and once he's in he can't go back / he'll beat his wings til he burns them black
last night at approx. midnight I said to myself, I said, karen, you are not going to do that stupid thing you did for your ki block test and your economics block test where you slept at 1am just because you could, and just because you hadn't studied the cures for demand pull inflation to your satisfaction yet (respectively), so I said, okay, going to bed now, and went to bed.
two hours later I was still awake. I got up and took 3 antihistamines that suggested that they might cause drowsiness (problems with this: 1. they didn't really make any promises and 2. you're supposed to take 3 a day but I reasoned that I hadn't taken any earlier that day so I might as well and what's the worst that could happen, liver failure?? and 3. they didn't work). reflected that not only was this way worse than what happened before my ki and economics block tests, but this was actually almost worse than what had happened in march, where I had been counting on studying like all of the economic development of southeast asia for effectively the first time between the hours of 5.30am - 8am, a plan that fell through mainly because I only fell asleep then at like 3am; this time I was actually prepared, not particularly stressed out, just apparently my own brain is bent on a course of self-destruction
two more hours later I was a bit frantic which was doing no good for the very zen and restful state of mind that I was trying to cultivate so as to achieve a conducive state for sleeping in so I got up and walked around and read some poetry (don't know why I did this, I think I reasoned that if studying too much too fast had given me a kind of brain indigestion then rather than attempting the hair of the dog remedy viz. studying some more, I should read something that makes me happy and relaxed, sadly I couldn't find any happy and relaxing poetry, primarily because I don't read any happy and relaxing poetry, so I was reading like ... philip larkin. robert browning. a.e. housman. why do I do this to myself)
approx. 4am I achieved RESTFUL SLUMBERZ (tm) and jolted awake at 6.30am then lay in bed feeling sorry for myself. discovered that only apparent side effects of OD'ing on antihistamines is an incurable dryness of the mouth and dehydratey feeling + headache that I bet is what a hangover really feels like. at 7am I rose took some deep calming breaths and a shower and got some breakfast (approx. 1 bottle of nutella + 2 cursory slices of bread, bread for respectability, nutella for energy because as everyone knows nutella is pure chocolate and a kind of ALERTNESS STEW!!!) and then studied china and japan (not very well but all things considered my brain was performing admirably!) and then went to school.
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History block test: not as bad as one might have imagined for all my whinings and three-month procrastination of my China economic history notes and foul temper and mumblings about the UN but seriously anyway actually ON THE WHOLE it was not too bad! not that you care. I say sleepily. not that I care either, particularly. hee hee! it is funny. this is what I suppose was keeping me awake all night (viz. fears of my own inadequacy, constant subconscious reordering of points on reasons for decline of US economic hegemony, overwhelming variety of acronyms for UN peacekeeping forces) but now that it's over with all its potentially disastrous consequences I am sort of ... yeah, I'm cool with it.
Staggered into LT5 all pale and grim and shattered and then ate approx. 5 thousand mints and listened to the guys tell jokes about George "Wasabi" Bush and felt better. well thank god for the guys. Anyway, blocktestwise, my source-based essay was freaking 4 pages long, great, I am a genius, last time I did it I had no structure (well, I did them in alphabetical order?), this time I was like, RELIGIOUSLY WILL I ADHERE TO THIS SUGGESTED ESSAY STRUCTURE. somehow this added one more side to the length of my answer. Also uh my answer was kind of idiotic. I kept saying ... this guy is well informed so I trust him. NEXT SOURCE! - no substantiation. sheer genius. I think the real low point was when I couldn't quite remember what the hell was up with the Afro-Asians in the General Assembly so I tried to like fudge my handwriting so as to make it ambiguous whose side I thought they were on. I have a suspicion that this won't work (corollary to my belief that people with truly appalling handwriting are good at deciphering the truly appalling handwriting of others is that people with truly appalling handwriting can see through such cheap tricks with ease). but hope springs eternal! actually in retrospect my sourcebased may have been like ... a series of unconnected and largely irrelevant observations of dubious accuracy, in itself, making it a kind of meta exercise in sourcebased analysis itself. BUT IT'S OVER!!! and ain't nothing nobody can do about it now. I say my zombie state gifting me with a newfound acceptingness. I am very prayer of st. francis in this advanced state of sleep deprivation. except for the part about courage to change what can be changed, I am just lolling about awaiting slaughter. it is very sad! perhaps you will pray for me in my sorry plight
The essays were okay. My USA essay was 50 minutes and 6 pages long (and incomplete!) because apparently in Scotland, I don't know, they are very poor and cannot afford essay questions so they try to get the most out of one essay so a single question packs about three times the requirement of a normal essay question? It was like reasons for US dominance, effects of US dominance, reasons for decline of US economic hegemony, effects of decline of US economic hegemony. Next essay was ridiculous I had like twenty minutes left and I was going to do the China essay ('cause I'm good at China, man) but accepted that in 20 minutes THERE ARE LIMITS so in 20 minutes I wrote two and a half sides on the effect of US aid on Japan's economy, no balancing, no conclusion, illegible handwriting, but FINISHED. Let us remember that I did this on approx. 2 hours sleep and 5 thousand mints and a nutella sandwich and raise our glasses to the triumph of the human spirit in adversity. thank you! thank you very much. Let us also offer our fervent prayers for lenient marking or I'm fucked (a conclusion and balancing factors would not have been amiss in my Japan essay particularly). SIGH. but at least it's over! little children run and play
Literature on Tuesday! On Monday the youth of the nation frolic freely in their misbegotten holiday but I will stay at home in virtuous contemplation of Othello and The Tempest. I am, as I keep telling Mr Perry, a reformed character. (I handed in my Pride and Prejudice essay! "Bloody hell!" he said dutifully, but the magic is gone somehow ): Oh well. My debts are cleared!!! Now for my KI IS and History H3 and then these overdue library books will be all that stand between me and full rehabilitation as a useful member of society.
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There is a butterfly in my study and I can't get it out. It won't go out the window when I open it invitingly on the wide dark world outside. I thought it was a moth but it's not, and it keeps landing on my papers and beating against the (now-closed) window trying to get out. Right now it is resting on the corner of The Writing Life by Annie Dillard; if I were reading Holy the Firm instead it would be a much more interesting tableau, but we can't have all the symbolic neatness we desire in this world. And I guess things like grim reminders of our own mortality are only there if we're looking for them. Which I'm not, I say defensively. In any case, I am worried that my own moth - butterfly - will follow the example of its literary predecessor and fly into the light and burn, so I have turned off all the lights and am going about my business in fairly comprehensive darkness, which hinders my efficiency but at least the butterfly is okay (as far as I can see). Besides being trapped in my study, I mean. I had more to say about this but it doesn't do to be greedy about what symbolic neatness we can get in this world. And on that note I leave you! goodnight, sweet ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night