uncomfortable

too much caffeine, or not enough? it seems i'm always swinging between two extremes. and right now i'm agitated. it could be that i've simply consumed too much; it could be because i'm unhappy using my netbook for anything more than writing notes in class. it's a useful toy, but it's no pc. it's even annoying trying to do mundane stuff like reading emails and flipping through facebook. it doesn't help that it doesn't have bluetooth, so even transferring pics from my iphone is uncomfortable - and the iphone apps like facebook aren't really as good as they look :S

that's the bitch of the day. now for the history:

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tuesday night:

i got home just in time to strap on my blades and head out - it was a good route. one of the guys from the poetry group had called me at 9pm asking if we'd left yet, after i'd told him we were leaving at 10.30. i kinda assumed he was asking because he'd arrived and found nobody there, but then he explained that he'd been stressing and now he could relax. at 10.15, when we'd already assembled and were preparing to leave, he called me to tell me he was still waiting in ramat aviv for a bus that wasn't coming; deciding fifteen minutes before the final hour that he *might* not make it on time seems a bit silly to me. the impressive thing is that he did, eventually, manage to join us - not an easy run.

one of the group's elders got upset towards the last stretch, and took up the bullhorn to express his disappointment. a lot of us were feeling the same way - a lot of the new guys don't respect the front-runners and they make it difficult for the group to function. it was a bit of a downer, but it needed to be done.

i was shocked by a taxi driver in ramat gan - he actually apologized for hooting at me! maybe there is room for hope.

getting home with that chemical sweat smell... maybe i hadn't drunk enough water :P

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wednesday:

from the second i began to pay attention to hooting, i've become more and more sensitive to it. i keep trying to think of ways to raise awareness; nobody i've discussed the issue with has disagreed with me. it struck me on my way to the bus on wednesday morning that a poster campaign might be effective "Have you hooted today? YOU might be the idiot!"

From that conscientiousness to taking a seat on the bus when a girl who'd been waiting longer than i had was sitting on the step in the aisle: conscience fail. i looked at her a couple of times, looking for a sign and opportunity to offer her the seat, but eventually gave up and got back to reading. on the one hand, if i'd gotten up without her noticing immediately the seat would've been up for grabs to anyone else. on the other, i was tired and didn't feel like it. i did feel guilty, though.

reading on public transport can distorted one's sense of time...

first class: the TA fell down the stairs, and in the midst of her shock bitterly said "funny" (as in "real funny")... what's funny about falling down the stairs?? then she genuinely thanked us for not laughing. a prime indicator for low self-esteem? immediate and intense pity.

i got my midterm grade; the professor began the hand-out with "i'm going to put you out of your misery" - when i'd seen my results i responded with "you can take my grades, but you can never take my misery!"
funny thing, i wasn't miserable at all until i saw my grade.

i screwed up.

monumentally.

it was so bad, the professor sat down with me for half an hour afterwards to analyse what went wrong. not only did i completely misunderstand the first question, but i bravely answered all the questions on the same poem and the mistake was grossly compounded. my classmates seem to share the professor's sentiments that the exam was not at all representative, but unfortunately that's not how grading works :/

the humanities forum meeting went alright, considering that once again, nobody came. is it because everyone's satisfied? or because nobody cares? or because nobody believes that it's possible to get anything done?

lunch was pleasant, then i went to work to fight with php. i despise web development because nothing's enforced, so if i screw up by misspelling a function name the page still appears to work. and that means that i can burn an hour tinkering away at all the things that aren't real issues until i discover the problem.

holiday goodbyes - for some people, i found it quite relieving to know that i won't be seeing them for a couple of weeks.

i returned to campus for anime evening, and, once again, there was a problem with the room registration. at least this time we knew who to call, and we sorted it out behind the student union's back. bureaucracy is sad. and pervasive. and inescapable.

we watched the first episode of one piece (piratey!), then the first episode of kino's journey (preachy!), and then dante's inferno: an animated epic. so wrong, in so many ways... it's one of those movies that's SO bad that it becomes a comedy, although it's always unsettling. circle of fraud? circle of freud. the man kills hell, and by the end i couldn't get bionic jive - i shot lucifer out of my head.

eidetic joined me on a toilet hunt through campus: by the time we left, every building was closed. eventually i found one outside the campus gates; i'm glad i don't recall what the woman who walked passed me on my way in looked like, because she left a smell to remember :(

why do i feel like i'm getting progressively dumber as the semester progresses? perhaps it's the accumulated lack of sleep?

love cake: i didn't realize that it was still our six month anniversary (i'd commented on it when we got back from the rollerblading), and pg surprised me with a cake and champagne. we then watched a few episodes of one piece, and even though i was completely exhausted and ready for bed i *had* to indulge pg, whose enthusiasm for the series makes me happy ^_^

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thursday:

dreams of vampires and festival goers, completed. can't remember much, but at least nothing disturbed me until they were over. i took some cake up to the roof to work on my seminar in the rising sun. until it rose too high to see the screen.

studying = eating. i consume too much.

i'm disappointed that pg's friend won't be joining us for the festival, and in addition to having to sell a ticket (that's not easy, especially because i'm connected to the organizers and i'd be embarrassed to advertise in a public forum like facebook), i'm concerned about how she'll find it. i guess it's a leap of faith.


in the afternoon i got a call from my physiotherapist berating me for not pitching. i told her that i wasn't meant to be there, and she was a bit cross when she said goodbye and put the phone down. fair enough: i then discovered that i *was* meant to be there and that, for some reason, half the physio events in my calendar don't have alarms set. grrrrrrrr....

strapped on blades, coasted to ramat gan. the uphills are a bitch, and the drivers are less sympathetic than in tel aviv. also, rollerblading as a form of alternative transport is only legitimate in tel aviv itself, so when the police cruiser's siren wailed right next to me i freaked out a little, even though it wasn't for me...

the poetry evening was pretty cool, although i was a bit rushed and left at 9pm to meet pg at the climbing wall. it turns out i should've done that the other way around, as the climbing wall *isn't* open late on thursdays until summer hits and everyone working had a good reason why they couldn't keep it open a half an hour longer :(

instead, we went back home and picked up the frisbee, for an excellent session on the square. afterwards we picked up food at abu lafya, and it's driving me crazy that i used to work with the owner but cannot for the life of me remember his name. awkward.

we watched some more one piece while my sore feet suffered. the muscles in my feet have been feeling strained for a couple of weeks now, and it drives me nuts whenever we settle down to watch something :(

otherwise, i was wasted and feeling good about having gotten some exercise. i slept well.

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today:

and i slept late. i did some work on my seminar, failed at napping a bit later on, then came here with pg to her mom's place for internet access.

at least, during the course of posting, the primary agitation seems to have been reduced. i'm still a bit stressed over my paper though, and i really need the actual holiday part of the vacation to begin.