Livin’ La Vida Bizarro.

[ladymirth]

Ummm. So. I owe you guys an apology for leaving you hanging the way I did. I know how much I hate it when authors whose stories I’m reading does that to me, so I’m kind of mortified I had to do it myself. I just want you to know exactly why that was. Keep in mind, I’m NOT exaggerating, nor is this a bid for sympathy. I just want to share the past one-and-half months of my life with you in the hope it will all become less surreal.

First, I really messed up my mid-semesters. Then I developed a bronchial infection during the second week of April as well as several minor allergy attacks. I was unable to walk, talk, eat or swallow for one and a half weeks and was stuck at home for nearly a solid month. My cell-phone and home PC modem both died during this time. When I went back to school, it was barely two weeks to finals and I was behind on my assignments, I had no idea what the professors were talking about and had to sit for all sorts of make-up quizzes. And I had barely started on my semester thesis (For which I had chosen the supremely inspired topic: Theravada Buddhism – Religion or Philosophy?) . I thought I was going to have to kiss my 4.0 goodbye and nearly had a nervous breakdown.
 

This is where things get a bit Final Destination. My first week back at school (thankfully devoid of illness) ran something like this:  

Monday: Tripped and skidded down the stairs on my back. Skinned my back and was black and blue for a week.

Wednesday: Turned my ankle while leaping up from my chair.

Friday: Tripped and made a classic, made-for-TV pratfall in the middle of the road while crossing the street. Nearly got run over. Made a complete spectacle of myself on the main street.

I swear! At one point, I became convinced the universe was deliberately trying to kill me. Somehow, I weathered it through until I reached the final week and realized I had barely got started on the thesis I was supposed to give in that week and which constituted 50% of my English grade. I had just organized all my research into one pen drive (I had to use multiple computers because of my lack of internet at home) and plugged it into my PC and started work on it – when I accidentally kicked it and broke it in half.

Started again. Just as I was ready to get writing again, I came down with some sort of stomach flu. I was summarily incapacitated for three days by the end of which I had exactly 48 hours to turn in my thesis – a thirty-plus page document of which I had so far only written five. I barely slept the first day and didn’t sleep the second. After a fourteen-hour stretch of sleepless, frenzied writing and guzzling an unholy amount of coffee in the process, I just managed to nearly finish it the morning of the deadline. And didn’t realize I’d forgotten to save it in the process. I left it open on my desk top in order to take a breather, while my sister took over to work on a document of her own. Unfortunately, once she finished, she mistakenly closed my document instead of hers – without saving the changes. When I came back, of the thirty odd pages I had finished writing, only eight remained.

I think all the shouting and smashing sounds really rattled the neighbours.

Start again. I couldn’t get through to my professor, so I left her a message pleading for another day’s extension. For the second consecutive day, I virtually injected caffeine into my blood stream and re-wrote the whole thing. I finished by mid-afternoon of the following day and tottered over to the campus with it – to discover that she had left for the week. After a fair amount of coaxing and cajoling the registrar, I got her home number and contacted her at home. Apparently, she hadn’t got my message, didn’t quite believe I’d left one, and was summarily told that the grades had already been posted. However, by some miracle, she agreed to tweak the circumstances a little bit for me and agreed to look at it on Monday. Thank goodness the professors tend to like me, in spite of themselves. All that kowtowing I learned in a private all-girls prep school seems to have paid off.

Meanwhile, for a person of tenuous health such as me, it is emphatically NOT a good idea to stay up for days on end drowning in caffeine. I feel a bit like I was run over by a truck, and my asthma has not been this bad since I was in grade school.

Now, kids, point to note: this is NOT a normal life to lead. Honestly. If it didn’t have some sort of bizarre entertainment value and I wasn’t a happy-go-lucky kid by nature, I’d be half way down to the funny farm by now. Who let Lemony Snicket into my life?!

