I couldn't flip through that thing without having an idea. It was full of drawings of interesting stuff - seashells, dancers, animals, bones, gaslamps, pieces of 19th century architecture, just anything that was interesting to me. I left that sketchbook in the States and I need it. I suppose this is an indication that I should start another one.

Music, Part 2

So, I have this MP3 player. It's a Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra, by Creative, and I'm pretty much in love with it. My parents gave it to me for my 20th birthday, so it's coming up on five years old. I have dropped it on hardwood and cement floors, exposed it to toxic amounts of ceramic-related dust and other insidious art related substances, and taken it out in the rain at night on numerous occasions, and it still works perfectly. The leather case is beginning to disintegrate and the snap is rusting, the original earbuds it came with are long dead, and it has outlived two pairs of replacement earbuds I bought for it. The one age-related fault it has is that the original battery no longer holds a charge very well, and the replacement battery I got for it doesn't fit as snugly as it should, so that if I use the new battery the player will sometimes randomly shut off, so I can only use it for 6-7 hours away from a power source. Its copyright notice is from 2003, so it's from the Stone Age of MP3 players. I'm kind of hoping it will live forever, but if it dies I can tell you right now that there will be tears and its replacement will probably also come from Creative.

This afternoon, I learned how ancient it really is. I decided to use Amazon UK's MP3 download service (yes, I know) which downloads tracks to Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player tells me that the drivers for my MP3 player are outdated, and sends me to their website. Their website is baffled and sends me to the Creative website, which informs me that the Nomad Jukebox Zen is so old that it has been archived and "has reached the end of its service life." I can't even download updated drivers! That is so alarming. Fortunately, the software it came with doesn't realize that it's obsolete, so I can still put stuff on it. But still. I guess 6 years is a long time in MP3 player years.

Done! I mean, assuming I pass.

I was just talking to NephthysWrath, and she reminded me that, since I had my exam this morning, I'm done with all my coursework! I just have to do my thesis, and I have my Master's. (My thesis is fascinating. I would do it even if I didn't have to, I think.) Woohoo! I think I need ice cream.

If anyone is interested in reading about the thesis, I have a locked blog on Livejournal where I talk about that and other stuff I can't talk about here because of privacy issues. The LJ blog is here. If you don't have an account, just make a dead one and friend me. I'm only interested in controlling the amount of people that can see it, so that if someone steals my research, I have a short list of people I can blame.

Thank you for your hypocrisy

I'm having a fight with my mother. Unfortunately, she is completely unaware that we are having a fight, because despite the fact that I have repeatedly called her on her bullshit, whenever we fight about this particular subject she resorts to patronizing me and assuming that I will inevitably come around to her point of view. She's extremely talented at completely missing the point.

My mother is convinced that I am going to get married and have kids.

That isn't even why I'm so angry. This happens to me all the time. When I was finishing up at the community college and getting ready to go to England, people kept telling me that I was going to fall in love with someone and not want to leave. It irritated the hell out of me, sure, but I couldn't really be angry with them because they didn't know me and I didn't know them. It annoys me that people are allowed to make assumptions about other people, but ultimately it doesn't matter because I don't care about those people anyway.

The thing is, I do know my mother and she does know me. And I know that she considers herself a feminist. And, as I've said before, the point of feminism is choice. I can choose to be a housewife, which would be a horrible decision, or I can choose to do what I want, which is buy myself a house and a dog and be happy with my own company for the rest of my life. (I am unbelievably grateful that I live in a time where, although there is still societal pressure to get married and spawn, I'm not going to get burned at the stake if I choose to live alone all my life.) And this is what makes me so goddamn angry. Because my mother's continual patronizing insistence that I'm going to get married whether I say I want to or not means that she thinks I don't have a choice, and that, by extension, none of us has a choice. Like our pathetic womanly little brains cannot actually choose anything for themselves because they will be overridden by their own biology. She's basically invalidating feminism by saying that even though we theoretically have choice, it doesn't matter because we're incapable of taking advantage of it. And no matter how many times I point this out to her, she refuses to understand me.

I'm not even saying she's wrong. It's been made extremely clear to me in the last couple of years that you can very easily get sucked down a path you never intended to go near. I can't say with 100% certainty that I will never marry (only 99%. Really, you'd think she'd never met me at all). It's her refusal to admit that she might be wrong, and that I am not predestined to get married and have kids just because I happen to possess a uterus, that makes me so angry.

