from a high school friend of mine

hurry, hurry -- type "miserable failure" into google. until the white house twigs to it, the first hit will be:

Biography of President George W. Bush
Home > President > Biography President George W. Bush En Español.
George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He ...
Description: Biography of the president from the official White House web site.
Category: KidsandTeens>SchoolTime>...>Bush,GeorgeWalker
www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html - 29k - Cached - Similar pages



i have a screen shot if it turns up gone.

two weeks from today, it'll all be over.

( everything that can land on a person's head in academia is landing on my head this month. )

i've been feeling vaguely queasy all week, worse yesterday and today. i realized yesterday morning that this was not in the least surprising, given that the first part of my comps was due to hit me yesterday afternoon. i'm also congested, plus my face is breaking out, plus i'm feeling itchy -- can't tell if this last is stress or because something bit me.

i had a dream between snooze alarms this morning in which cmshaw sent me a screen shot of a view of her company's intranet, where they had posted who they assumed the candidates would be for the job i've applied for. my name was on the list, huzzah, so that (in my sleep) made me feel better. there was another student at my university on the list, so they came to interview us both -- in, oddly enough, the seminar room where my psych class meets. i hurried to get there, leaving my books behind, assuming i'd be able to pop back home and get them before class time (in which i had to give this presentation, see above). the interviewer showed me a half-page or so of printed language and asked me to find and flag all the infixes. (he explained that computer language, being just like natural language, contains infixes, so if i could find them here there was no reason i couldn't find them in a program, and thus as a linguist i was a good prospect for proofreading computer code. in the dream, this made perfect sense to me.) while i was working on this task, some classmates and the psych professor came in, and i realized i had to hurry if i was going to get home and back again in time to give my presentation. i dashed out, but not before the professor told me my file was incomplete and i had to give him one more paper. i didn't understand this, since the last commentary-reaction thing was due november 20, but i had to run. since most of the way back home was downhill, i decided it would be faster to fly. i could fly. like arthur dent, i guess -- i sort of ran and jumped in the air, and as long as i kept moving my arms like a swimmer treading water, i could stay airborne and this was much faster than walking. en route i ran into a girl -- also flying, in this case parallel to the ground and with her arms spread, as though she thought she was an airplane -- who in real life is my student and not in my psych class, and asked her if she had any idea what the prof. meant about my owing him another paper. she said yeah, he'd assigned nine more articles to read.

at this point i woke up -- with no interview and unable to fly, but not late for class and owing the psych prof. no more commentaries on readings.

and now, a meme from sowilo (and cross-posted to philologist). the questions are ( here )

and my answers are ( here )

also, here is today's reminder: george w. bush. miserable failure. http://www.blah3.com/graymatter/archives/00000654.html. thank you.

[eta: jacquez had ( more questions! )

rock on.]

how to get people to do administrative work they should have done in the first place but have been a

cry.

or at least get to where you're about to.

my assumption, based on the way i've always known universities to work, was that i'd get a few professors to agree to write questions for my comps and give their names to the director of my program, and he (in the absence of a program secretary) would schedule the written exam and the orals following it. i concede that in my case it's a shade more complicated, since one of the professors i need to write questions is in another state -- who could be on the committee for the orals depended on when (or whether) he could be back here to do it. as it turned out, the first day he could do it was the day after the last day one of the others could do it, so out-of-state professor has written questions but will not be at the orals, and all along everyone's been saying that's fine.

so the last time i met with the director, i said Okay, there are questions coming from professors A, B and C, and a problem set from professor D, and professors B, C and D can be at the orals, which is fine, isn't it, because that's a committee of three, and these have to be after the written tests but professor D needs them to be done by december 11th, and i have a final on the 10th, so since tuesday the 9th is good for everyone, that's the day. and he said Good, i'll take care of things from here.

or words to that effect.

because getting the questions and compiling them is obviously not for me to do, so he's been handling that. fine. as it turns out, i did D's problem set yesterday and went today to swap it for the questions from A, B and C. and the director says professor C is asking when the orals are to be, and he (the director) said i hadn't even taken the written test yet, and i said Tuesday, right, and he said Then if that's the case, can you send a note to everybody and make sure they can be there at the right time and place. i don't know what the right time and place is. he suggests that he can book the room (since i've never done this and don't have the first idea whom to speak to) if i'll get the time sorted out with everybody. he, the director, is a chicken with his head cut off, he says.

'cause i'm not busy at all.

granted, this is my exam. there is a way of thinking that would say, if i want this degree i should be prepared to make it happen. but don't tell me you have something under control if there's more i need to do with it. this is not the time to tell me i have to do more running around.

i can do it, i say, but i really thought last time we spoke that i was done arranging things, i thought i'd handed it off to you, it's a surprise to me to learn that i need to --

"okay," he said, "i'll take care of it." and backed away toward the phone.

i'm not proud of that. i didn't do it on purpose, and i wouldn't have done it on purpose, but there gets to be a point where it's all just too much, you know?

happy necklace

at the eastern market several years ago, i passed by a stand where the woman made jewelry -- earrings and pendants, mostly -- from found pictures and words she cut out from old picture books. i got ( this one )

for myself for a (birthday? christmas? don't remember) present, and it always makes me happy.

i don't wear it often, but i put it on yesterday and today, and it seems to be working. when i feel myself freaking out i reach up and touch it like a talisman and pull it back and forth across its chain (i'm totally fidgety). must be calm. breathe in. breathe out. sigh.

(hmm. could use a polish.)