Oh boy -- more exams for me! Tomorrow I not only have an exam in my Truth and Propaganda class, but I also have to hand in the take-home exam for semantics, worth 75% of my final mark (and I'm working on that right now). Sadly, it has to be said that I'm really busy, really tired, and with two exams to hand in tomorrow, I don't stand a chance of getting a single other thing done. At least, though, I updated a couple of pages here and there. Go read them, if you like.

1. English; literature of the self -- an exam worth forty percent.

2. Linguistics; morphology -- a final exam worth, well, god knows how much. I can't find my syllabus. But a lot.
3. Philosophy; fourth year philosophy of language -- a take-home exam in the form of a 20 page paper worth fifty percent.

4. Linguistics; semantics -- a take-home exam worth seventy five percent of my final grade.

5. Philosophy; truth and propaganda -- because this is a full-year course, this was technically the "mid-term," worth thirty percent.

So, I had a lot in front of me. The sixth fearsome danger was a book report on an autobiography of my choosing (from a provided list) for my English clas, worth a piddling twenty percent, but nevertheless was due last week right after I'd written the exam for that course, and so had to be written in my now-classic, "night before" form. I've probably consumed enough coffee to kill two or three children over the past week, and this has left me twitchy, bleary, cranky, and utterly, recklessly, abandoned to an addiction to caffeine. We're talking headaches. The kind that don't go away, no matter how many painkillers you take. I have codeine -- I know. The sorts of headaches that persist, all day long, as a punishment to remind you that it is a sin to delay feeding the addiction for any length of time, for any reason. If you just happen to sleep in past the point when your body would demand an infusion (as happened yesterday), this insulting impudence is considered sufficient provocation for your brain to torture you for the entire day with a throbbing, pounding, headache of proportions grave enough to drive a man to murder-suicide.

Last week I wrote my English final, and handed in my book report. On Tuesday I had to write my truth and propaganda mid-term, and hand in the take-home exam for semantics. Dear God, let me tell you about that take-home exam. A take-home exam sounds like a piece of pie, because it has all these cinchy connotations -- gee, like "take home!" Hell, that's like ordering you to go home and write that sucker with all your books wide open in front of you, and hey, what could be better than that?! Well, I tell you now, my friends, IT'S A TRICK. Beware -- when your professor tells you that you have a take-home exam, it means essay! It's like feeding you a sweet, delicious Godiva chocolate stuffed with pus. It's a wet, filthy, stinking septic lie surrounded by a pleasant outer coating.
Now, in all fairness, I had various options presented to me by the very nice professor at the beginning of the course. We all had to write the mid-term, and we all had to write the final -- however, depending on the evaluation option you chose, these were given various weights. If you elected to participate in some group presentations and write a few reports on some semantic dissertations, your final exam might only be worth a miniscule twenty-five or thirty-five percent of the final grade. Six questions: a gift. If you played by the book but goofed up your final, you could still get out of that class with an excellent grade. Everybody in the (admittedly small) class went for this option. Except one.

Do I even have to tell you who that was?

The final evaluation option was called "distance participation," which basically meant that if you were a shy, backwards, unfriendly person who hates giving presentations (not out of a fear of public speaking but a genuine hatred of giving presentations -- or, rather, preparing presentations), you could write the mid-term, and the final for a staggeringly huge amount of the final grade. I prepared like a bitch for the mid-term when its time came, I confess, and spent sleepless nights pouring over readings and notes trying to make some sense of the great confusion of semantics. Imagine my fear and loathing when I walked into class that day only to discover that the exam was an open book mid-term. Everyone else looked rested and happy, and there I was, wired out of my wits on Jolt cola (Carleton now sells caffeinated water, too.... mmmmmm), cold and pale and shakey, stuffed to capacity with tidbits like Gricean maxims on conversational implication. The redeeming joy was that I earned myself an A+ on that midterm, and this encouraged my belief that I could write a smashing final. At some point, of course, I did need to have a chat with my very understanding and sympathetic professor, because I had been very shy in announcing my intentions regarding this option through most of the term (I get very uncomfortable confronting professors about anything) and the professor later admitted that he'd been very worried that I simply hated the course or found serious problems with his teaching style (in a class of about ten people, attendance and participation and shyness get noticed). So we had to hammer out a concrete understanding of my intentions in his office one fine afternoon. He had offered me the option of writing a supplementary report on some of the books covered in class for a certain added percentage of the final grade, but I felt this would be highly unfair to the other students. If nothing else, I have gravely held principles. So I told him that I would be much, much happier banking almost my entire final grade on the final exam -- which, while he felt this was a serious gamble, remained the best option and I was confident I could write a brilliant paper.

