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.