(no subject)

[jazzfish]

i think having no income is starting to get to me. as well it should, since if i'd get off my lazy butt and find a job i wouldn't have time to mope.

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the shakespeare midterm today was... odd. it's been a very long time since i've written an in-class essay. not having the freedom to jump around between topics and knit it all together later, or to go back and bloody *revise*, is frustrating. on the other hand, the non-essay portion was trivial (and half the exam grade) so i probably did fine.

the ten-page paper is due in two weeks, which is kind of frightening. although probably not much worse than the drama paper (which i evidently did not so well on, since i would up with a B in the class.) monday will probably turn into a Library Day.

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do not tell me about your job.

do not tell me how hard life at syncad is. A) i am trying to put that shit BEHIND me, and B) you are a coder, and therefore by definition one of the Favored. people notice what you do, and are GLAD when you do it.

do not tell me how incredibly cool places that i don't work are. this is known as "teasing the animals."

do not remind me, with every other breath, that i couldn't hack it in the Real World.

do not tell me about your fucking job.

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the mug i normally drink my morning cup of tea out of was a gift from some friends of my family. people we'd known for (count count count) about twenty years. in military terms this is A Very Long Time Indeed. they gave it to me for making it to Eagle Scout. it was about half again as big as a normal mug, stoneware, with a nice picture of an eagle on it. a card that came with it proclaimed that it was a reproduction of an authentic 19th century American mug, and was purchased from the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

i've been using that mug pretty consistently since i got it in 1994. the handle is big enough that i could fit three fingers comfortably in it, or four if i squeezed a bit. it was fairly thick and generally unmistakeable.

i dropped it this morning. it hit the linoleum and broke into three big pieces plus some smaller slivers and some dust. the handle didn't snap off, which kind of surprises me-- good quality work, there.

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when i was in junior high life sucked. so as a defense mechanism i decided that no one but me was real, and that everything that happened to me was an experiment, to see what my reaction would be. on better days it banged around in my head as the subject of a short story, but nothing ever got written.

i never actually *believed* it, of course. but it was convenient. sometimes it gets pulled out and dusted off on bad days.

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speaking of Eagle Scouts, i was honored to present andy mccoy with his Eagle award, in (i think) late 1996 or early 1997. i had no idea he'd come to tech.

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the real problem here is that a 'real' job is unlikely to coexist well with school. and having finally managed to go back i am reluctant to put my degree on hold again. on the other hand, living in two bedrooms at lisaneil's will probably start to grate on me within a year. and emily (who HAS a degree, because she decided NOT to spend a year or two failing every class she took) wants a house at shadowlake, because bleaksburg apartments suck and shadowlake is very very cool.

and so i dither.

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and i'm gone, like i'm dancing on angels
and i'm gone, through the crack in the past