Music

I found something I don't like about England. (Well, aside from the fact that it doesn't contain NephthysWrath, obviously. That's a huge drawback right there.) I've said before that they are better at movies than America is. There is way more stuff in print, and although new movies can be very expensive (at current exchange rates, something like $22-$25 for a DVD that's just come out) the prices drop very quickly, and older movies sell for much less than they do in the States (on Amazon UK, nearly all the movies I've bought have been $5-$6 or less.) It's completely bizarre, and the opposite of what I expected, but I'm not about to argue with it.

However, they are terrible at music. Absolutely terrible. It may be that I haven't found the right places to look, but I cannot find CDs I want for the life of me. I realize buying CDs makes me a little ridiculous, but they monitor your internet usage here, and the last thing I need is to get kicked out of the university for stealing music. And buying MP3's is hugely problematic for various reasons, so if I'm going to pay money I want a hard copy. I recently decided that Black Lab is my new favorite band, and I want all their stuff. (I don't change favorite bands very often. I have had the same two for....oh my God, five years now.) Amazon UK, however, will only sell me their first album (which is bizarre all by itself, because that one's out of print.) Even their sellers don't have any of the others. I'm going to have to get them sent from America. I'm deeply irked by this, because I don't want to pay $15 for shipping and wait three weeks. It's not just this one band, either, it's just that this was the only one I was willing to pay money for (everything else can wait until I have an unmonitored internet connection). I looked for other stuff by American bands, just out of curiosity, and they generally either have nothing, or they have only one out-of-print CD. This is not okay. Internet radio is all well and good, but I can't take it for walks with me.

Visas

Okay. I think I might finally have this figured out, after weeks of flailing desperately around.

The deal with the post-study work visa is, you can't have one until you've completed your course and gotten your official results. In my case, I will probably get them sometime around October or November. You also need to have had 800 pounds or more in your bank account for the past three months, and you have to apply within a year of finishing the course. This is, however, if you're applying from within the UK. If I were to finish the course, go back to the States, and try to apply from there, I would need to have had 2800 pounds in my bank account for the past three months. Leaving aside the fact that I don't want to go back to the States because I live here now, I don't have an extra $5,000 sitting around to leave in a bank account for three months, so I need to apply from within the UK. But, I need to be able to work to support myself, obviously, between when I finish in September and get kicked out of the dorms, and when I finally get the work visa in December.

The International Support people at the university say that once I finish the course I should be able to get my work provision changed so I can work fulltime until my student visa runs out, which is in January. I can't fill a permanent full-time vacancy, and I think this translates to "you must work a shitty temp job," but it means I can afford to stay here, which means I can afford to apply for the work visa. It's not an ideal situation, and everyone I have griped to in the past few weeks agrees that it's kind of on the ridiculous side, but I'm willing to put up with a slightly humiliating job for a few months if it means I get to stay here.

I probably shouldn't waitress, though.

FINALLY

Connie Willis is putting out a new book! In February of 2010, yes, but the last one she published was in 2002, and she's been putting out nothing but novellas for years. And also I am a little upset about having left The Winds of Marble Arch in the States, because it's the size of a dictionary, but I have wanted to read "The Curse of Kings" on approximately 68493206420 separate occasions while doing this degree. And I only brought half her books with me, and no one over here sells them. I need a new book, one that's more than 90 pages long.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

I like to go for walks alone at night. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned this about ten million times, but I'll just repeat it once again. The first semester I was at USC, my drawing class was at night, and the professor told us to go out, pick a spot on campus, and draw it, because the lighting is much more dramatic at night. I promptly became addicted to wandering around at night, because everything is so pretty, and the sun doesn't get in my eyes, and people are way, way less likely to randomly speak to me. But mostly it's the "everything is so pretty" part.

Also, I need a lot of exercise. Like, a completely ridiculous amount. Walking and running is time I use to think. During the summer, when I was at the coast house and had nothing to do but study and work on the house, I used to go for a 7-mile run in the morning and a 9-mile walk at night. This is also the reason why I feel I need a dog - it makes an excellent excuse. Normal people do not need two 7-mile walks per day. People look at you funny when you tell them that you do. But, of course, it's totally not me that needs a 7-mile walk, it's the dog. Really. I feel, like, totally put-upon that I went and got a big dog that needs soooo much exercise.

