Sing Me Something Brave

Monday, December 05, 2011

I had a day today, the kind of day that you wish you could stay in bed but you really really can't, but then it just ends up morphing from one thing into another until you wonder:

What next? Martians? Sea Creatures emerging to suck my brains through my nose?

It started late last night when I decided to eat a piece of carrot cake. I don't eat sugar, folks. I can't. Not only does it make my blood sugar wonky and then make my doctor shake her fist at me, threatening dull needles to inject insulin for the rest of my life until my lovely, lovely toes are amputated BUT it disrupts my sleep and then my stomach.

Gah. I am OLD.

Since I had thrown down at the alter of sacrificing my health for the promise of good carrot cake, you can imagine my irritation and overall angst when the cake was not good.  Oh SO disappointing.  The frosting was too sweet and not cream cheesy enough, the cake didn't have enough spice or the bits of walnut and raisins you should find in any self respecting piece of carrot cake.  Therefore, I made the epically poor decision to attempt to redeem the carrot cake with an Apple tart.

I knew as I made this decision that it was a bad one and that I would pay in some manner.  Even so, I had committed to sugar and therefore SUGAR IT WAS!!! After eating the not quite as disappointing apple tart,  I had some peppermint tea and settled in for the night.  You know, because peppermint tea aides the digestion.

I needed sleep because I am now in research mode of ye olde never-ending dissertation. This involves me immersing myself in a classroom of 4.5 year olds as I frantically attempt to keep up with their Tri-lingual ( and sometimes 4 or 5 language) abilities. Since I am still "new" in their classroom, I am the focus of a great deal of attention by them. I am an adult sized living doll who only follows them around with expensive and fascinating recording equipment that they turn off as soon as I turn it on and attempt to capture their conversations.

Seriously.  One boys sole purpose in life is to turn the recorder off as soon as he sees the solid red light indicating that I am attempting to collect data. Another young lady decided that the recorder - like all your bases - belonged to her and hid the recorder behind her skirt.

While I know that in a few days both the recorders and I will become passe, it is hard work just trying to keep up with them.

So, I needed sleep. Which due to my poor food choices was not going to happen. Since my gall bladder  decided to raise an unholy fuss at 2:30 in the morning.  It was rugged. I tried a hot bath, I tried rolling around and moaning. I tried drinking water. I tried weeping and dry heaving. Nope.  The one miracle in all of this was that NO ONE ELSE woke up.  I am, it seems, a wholly silent sufferer.

I finally fell asleep at 6 am, only to get back up at 8, in order to get to the research site for 9.

I erroneously thought that being tired and having a belly ache that resembled some alien entity trying to dig through my stomach muscles would be the sum suckitude of my day. I was wrong.

How so Dawn?, you may think.  Well, let me tell you, says I.

I had a meeting with my supervisor. I thought I was in Year 6 of my PhD.  Apparently I am not. I am in Year 7.  Which means that I have until end of Winter Term to submit my dissertation. My Completed Dissertation.

I go into a meeting, which I think I am going to get praised for doing so much this past year, and to my serious mother fucking shock, awe, horror and mind caving in on itself fear, find that I have under 5 months to produce a finished dissertation. I did mention that I have only just gotten into a research site?  It was at this juncture that I looked - quite seriously - at my supervisor and said ( entirely without guile) "Your words are bouncing off my brain". I believe I also managed to say: "I have a terrible stomach ache" as she and I rode down the elevator together.

After this meeting - in which I seriously developed the urge to 1) vomit and 2) kick over her computer and leap from the window, I exited the building. Via the parking garage. Which I tried to pay with my debit card. which was declined. Because it had been cloned this weekend and used for fraudulent purchases and as such, cancelled. I forgot that it was no longer in service. Perhaps due to the Lovecraftian levels of  fear I was experiencing. Mountains of Madness? HAH!

There I am. Staring that the machine that keeps repeating "This Card is Declined. Please insert your Payment" in a  Stern, Soulless voice which would have terrified Hitler.

My lip trembles. I park (illegally) and run up the stairs to get cash from the ATM. I return to the car to discover that I have now lost the ticket to insert into the machine and so now have to pay 10 extra dollars to get the fuck out of the building of doom before I break down sobbing while bludgeoning the parking meter with a copy of "Dewey Reconfigured".

It seems to me there are a few other things that happened, but at this point I am fairly certain that I am losing sight in my right eye from panic.

Did I mention that I had to clean the rabbits anal glands tonight as well? Because that was an extra special  and unexpected treat. Or the Job interviews that are making me break out in hives?

So forgive me in the coming days and months when you are forced to endure old stories or things culled from Gimlet.  On the up side, I'll be about to become a Doctor of Education after the end of April.

I just can't vouch for the sanity of yours truly by the end

1 Baleful Regards:

Ginnysicle said...

Holy shit, I would have melted into a puddle of quivering goo at that kind of news. Good luck, and put some duct tape over that recorder button.

 
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