the legionnaire's lament
Finished studying Unemployment and was so buoyed by my success (though Unemployment is by far the pussiest and least conceptual of the Economics topics for this block test, I think; Inflation is kind of a bitch, I suspect, so I am leaving it for now; Trade I have no idea how bad it is, but I am optimistic) that I had a nap and did not wake up til 6pm. At which I was discouraged by my own sluggery. But I am going to study US Dominance in the Global Economy before I sleep tonight, and then everything will be okay! is what I tell myself.
Tomorrow: UN History + Inflation
Thursday: Japan!
Friday: Trade + China
Saturday + Sunday: Do whatever I didn't finish in my above, extremely optimistic, schedule
Monday: FACE YOUR FOE (just KI actually. but true to form I am scared shitless.)
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What with the diseased state my heart and mind are in, I find myself unequal to the task of studying and plead an exemption from the block tests. I would like to further claim some kind of Economics learning disability. When I look at an AS/AD diagram I find myself stricken with an inexplicable anxiety that renders me incapable of rational thought. Further, although the KI block test is on Monday I find that my entire capacity for critical thinking has gone into other areas of my life e.g. thinking critically about my many inadequacies as a student and a person, so I think I should get excused from that too. Literature, my entire adolescence to date has basically been some kind of goddamn living lit text, and as such I feel that any academic essay I write would be nowhere near as difficult as the actual, real, agonising life I lead, full of irony (dramatic and situational), questions of free will/determinism, repetition/inversion, really lurid imagery, complex and multifaceted characters, bizarre thematic parallels and disquieting questions about the meaning of life. As such I feel that I should be exempted, or perhaps that an alternative mode of assessment should be found for me, e.g. an oral exam in which I am grilled on useless and/or pornographic literary quotation, because I am really good at that. Finally, I just don't think I should sit for my History block test. Because I don't want to. And I am always having to do things I don't want to, but on this issue, I am finally taking a stand! Thank you for your attention.
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I was hanging upside-down off my bed ostensibly studying the effectiveness of fiscal policy but the (somewhat asymmetrical) conversation with my mother somehow turned to a monologue on how every time one of her friends asks me what I want to do with my (worthless, miserable) life I tell them the truth, which is that I'd like to do History in Oxford (if they'll have me), apply for a Foreign Affairs scholarship (if they'll have me) and then I hope to join the Foreign Service (if they'll have me), at which they tell me that if I do that, I'm not going to get married, ever, at which I tell them I don't particularly care, I hate everyone, except a select few (and no one I want will have me anyway) so it's just as well really (I don't say this last bit).
And then (because I was still upside-down because I'm immune to gravity and stuff) I executed one of my gazelle-like connective leaps of subject matter and started waxing poetic on how I hope further to die alone, poverty-stricken, hungry and unloved anyway, and so I am a prime candidate for the foreign service, since I don't intend to marry, having been crossed in love, not that I am crossed in love, I hastened to add, and
"Are you getting the Foreign Service confused with the Foreign Legion?" she said
it's possible.