You see where this is going, right? See, winter here was great for me because I could go out once it got dark at, like 5:30 and be out for hours and hours. It was fantastic. I could walk 12 miles in the dark and be back before 9 pm. But now the sun doesn't even go down until 9:15 pm, and it doesn't get dark enough for me to go out until nearly 10 pm. And, although I don't have classes anymore, I still have to get up at a reasonable hour because I have meetings to go to and research to do for my dissertation. I am going quietly insane from lack of exercise because I cannot justify staying out until 1 am every night. And the sun rises at 5:10, so morning isn't any good either. I'm not willing to get up at 4 am. Bring back the ridiculously short days, dammit!

Psychological Experiments

Today's Skype conversation (my parents Skype every Sunday):

Dad: I saw a newspaper article a few days ago that was rather puzzling.
Dad: It was about celebrity moms talking about what books they read their children, and what their favorite lines were.
Dad: not once was "String, or nothing!" mentioned, and no one mentioned "Three rings for the elven kings under the sky" Isn't that strange? What else would you read your children?
Antares: That is odd. I thought "String, or nothing!" was everyone's favorite line.
Antares: but you didn't read them to David.
Antares: Did you experiment on us? Was he the control? Are you going to write up the results?

My dad seriously did read me Lord of the Rings when I was little. We started with The Hobbit when I was in kindergarten, and finished Return of the King when I was in fifth grade. Apparently, I could not pronounce the orc's names, so we used shorter nicknames for them. Watching the movies years later was a totally weird experience - I remembered the name Strider, for example, but Aragorn meant nothing to me. David doesn't read anything that isn't standard Hero's Journey fantasy/sci-fi. I bet this is why. Childhood Lord of the Rings deprivation.

As awesome as that part might have been - seventeen years later, I am still bitter about being given a copy of Dogsbody, and then, a week later, being told that I couldn't have a puppy until I was all grown up (that is, like, a million years away when you're seven. Not to mention I am grown up now and I still can't have one.) If my parents complain about the quality of the care they receive in old age, I intend to remind them of that little incident. They did give me a telescope when I was 18, but I have stewed in my bitterness for 17 years now, especially since I can no longer name my dog Sirius. So much repressed rage.

Get Over Yourself

I was in class the other day (my LAST CLASS, incidentally) and my professor actually mentioned this, and I was overjoyed, because it's been one of my pet peeves for years now.

I understand that underdog academic disciplines seek validation. I do. I used to be an art student, and I know perfectly well everyone thinks artists are a bunch of navel-gazers who never say anything worth thinking about. Do you know why? Because we use absurdly inflated language to validate ourselves. Academic disciplines, especially the liberal arts ones, are under the impression that no one takes their ideas seriously, and so they use inflated language to encourage people to think of them as more important than they are.

Really, it does liberal arts disciplines a disservice. If you cannot make yourself understood, what is the point of any of your work? "Accessible" is an insult within the academic community, but if you aren't accessible to the general public, what good is your work? Certainly, you can respond to academic peers who use the same sort of inflated language, but who is going to read your paper, and what good is it to the population in general? And if you think your idea needs inflated language to justify its existence, maybe you should question whether you even need to say it in the first place.

AUGH

How did it get to be the last day of classes so soon?

Okay, I guess technically I have been here for nearly 8 months, and really that's a long time, although it doesn't feel like it. And the exam period lasts until mid-June. And I do have to spend the summer here writing my dissertation, so that's another four months I can stay here. But still. It will be at least another year and a half before I ever have class again, assuming I get into a PhD program that soon, or ever. And I've spent almost the past 20 years in school, and, you know, I really like school, and it's the only thing I know I'm good at, so you will excuse me if I clutch my head and reel a bit.

Geekery

Since my family's hobby is to annoy the living hell out of each other, I spend quite a lot of time trying to trick my dad into watching things he will hate. I consider this fair payback for the fact that since I let my dad use my computer in December, I seem to have Galaxina on my hard drive.

Anyway, this week, I thought I would attempt once again to talk him into watching House M.D., even though I know he would hate it, because there is very little other damage I can do from over here. And I thought I would do it by telling him that House is based on Sherlock Holmes, because my dad is completely obsessed with Holmes.

