Welcome to November - *WHAP*

The *WHAP* is the world smacking me upside the head. It being November 1, I have to pay rent today, which fact I forgot about completely until half an hour ago.

I forgot about the whole rent idea because my SciTechMed midterm is due tomorrow and I'm having a terrible time finding parallel texts (and I haven't written my 3-5 page analysis yet either). The text we're translating is a diagram and explanation of an underground drip irrigation system, and apparently not even the US Patent Office has much useful information. Then there's the text for the regular SciTechMed class tomorrow, which has to do with the chemical mechanics of Alzheimer's disease. I've been so busy hunting for underground drip irrigation stuff that I haven't even looked for parallel Alzheimer's texts yet.

Besides that, I've got a 3-4 page French composition to write before Thursday and a mess of grammar exercises to do. I just can't wait until the workload goes back to normal levels of insanity...

And it's dark by 5:30 now that the clocks have changed.

On the up side, though, I feel slightly less run down now that I haven't been living on caffeine and sugar for a week. I don't know how much of it is placebo effect and how much is really there, but I'll take the feeling better, thanks. Dragging myself through the week isn't fun. I seem to be less hungry in general, which isn't a bad thing either.

Off to the library to see if they've got anything useful for parallel texts. Somehow I doubt it, since we haven't got a school of engineering. Oh well, at least they've got Routledge's Technical Dictionary.

(no subject)

Here I am, skipping karate again, because I would have had to run like hell without having had any dinner in order to get there in time, or do umpteen zillion situps for being late.

The reason I would have been late is because, except for one article that I can't print from off-campus, my SciTechMed midterm is done. I'm not sure whether it's good, but it's done.

When I went to hand in my rent this afternoon, I discovered that the property manager has adopted (or been adopted by, I'm not sure which) a six-week-old kitten. I very nearly melted. I want to be curled up with and purred at, damn it.

The grand total of political intrusions on my life in the last two days (so far) is nine phone calls and a door-to-door visit from MoveOn. I think I'm going to spend as much of tomorrow as possible elsewhere after I vote. I hope they hand out "YES, I VOTED" stickers at the polls so maybe I can get people to leave me alone if I wear one.

I made a mistake in thinking that decaf without sugar would be all right since I hadn't had any coffee at all since Friday. Apparently it isn't, because now I'm back to feeling like a train hit me. I was feeling better this morning, too. Cocoa is out because of the sugar, and black tea is out because of the caffeine. I guess I'll have to start carrying lemon tea around in my water bottle. (Thank goodness for Nalgene bottles.)