Oh, but there's more. I get everything together and arrive on campus at 9 o'clock. Her office is locked, and she has not come in yet. I have no option but to wait in the lobby. I try her home phone. No answer. I try a friend's phone, to see whether she's heard anything I haven't. No answer. I try to call my house so I can get somebody there to look up my professor's mobile phone number from my diary. Nobody is picking up, probably because my sister has already left for her physics exam. I wait. I feel hungry and faint, since I didn't have dinner last night, was up pulling another all-nighter, and then left the house without having any breakfast. I daren't leave to get some food from the cafeteria lest I miss her.

My friend finally answers the phone at 12 o'clock. "WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?" I scream. "Oh, didn't I tell you?" says Marina. "She said she's coming around noon. Should be there soon." I talk myself out of eating the stack of manila folders on the receptionist's desk.

Finally, at one o'clock, I've had it. "Did Mrs. Joyce, come yet?" I ask. The guard looks at me blankly. "Yeah..but she left. Gone for the day I expect."

......
 

"But the office is open now," he continued hurriedly, possibly catching sight of my face. "You can leave what-ever-it-is on her desk."

Thanks so much, Mr. Security Man.

On the way up, I bump into Tharushi. "Hey! Did you get your English grades?" she chirps.

"What'd you mean?!"

"She put everybody's grades up last week. Didn't you know?"

"How can she have put up mine?" I wail. "I haven't given my thesis yet, and neither has Marina!"

"But Marina's grades are up! I think she got an A minus."

"How's that possible? The thesis is 50% of the grade!"

"Yeah, but you did your thesis presentation, didn't you?"

"Yeah, so? She said it'll only be 5 points from the overall mark or something."

"Huh? I dunno about that," says Tharushi, doubtfully.  "I think she grades the thesis more by the presentation than the actual writing, you know. I mean, otherwise she'd never get evreybody's marks down so fast, considering how many students she has."

"But my presentation was crap! That's why I wrote a completely original and thoroughly researched thesis stretching into 35 pages!"

"Well, how should I know? You don't have to yell at me!"

Sigh.
 
Kill me. Now. Please.

 

Comments

[queenofhearts17.livejournal.com]

There are days when it does feel like the universe is going to kill you. In that time, you must be quick-witted and use your astral projection powers to be everywhere at one time. The only solution. *nods seriously*

:P Just kidding. M'dear, you have just proven that you have a right to be selfish...honestly, if I had endured all of the above...I would have crawled under my bed and left myself to rot for months. After which point, there would probably be a horrific smell in my room (I don't think rotting bodies of 19-year-old girls smell very nice - although, if I douse myself in perfume, it might make the smell a bit more bearable) and my parents would wander in (not noticing I had disappeared in the first place) and probably exterminate the place for mice.

Yup. You are one brave chick. Which is why I love you.

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

Remember that episode where Prue's astral self decided to make a bid for freedom? During Piper and Leo's wedding? Well, I think I understand her now. I feel something inside me trying to tear itself away from my own miserable existence and get itself a life of its own.

Umm... that's a very, er...creative bit of imgery there, Paro. *snorts*

You're a brave chick too. What's more, you're a SWEET chick. Which is why I love YOU. *hugs*

[queenofhearts17.livejournal.com]

Oh, I haven't seen that episode in ages!!! I love it. XD I say it's the inner beast in you. *nods* Yep. XD

I do try. :P

*huge hugs*

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Oh, geez. :S

See ya,
Anna.

Oh, I forgot...

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

...So what happened with your English grade after all?

Re: Oh, I forgot...

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

A for the thesis, and A minus overall grade. Thanks for asking! *hug*

Re: Oh, I forgot...

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Yay! :D

See ya,
Anna.

[mrsmosley.livejournal.com]

Oh, Hasini. I am so sorry. ((((Hasini)))) I hope it's been a little better lately. And I'm glad you checked in, we were missing you!

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Lisa! I missed you guys too! *hugs*