You know what you shouldn't do? You shouldn't engage with geeks on their own ground. Because he somehow hijacked my discussion and I got dragged away into a terrible world where everyone likes Basil Rathbone's Holmes but the guy who plays Watson is totally doing it wrong, and Dad didn't like Jeremy Brett's Holmes at first until he reread the books and realized he was actually playing the character very close to the way he was written, and the ones with Peter Cushing are just fantastic, and incidentally, why is Seven Percent Solution out of print, because that movie is probably the best one, and have I read the books with Joseph Bell, or the ones by David Pirie, I would really like those, and oh my God I'm sorry I ever said a word. It didn't stop until I found him a copy of Seven Percent Solution on Amazon UK (it is not out of print here, and sells for less than five pounds, as opposed to the $100 that they charge on Amazon US, because for some reason the British are better at DVDs, and that is part of the reason why I intend to stay here) and told him I was buying it and having it sent to him.

So yeah. Learn from my mistake and do not let someone else defeat you with geekery.

What makes you say that?

Yesterday, when I was discussing loans and what the hell I'm going to do with myself and other fun stuff with my parents over Skype, I had basically the following conversation with my dad:

Antares: "...and I want a job at a museum or something, where I don't have to interact with the general public, but the economy is so bad that I'm afraid I might have to take a job as a waitress or something just to be able to stay here."

Dad: "That...that may be the worst idea I've ever heard. Don't do that."

I have no idea what he's afraid of. I'm sure I'd be able to last at least 3 days before I told my very first obnoxious customer exactly what I thought of him. And it might be a whole week before I got fired for mouthing off.

Stuffed Animals

So it occurred to me this evening that I haven't sent my cousin's tragically named child a present yet. I asked my mom what I should do, and she said they have a gift registry at Babies 'R Us, but that most of the stuff I can afford has already been bought. Then, she told me that there was not a single stuffed animal on the list, and I was totally shocked. Dude, a stuffed animal is the first thing you need! The first thing I got when I was born was a little brown teddy bear, from my grandparents. I still have it. So, obviously, the kid needs a stuffed animal, especially since I can totally afford one. To Amazon!

Okay, I was totally cheated on the stuffed animals when I was little. Did you know they have narwhals now? And African wild dogs? And pteranodons? And California condors? It's so unfair. I had, like, 20 variations on the teddy bear, and some cats, and a bunch of dogs (the dogs I liked, of course - "doggie" was actually my first word, go me), and some random things from Disney movies, and a couple of wolves, and a dolphin, and an orca. I seem to remember a triceratops, too. I would have killed for a narwhal. That would have been the coolest thing ever when I was five. It may still be the coolest thing ever. I demand awesome stuffed animals for myself!

I couldn't get any of these for Tragically Named Child, unfortunately. All the best ones had wires in them, or unsafe things like that. I got him a floppy chocolate lab (dogs > teddy bears). And now I wish I had an excuse to buy these cool stuffed animals FOR MYSELF.

(I did feel dumb typing the kid's name into the gift card. I didn't think any real-life name could be worse than "Albus Severus," and yet...this one may be. I'm sure the Amazon employees will laugh, and I will not blame them. This kid is going to spend his entire high school career prying himself out of lockers unless he learns to fight dirty.)

Why The Inability To Choose Our Siblings Is Truly Tragic

David has a girlfriend. A real one, who he met in real life and has actually spoken to. I don't know what happened to WOW girl and I don't care. I don't talk about his life unless he suddenly makes it relevant to mine, which he has lately. Repeatedly and with no mercy whatsoever.

The problem is, he keeps asking me things about her. Not awkward and scarring things, thank God, but mysterious and perplexing things. Things like, "What should I get her for Christmas?" "What should I do for Valentine's Day?" and, this morning, "Her birthday is coming up. What should I do?"

Dude, I don't know. I am the very last person in the world you should be asking about relationships, as I have never had one and really shouldn't anyway, given that some days I think I am only pretending to be a woman. I may be the least romantic person in the world. If a man gave me roses, it would only piss me off, as it would mean he wasn't paying attention. If he gave me a book on recognizing leprosy in the archaeological record, I would probably sleep with him.