Immediately after handing in my book report for English, I got cracking on my semantics final -- it took me days. At the end I actually didn't sleep for two straight days of pure labour, compounded by the fact that I had a truth&propaganda exam to write the same day I handed in my semantics paper. I sighed, I moaned, I yawned, I drank coffee, I stole a half-hour nap once or twice. Let me tell you about pain. The exam was presented as six questions, which sounded easy enough, and I'm sure if you were only writing it for that thirty-five percent, it was only, say, a day's work, reading and typing together. Myself, I had to make absolutely sure that I got this sucker perfect. I spent no less than a page (single spaced, now) on any given answer. At the end of it, I'd written a five thousand word paper, consisting of thirteen single-spaced pages. I should have double spaced it, perhaps, but then it would have been nearly thirty, and this is not the time of year I want to run out of either ink or paper for my crappy NEC inkjet.

How I managed to also write my truth and propaganda exam, I'll only guess at. I think perhaps it was adrenaline and gall that kept me going -- I barely got the chance to study at all thanks to my semantics monstrosity, but I actually managed to write four decent essay answers to four annoying essay questions on Tuesday, and happiness wasn't even the word in describing the exhausted relief Broken and I felt (we took the class together) when we left campus. Now, I don't know how I did on my truth and propaganda exam, but I'm almost willing to guarantee myself that I got an A+ on my take-home exam. Indeed, I'm sure I came as close to scoring 100% in that course as anybody I took it with. I felt really good about it when I handed it in -- desperately sleepy, but good.

Now all I have left are two finals -- my morphology final exam (which will be good only because I get to take it with someone I really like, and we'll probably study together for it and hang out afterwards), and the take-home exam for my fourth year philosophy of language course. This is going to be another monstrosity for the reason that it is to be presented as a paper between 15 and 20 pages as a discussion/critique of the writings of Gottlob Frege. If you don't know who that is, I don't think explaining will help. If you do know who that is, you know I'm doomed. It isn't worth 75% of my final grade, but it is worth 50% and that's plenty bad enough, thank you very much. It's due Tuesday. Hopefully, somehow, between now and then I'll actually put together something decent when I'm not actually studying.

So, I'm busy. I was busy, I am busy, I will be busy. I'll try to write as much as I can, but I hope you understand that these are not easy times for me.

Yesterday I was at work, however, making up for hours I couldn't work this week thanks to my many obligations, and Jennifer, my very nice co-worker, mentor and friend (she taught me everything I know now about Photoshop, for example) told me that someone in our office had been looking for some assistance, and so she'd been quick to absolutely lay down praise and respect for my talents as thickly as possible. So, I have another job if I want it. She told me to "ask for lots of money," and it was cute, because I was talking to Broken on the telephone when Jennifer came in to talk to me; although the handset was down on my desk, we could both hear Broken shout "What? That's wonderful!" when I was given the news. I don't really know when she'd want me, or for how many hours, or what would be expected, but I'll really have to think about it, because if the requirements eat into my winter term my grades might suffer. Still, it might be lots more money... well, I'll let you know what the terms turn out to be, and you can help me decide.

