Trouble Is Everywhere

So I'm pretty much at the point of complete and utter dysfunction regarding my sleep schedule, my eating habits, my internet time-wasters, and my thesis, but hey! I called my mother and we had a good chat, and then my father wrote the NDP a sternly worded email about web accessibility that he cc:ed to me and I almost fell out of my chair. So while the rest of my life is falling apart, the family thing is going well.

(I may actually see my brother sometime this calendar year too, which will be the first time since 2003. Or maybe before. Please remember that I forgot to tell my parents I was moving to China until about a week beforehand because it slipped my mind to tell them. My family & I haven't had some falling out or anything, we're just... not that sort of close. It's very strange, especially since generally my family is really awesome and I like talking to them, but it just never seems to occur to me to do so.)

I have no idea what's going on in anyone else's life, but I've sorted my Facesock's farm on Farmville to my satisfaction, gotten terribly bored of Tumblr (except for the Sailor Moon stuff), apparently made enough passive-aggressive tweets about my university being irritating about accessibility & disability issues that the student newspaper contacted me to ask if I wanted to write a column (no, because then I'd have to read the student newspaper, which proudly published an article last year about how Roman Polanski was an innocent woobie who was just framed by the system because if the 13 year old girl he raped didn't want to be raped then she shouldn't have let herself be raped), and have written exactly 0 words of my thesis since last I reported the number of words I'd written on my thesis, but HEY. My imaginary pixel trees are all nicely in order now.

I think I may have finally gotten to the point where whatever procrastination is left in my soul is just bored of procrastination, because the big things I'm looking forward to today are having tea with Ginny & Ysa (and some guys that are married to various people at this tea party but they're not as important) and then actually sitting down and writing rather than... well, anything else, actually. (Well, and Karate, but I scheduled myself to be in three places at once today so I threw everything that wasn't Ginny & Ysa and tea to the wolves.) I feel kinda bad about it because I don't want to ignore my friends, but my thesis smells like freesia really is quite nifty and it would be better if I actually wrote it so I could share it with the world.

( Oh internet, let me tell you about this part of my thesis because it's really fascinating to me )

Arg, so tired. I had more thoughts on this. I guess I'll just have to write my thesis, huh?

In order to get back on track I need to have two chapters written in the next 6 days. This may actually be doable, if I buckle down and do nothing else. Which, conveniently, I can (after tea).

♥

emee and I apparently decided tonight was the night to play the IRL version of "freak the Twilight Noob" by recounting the worst relationships we'd ever been in, and how they all went horribly horribly wrong to poor Katie, who kept staring at us in shock. What was sad was that we both could recount "I stayed because I was worried about what would happen if I left" stories, but I don't think I know any women who can't tell me some version of that story. (Not that I think it's limited to women, but men tend to tell me different stories.)

There was much drinking, and I heckled White Collar (as I do) and we had some sort of strange conversation about US vs Canadian politics - note, please, that one of our major political fights right now is over whether or not the long-form census should be mandatory for 20% of Canadians or voluntary and sent to 30% of them. This is far more controversial than you might think.

I've been home for a bit now, I'm still waiting to sober up before I go to bed. (We started out talking about binge drinking, I think? And just general drinking culture? And then somehow got into politics, 24 hour news channels, Canadiana in the form of Heritage Moments & the opening bars of Hockey Night in Canada, and I think we detoured into Bon Cop Bad Cop. There was much laughing, but Katie & emee are really good for that.)

Seriously, you are my favourites.

With all love and affection,

The Person Now Surrounded By Exactly The Boxes She Needs

These are the things I knew about Alcatraz in 2008:

- It was a prison
- It is an island
- Either no one escaped from it, or some dude swam away
- It is in the U.S.

These are the things I learned about Alcatraz in 2009:

- From late 1969 to early 1971, Alcatraz was Occupied by Indians of All Tribes

These are the things I learned about Alcatraz two days ago, when I got a postcard from abby jean:

- Alcatraz is actually no where near the Statue of Liberty because
- Alcatraz is in California

My mental map of the US just shifted radically, and it is distressing.

I am incredibly busy in crunch thesis time right now, as my adviser and I developed a writing plan and due dates and if I want to get done I need to not be around, so I am not.