Unfortunately, I know perfectly well that David has even less of a clue than I do, and his only other option is to ask our mother, and just thinking about that makes me die a little inside from sympathetic embarrassment, so I do the best I can. But I feel like this poor girl deserves better than I can do. I haven't even met her and I like her. She gave David a copy of the Silmarillion for his birthday (a book! That he will actually read! If he doesn't marry her, we should adopt her) and apparently her celebrity crush is James Dean, so obviously she has better taste than I do (I have to be drunk before I can even think about thinking about my current celebrity crush, it's that bad. They keep going downhill. Stupid hormones.) And she is dating my brother, who is getting his relationship advice from a girl who spends her Friday nights in her room, reading forensic taphonomy textbooks. When I meet her, I feel like the first thing I should do is apologize.

So, yeah. David can cook (the men in my family can cook, and the women generally can't, although I am very good at spice cookies and rum balls) so, as a general rule, I told him to make her dinner. Presents, though? I don't even know. I mean, if you bring me books I am thrilled, but apparently most people don't like that, so I'm kind of at a loss. I think for Christmas I told him to get her a pashmina and some Thorton's chocolate, and at that point I had exhausted my repertoire of generic "girly" presents. The best I remember being able to do for Valentine's Day was "no jewelry, but no stuffed animals either," so I have no idea what happened, but if they are still dating, it can't have been too bad. This morning David, probably sensing that I am running out of ideas, suggested that he could get her a James Dean poster, and I couldn't think of any reason why not. But then he said he wanted to get her a DVD, too, and I have to wonder if he's ever even looked at my DVD collection, because I sure wouldn't trust me to pick out a decent movie. I own Radioland Murders, the 1997 horror version of Snow White, and the Dinotopia miniseries, for heaven's sake. My parents won't even watch any movie I bring them without looking it up first.

This is why I feel we should get to choose our siblings, because it is totally unfair that David should be stuck asking me for advice about these things. He could have a nice, normal sister, one who bothered to learn the generally accepted relationship rules and who knows what movies other girls like. Instead, he has me. Tragic.

Stuff

I'm currently procrastinating on writing my mini-dissertation. I have nearly all the research done and a week left of my spring break, so I should have it done before I have to go back to class, anyway. The problem is that my mother is salivating at the prospect of reading it, because it's on a facet of paleopathology, and I get my appreciation for the gory details from her. So she keeps Skyping me and demanding that I send it to her, because I promised her it would be done sometime around last Friday. I have yet to write a single word of it, because I made the mistake of picking up Dumas, and every time I do that it takes me days to pry my brain loose. I'm still in the middle of The Count of Monte Cristo, and it won't let go. She's reached the point of 3 exclaimation marks per demand, and I estimate that we have about 24 hours to go before she deploys the interrobang. Help.

I want a helix piercing. I've been thinking about getting one for a while, and now would be great, because I might be seeing my parents again in September, and then again I might not, so it'll be a while before I have to face the inevitable disapproval. Only, I need a job soon, and there will probably be interviews, and I already have four extra earrings to take out before each interview. Dammit. I'm also beginning to despair of ever getting my tattoo. I designed it three years ago, and I was going to get it after waiting one year, around the time I finished my undergraduate degree. The problem is, either I have no money, or I have money but I don't know any tattoo artists good enough to do it. Right now, not only do I not have money, I don't even have anyone to ask about tattoo artists. (I got a recommendation from my ceramics professor while I was still living in LA, but at that point I had no money. Then I got another one in New Jersey, but again - no money.) And no one in the archaeology department appears to have tattoos, so I don't know who to ask. Darnit, someday I will get this tattoo, I swear it.

Also, right now I do not like my figure. It may be that I'm not used to looking at it, as I've worn 3 shirts and a baggy sweatshirt for the past 7 months, and before that I ran around in oversized t-shirts. But it's like Southern California out there right now, and I obviously can't go around in giant sweatshirts when it's 60 degrees and sunny out, and I'm trying not to dress like I stole my clothing from the nerdy brother I do not have, so I've been wearing fitted t-shirts. I don't like it. My figure is so ridiculously Victorian that I feel like I should be wearing corsets and low-cut gowns, not jeans and t-shirts. Every time I see my reflection I want to run back to my room and hide under the bed. I feel like I look absurd, and I've been cranky lately anyway, and it's not helping my state of mind.

And, Warner Brothers? I will cut you. NephthysWrath is visiting me in July, and we're planning to visit Paris, and London (I still haven't been, which is incredibly frustrating to me, as it's literally right over there and I don't have time to go) and see Half-Blood Prince at midnight. At least we were, until they went and changed the release date from Friday to Wednesday, messing up all our careful plans. For one thing, now we won't be in Paris for Bastille Day, which is not cool. I am irritated.