I actually feel less and less welcome now, too. There is a fast, clique-y bond between two of my roommates and a boyfriend, so frequently they'll congregate in the kitchen, beside Kincaid's room, to gossip and talk while preparing meals or doses of coffee/tea. And I mean, this is fine, but I've noticed something lately, which is that if you're downstairs puttering around, Kincaid will open his door and poke his head out to see who it is that's prancing about in the kitchen. If Pixiegirl and her boyfriend are out there, he'll come out and join the fun, but it seems (to me) that if it's just me and/or Broken, he'll make the effort to add a sense of pretense to the moment, by walking to the downstairs bathroom (beside his bedroom), opening up a cupboard door under the sink, peering in, closing it, and then returning to his room and closing the door. This happens enough for me to suspect that it's an intentional pattern, and it's pretty insulting if it's true. I don't know. I don't care enough to inquire anymore. Periodically Kincaid will read the snivel, so perhaps I should be censoring my thoughts, but then again it would be really sneaky if I bitched about my roommates only because I thought they'd never read it, and I'd much rather be honest in this indirect crappy way. Better that I be honest and open, and screw me if it blows up in my face. I'm just too tired to care what my roommates honestly think of me anymore. I have my complicated life, my bewildering education, my high-paying keen-o government job, my romantic intrigues, my beloved fans and my writing career all to come first. Respect is a mutual, earned thing, and I find it hard to give when it's not something I get.

I still don't know who punched a fist-sized hole in our wall, although while I was playing "Columbo" I observed that it was obviously made by a tall, right-handed person punching with a downwards force with the fist on a forty-five degree angle. I have no reason to believe the culprit was anybody but a resident of this house, and while I have too much dignity to play the "blame game," I'll say that if our wall-puncher ever confessed to the deed, I'd be upset but relieved at the act of responsibility, honesty, and maturity in doing so. Conversely, if I (magically) found out who did it on my own, I'd never speak to that person again. Not because they punched a hole in our wall, but because they lied about it, baldly, too afraid to face the consequences of a dumb move. And somebody in my house is lying about it. I will say, though, that my swell boss has offered to give me guidance in my efforts to repair this damage, because he's an extremely handy guy (knowing more about woodworking, for example, than Rob "chop! ouch!" F. ever will). I promise you now, however, that if I ever do find a magic lamp, and upon rubbing it (or licking it while barely keeping myself composed enough to refrain from bursting into tears of "yay! a magic lamp" joy) a genie promises me three wishes, these wishes are as follows.

1. I wish I were omniscient so I knew who punched a hole in our wall

2. I wish I could fly.

3. I wish I had the power to do genuine good for the people I love and for the entire world.

I've also been phenomenally stressed about my exams and essays. And it's almost Christmas, my birthday is in four days, I'm going to be (gasp) 23, and I'm practically broke. I still really haven't gotten anywhere in my 20-page philosophy of language paper (discussing Michael Dummett's discussion of Gottlob Frege's argument that a semantic understanding of truth is undefinable, particularly with respect to the correspondance theory of reality), but I have a lot of great material, so largely it's just a matter of typing twenty pages. Bluh.

I'm in a good mood, in a different light, however, because tonight I'm seeing my wonderful friend after hardly seeing her at all this past week and a half (which made me sad) especially in the face of many cancelled plans (which made me hurt) and various other disappointments. I've been bracing myself to tell her how I feel, and come good or bad, tonight (I think) is the night that I discuss my crush on her. I think if nothing else, I want to confirm for her that she is a person who nice guys can love, versus the long string of jerks and wankers who repeatedly say things like "I don't want a relationship with you," even if there is something substantial already between them. I want her to know that somebody special to her thinks she is beautiful, even if that somebody isn't someone she herself can love in kind.

Oh, I'm a person of contradictions. Happy Holidays, to all of you lucky bastards who are already finished classes for your respective fall terms (would you believe I get less than two weeks' vacation before fucking classes start again once I'm finished with my bloody exam and my bloody paper on Tuesday? Grrrrr.......).

Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.

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