my usual boring life
Jan. 11th, 2012 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardYesterday I went and got two teeth filled: eh. It took, like, four hours for my mouth to un-numb enough so that I could finally eat at noon.
I have also finally blocked the two Saroyans I knit for my mother and (American) grandmother for, uh, Christmas. (I am a little behind, thanks muchly.) I did it on my floor, so my room smelled like wet wool for a couple of days. But they look really good, and now I kind of want to knit one more, so that I can have one too.
I spent the past couple days in some kind of mild (or extreme) despair about having to go back to school next week (we're a week later than usual this year, usually we're already be in session), but today I didn't, which is kind of shocking! So I'm trying to work on my personal statement for graduate school, which is sort of halted by the fact I'm not really sure what you're supposed to say on a personal statement. I've got about 1K, but the first 600 words is way too babbly and about how I got into Classics and my undergrad studies et al., and I think I need less about that. (The other 400 words are about what I want to study in grad and why I want to study at the University of Leicester specifically.) If anyone is available to look at it and give concrit, I would be very grateful.
I need to write e-mails to people at school and figure out what I have to do now that I'm not doing an honors thesis -- and, uh, also tell people that I won't be doing an honors thesis -- but. *sigh* I hate writing e-mails. I think I have only checked my school e-mail three times all break. (I also need to do some things with my course schedule for next semester -- I think I might drop Middle English Mystics and do a capstone on England and Spain in the Early Modern World (in the English department) instead, which would fit in nicely with my other seminar, which is on Imperial Spain.)
The other day I had a baking disaster (which doubtless added to all my Woe), but today I had a baking success, which probably helped with the whole Not Miserable Today thing. Unfortunately I'm now out of sugar.
So I just worked out that one reason my parents are so eager for me to go to grad school next year, without taking a year off, is because my (Japanese) grandparents will pay (I already knew that part) and my mother is worried because they're pretty old and...well, they might not be around much longer. There was a scare with my grandfather last year, and while my grandmother is still pretty lively...well. (They're both in their nineties; my grandfather (I know I think of it in Japanese, but it just doesn't look right written out phonetically or in hiragana) is a WWII vet. (Er, yes, on the Japanese side. He had two ships sunk out from under him and was reported dead twice.)) (On the other side of the family, my (American) grandmother's boyfriend has cancer and just went into a hospice.)
In less depressing news, I have been on an audiobook kick, though I'm trying to get around to doing something other than playing endless rounds of Solitaire while listening to them, and have rapidly consumed Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince, which I LOVE. (I read the Mortal Instruments series in one great gulp, but I'm not that keen on it, but the Infernal Devices! I love it. I suppose it helps if you've read TMI, but I think it's fine even if you haven't.) The main character is a bookish American shapeshifter girl, Tessa, and while there is in fact a love triangle, it is one that works, because the two guys (half-Asian Jem, who's dying but has a kickass cane, and sarcastic Will, who is an asshole but has redeeming qualities) care about each other as much as or more than they do their love interest. And the supporting characters! I love Charlotte and Henry with great glee, and Sophie nearly as much, and I find myself sympathizing with Jessamine a lot (despite what happens in CP). And Magnus, of course. It is steampunk, and is a great deal of fun. It also works very well as an audiobook.
Also, tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not sure how I feel about this. My last birthday was pretty awful and the two before that were pretty blah because I was at school. But for this one, I'm home.
My icon is vastly unrepresentative of what it looks like outside, as we have no snow, which is really depressing me. NO SNOW. No snow. (This is very unusual for this part of Washington at this time of year. I'm carrying it onward to go, drought in summer, which means a bad crop, which means that the economy's going to suffer, since this is an agricultural area. Which means fruit prices are going to go up. Snow, oh snow, where are you?)
I have also finally blocked the two Saroyans I knit for my mother and (American) grandmother for, uh, Christmas. (I am a little behind, thanks muchly.) I did it on my floor, so my room smelled like wet wool for a couple of days. But they look really good, and now I kind of want to knit one more, so that I can have one too.
I spent the past couple days in some kind of mild (or extreme) despair about having to go back to school next week (we're a week later than usual this year, usually we're already be in session), but today I didn't, which is kind of shocking! So I'm trying to work on my personal statement for graduate school, which is sort of halted by the fact I'm not really sure what you're supposed to say on a personal statement. I've got about 1K, but the first 600 words is way too babbly and about how I got into Classics and my undergrad studies et al., and I think I need less about that. (The other 400 words are about what I want to study in grad and why I want to study at the University of Leicester specifically.) If anyone is available to look at it and give concrit, I would be very grateful.
I need to write e-mails to people at school and figure out what I have to do now that I'm not doing an honors thesis -- and, uh, also tell people that I won't be doing an honors thesis -- but. *sigh* I hate writing e-mails. I think I have only checked my school e-mail three times all break. (I also need to do some things with my course schedule for next semester -- I think I might drop Middle English Mystics and do a capstone on England and Spain in the Early Modern World (in the English department) instead, which would fit in nicely with my other seminar, which is on Imperial Spain.)
The other day I had a baking disaster (which doubtless added to all my Woe), but today I had a baking success, which probably helped with the whole Not Miserable Today thing. Unfortunately I'm now out of sugar.
So I just worked out that one reason my parents are so eager for me to go to grad school next year, without taking a year off, is because my (Japanese) grandparents will pay (I already knew that part) and my mother is worried because they're pretty old and...well, they might not be around much longer. There was a scare with my grandfather last year, and while my grandmother is still pretty lively...well. (They're both in their nineties; my grandfather (I know I think of it in Japanese, but it just doesn't look right written out phonetically or in hiragana) is a WWII vet. (Er, yes, on the Japanese side. He had two ships sunk out from under him and was reported dead twice.)) (On the other side of the family, my (American) grandmother's boyfriend has cancer and just went into a hospice.)
In less depressing news, I have been on an audiobook kick, though I'm trying to get around to doing something other than playing endless rounds of Solitaire while listening to them, and have rapidly consumed Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince, which I LOVE. (I read the Mortal Instruments series in one great gulp, but I'm not that keen on it, but the Infernal Devices! I love it. I suppose it helps if you've read TMI, but I think it's fine even if you haven't.) The main character is a bookish American shapeshifter girl, Tessa, and while there is in fact a love triangle, it is one that works, because the two guys (half-Asian Jem, who's dying but has a kickass cane, and sarcastic Will, who is an asshole but has redeeming qualities) care about each other as much as or more than they do their love interest. And the supporting characters! I love Charlotte and Henry with great glee, and Sophie nearly as much, and I find myself sympathizing with Jessamine a lot (despite what happens in CP). And Magnus, of course. It is steampunk, and is a great deal of fun. It also works very well as an audiobook.
Also, tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not sure how I feel about this. My last birthday was pretty awful and the two before that were pretty blah because I was at school. But for this one, I'm home.
My icon is vastly unrepresentative of what it looks like outside, as we have no snow, which is really depressing me. NO SNOW. No snow. (This is very unusual for this part of Washington at this time of year. I'm carrying it onward to go, drought in summer, which means a bad crop, which means that the economy's going to suffer, since this is an agricultural area. Which means fruit prices are going to go up. Snow, oh snow, where are you?)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-12 11:33 pm (UTC)