Finally, whose genius idea was it to have my exam from first semester in June? I have basically forgotten everything that ever happened in that class, and now I am trying to remember everything and it isn't working. I'm going to have to go track down the professor and make a total nuisance of myself, asking her to reexplain everything. This wouldn't be happening if I were somewhere besides The Department of Random Insanity.

So my cousin had a baby.

And this gives me an opportunity to talk about the overwhelming creepiness of my mom's side of the family!

So. We are talking about my oldest cousin, on my mom's side of the family. (I have 6 cousins, 4 on one side and 2 on the other, and all of them are girls. This is just a fun fact that has nothing to do with anything.) She's the first one in this generation to reproduce, since the rest of us are still preoccupied with college or grad school (on both sides of my family, if you do not go to grad school, you bring Shame upon your parents. Seriously. I have one cousin who is not planning to go, and she is, like, the black sheep.) Also, no one in my family reproduces before the age of 30. I don't really know why, probably because of the grad school thing, but it means my parents can't harass me about my refusal to date for at least another few years, which is fine by me.

So my cousin has the baby, and it's a boy, and all is well. And then my mother tells me what she named it, and I am floored. I obviously cannot tell you what she named the poor thing, but trust me, it was bad. Apparently they decided to give it a surname from her husband's family for a first name, and a surname from ours for a middle name. And it was not a good combination. Because the surname from our family is an actual first name (somewhat archaic, but I've come across it) and the surname from her husband's family is nothing that could ever be mistaken for a first name from any time period. It's really unfortunate. I don't she why she couldn't at least have switched them, but whatever. My mom was telling me all this, and she didn't know why either, because her siblings (my aunt and uncle) don't really talk to her (I don't know, they didn't approve of something she did or didn't do. I don't really bother to keep up.)

Actually, there is quite a lot I could write about my mother's relationship with her family. I try not to know the details, but I can't help having a general outline because when I was at home, every time my grandfather called, she would take his call with gritted teeth, then complain to me for an hour afterwards about what a misogynistic jerkwad he is, and how she has a career and can't keep the house immaculate like some goddamn 50's housewife, and how her parents used to make her polish all the silverware before their dinner parties, and meanwhile I'm all "Yes, yes, terrible, look, I think I have somewhere else I'm supposed to be right now." I don't know why it was always me. I think my dad and brother deliberately fled the area. And now I live over here and she still does this, but over Skype.

But anyway. All this happened, and I was suddenly reminded of the Creepy Embroidered Family Tree, and I cannot believe I've never talked about this before, because it's so marvelously weird. (Okay, actually I mostly just pretend my mom's side of the family and everything associated with them doesn't exist, but you know what I mean.) My mom's side of the family apparently used to be very well off (they aren't anymore) and apparently they kept close track of their genealogy. So, someone embroidered this family tree, which has, I think, everyone in the family starting from when they came over from England, and is pretty big. Which is, you know, a little obsessive, but not all that bad, until you consider that some of us aren't on it. Like, two of my cousins are on there, and my uncle's wife, who married into the family, but my dad isn't on there, and David and I aren't either. I remember being totally offended by that when I was little. I'm okay with it now, because I prefer that people not be reminded about my middle name, but now the fact that we even have The Embroidered Family Tree creeps me out. I blame J. K. Rowling. (Incidentally, this would be even funnier if I could tell you what my mom's maiden name is.) Anyway, I'm now wondering if my cousin's baby is going to be put on there, because that is seriously not a name I would want immortalized if it were mine. Poor kid. And also, you see why I preferred to spend the summers in the empty house that belonged to my dad's side of the family, rather than get dragged to visit my mom's relatives, who are all kind of terrifying.

26 weeks?

I was out for a walk this evening, and it occurred to me that, as of this morning, I've been here six months.

It doesn't feel that long. I mean, I know that's a long time. And if I think about all the time between September and now, I realize it's been a long time. But it doesn't feel very long. And it's weird to experience subjective time this way. In California I was only away from home for three or four months at a stretch, and it seemed to take years because I was miserable all the time. Being here is more like being at the coast house - it isn't technically home, but it feels like it is. It doesn't feel like I'm suffering in a tiny apartment and desperately wishing for my next break so I can get away. Here, time just passes normally instead of dragging excruciatingly along. And it's very weird for me to experience time normally at school, because all my previous time in college has been spent in a haze of "God, why am I still here in this awful place? Make it stop!"

I'm aware that that probably didn't make any sense to anyone but me. Anyway. Six months. That's kind of impressive.

Hair

I wear my hair in a ponytail a lot these days. It's easy to do, and my hair is short enough right now that it stays in without migrating down the back of my head (by "short", I mean "merely 3 inches past my waist, as opposed to where it used to be, which is 3 inches past my butt") or pulling excruciatingly at the hairline. But today, I looked in the mirror, and I noticed that my henna is grown out to the point where it looks like I scraped all my brown hair back and attached a fake red ponytail.

Sigh.

An Apology To My Nose

Yes, that's a picture of me. No, I don't know how I got it to be so flattering, (yes, even with the breakout and the circles under my eyes, this qualifies as flattering, because I can look at it without wincing) but I kind of want to bottle my success and sell it.

I've been trying to get back into portraiture lately, mostly to decompress from my archaeological illustration class. And although I was never very good, I at least used to be better than I've been this past week. The problem most people have is with being too self-referential, so that your picture of someone else ends up with your own facial features, because we're all most familiar with our own faces. So I kept drawing people with huge eyes and long noses and I couldn't make myself stop it no matter what I did, and I thought maybe if I drew myself I could relearn which features to be careful about, exorcise my problem, and move on.

So this afternoon I took a bunch of pictures of myself, without putting on makeup or fixing my hair or anything, because I am way too lazy for that, and I was trying to avoid looking in the mirror too much beforehand, because when I do that I start to make "mirror face" and my pictures come out looking nothing like me (this one kind of doesn't either, but that's mostly because I have no expression at all.)

I would now like to apologize to my nose, and to all the people I have ever subjected to whining about my nose. Because, as you can clearly see, my nose is quite acceptably in proportion with my eyes and the entire upper two-thirds of my face. It is, in fact, my mouth that is causing all the problems here. It's like someone hit the lower third of my face with a shrink ray.

So, I'm sorry, Nose. And Mouth, you are now the one on my shitlist.

Driver's License

So I was doing that thing I always do where I plan things 20 steps in advance (I can't help it, and most of the time I wish I didn't do it, but there you go) and something alarming occurred to me.

I'm planning to put in my application for a post-study work visa during the spring holidays (I'm not going home, because I have too much to get done, so I won't need my passport. And I want to start applying for jobs before everyone else does.) And I went through all the points-based stuff for that - I have enough money in my bank account and everything, so that's all okay. And then I started going through everything else that I have to do within, like, the next year (I know, shut up), and I remembered about my U.S. driver's license. I'm allowed to use it to drive with up until September (I do have an international driver's license, but that expires at the same time, I think) and I figured I could stick the driver's license to the bottom of my list of things to care about, because the idea of driving here makes me break out in hives anyway, but then I looked at the license itself and it expires in January 2010. And, you know, I don't know if I'll be going back to the States before then. I have to write my dissertation this summer, and then by fall I need to have a job, and my parents are probably going to want to come here for Christmas again, especially if they can stay at my apartment, and really there isn't any excuse I can come up with to get them to fly me home just so I can renew my driver's license. (That's really alarming all by itself, isn't it? I don't know the next time I'll see home again - and I kind of don't care.)

So I took a look at other things I can do, and it turns out that instead of going home to renew it I can just exchange it for a GB driver's license, and that way I would be able to drive here after a year (you know, if I wanted to) and also I wouldn't have to go through all the hassle of going back home. But - wow, that kind of freaks me out. It's so alarmingly permanent. Getting visas and going through the stages of getting citizenship and all doesn't seem so permanent, because even once I get them there's no reason why I can't say, at any point, "You know, suddenly I really hate it here," and leave immediately with minimal hassle. But once I give them my driver's license...well, what would I have to go through to get another U.S. license? They already want more ID for those than they do to get a passport, for heaven's sake. It would probably be a complete nightmare. I guess before this occurred to me I was kind of meandering happily along, going "Yeah, I'll follow the path to citizenship, live here for five years, it'll be fine...WHOA, WAIT, BACK UP A MINUTE, I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT."