Songs of Journey

My master's thesis groupmates aren't really prone to swearing (any more than other American twenty-somethings). But I am noticing tonight that the closer we get to being finished with this project, the more curse words are creeping into the emails flying back and forth. And it's not that things are going wrong; we're in very good shape. We're just "so fucking done with this shit."

Behold ye, the lady_songsmith did have a paper due, and thus did she spend much of the night of Monday structuring it, for that her groupmates' understanding of organization was but slender.

So did the lady_songsmith waken late on the Tuesday, and was blessedly given a ride to class (whereupon she wanted car with greater yearning than before, for it was quick nigh unto unbelievable), but was still tired upon returning home from the evil math class of the too early morning. Yet being cursed with the responsible gene from her parents, she did work through the noon meal, sorting passages into their proper places. Then did the lady_songsmith nap.

Waking in the evening, the lady_songsmith did check her mail which came by internet, and discovered that one of her groupmates had still not provided all of his required materials, whereupon she was much wroth. Yet the paper was still due upon the following afternoon, so the lady_songsmith did attack it with much vigor and green pen.

Then did the lady_songsmith discover that one of her groupmates could not cite sources, and she did headdesk greatly. The final section of the paper being still lacking, she did call one of her groupmates to ask if anyone knew how to contact the remiss one, for that he was not replying to his messages. Alas, for noone did.

It then being close upon the hour of midnight, the lady_songsmith and her responsible groupmate did together beat the paper into submission, and it was good. Yet still lacking of section. Therefore did the lady_songsmith use the power of the Google and craft a last-minute piece of bullshit to fill the gap lest their groupmate completely flake. Then she did sleep.

Upon waking, much too soon for it was the day of the paper deadline and time could not be wasted in bed, the lady_songsmith did check her messages and found that the tardy groupmate had sent a message, and she did rejoice --

But the message was but a vow to have his part sent to them by the following day, which did them all no good. And the lady_songsmith was again much wroth, but there was a message from the responsible groupmate saying that she had already smacked the tardy one.

So the lady_songsmith did put together all of the parts of the paper: the cover, and the table of contents, and the much-labored-over text, and the references, which needed fixing. Then did she fix the references, and send the entirety of the document to the responsible groupmate to check over.

It then being close upon noon, the lady_songsmith was greatly hungered. And this having been her week, she did go to hell with herself, and eat waffles smothered in butter and syrup.

And they were good, and she regrets it NOT.

To date, the tally of classmates who have promised to buy me lunch stands at four. I should really start arranging to collect.

My brain is full.

Why am I still up at 1 am when I have class at 8:30?

Largely because I just now finished typing up my homework assignment for Quant. Why?

Because a steady stream of people (7, and counting) IMed or called me to ask how to do part two of the homework.

I should start charging for this. One of them did promise to buy me lunch.

For now, I'm turning off my phone and going to bed.

-Got midterm back in Quant, and then got told it might not even count for our grade. Much o.O-ing ensued. I am, at least, in the upper hump of the bimodal distribution. I could be higher, I think, but I don't really feel like point-picking (and there are some major question marks regarding lost points) when it won't really count.

-Went to lunch with friends, got decidedly silly doing an "economic" analysis of relationships.

-Gave blood. I really wish they would listen to me about which vein to try. I've lost count of how many times I've given, and every time they take it from this one particular spot, it's a quick, painless stick, I'm done in about 5 minutes, and I don't bruise at all. The four times they've taken it somewhere else, it hurts, takes 10-15 minutes or more, and I get bruising ranging from the diameter of a quarter to a drinking glass. This one looks to be quarter-sized, thankfully, but the stick hurt like heck.

-Napped. Naps are good and fun and lovely.

-Researched more for memo. Am beginning to be of the opinion that memo research is sorta like thesis writing -- in the words of my thesis advisor, "deadlines exist to force you to stop working on it." Seriously, if you'd told me in undergrad that I needed a full page of references for a three-page paper, I would have laughed til I cried. Now? I get that much easily, and could have more.

-Am now writing memo.

Registration for next semester starts at the end of the month. (Yes, it is ridiculously early.) What with midterms eating my life, I hadn't had a chance to sit down with the schedule and pick my classes until tonight.

I have two out of three selected, and a note in to my advisor pleading for -- well, advice -- about the third. The two?

- Methods for Policy Analysis, with this semester's econ professor, he of the incredibly dry and funny wit.
- Communicating Public Policy, with the professor I've been dying to take a class with since before I got here.

This will mean I'll be in class for roughly 8 hours on Thursdays, but even so...

Wheeeee!!!

Edit: The econ class I'm in now is being offered again next semester. How insane would I have to be to want to TA it...? (Given that I'm already tutoring my classmates off-and-on.)

I've decided that econ only makes sense when you apply its own internal logic; any attempt to apply outside logic to it just makes the whole thing collapse in on itself. Which starts to explain all those jokes about economists and crystal balls.

Take, for instance, a government incentive program to restrict supply. According to our textbook, such an incentive has to be large enough to compensate producers for the revenue they would get if they sold as much as they could produce profitably at the high price that a restricted supply creates. Which makes sense internally. But, see, the thing is -- without the incentive, they couldn't actually sell that much; people wouldn't buy it. So really, they're not losing out on anything except warehouses full of unsold widgets. They could be losing out on something -- if they can sell 4 widgets at $10, that's better than 2 at $15, even though they're getting a higher price per widget. But they're not losing out on selling all 6 widgets that they would like to produce at $15/widget, because if they actually sold 6 on the market, they'd only make $5 each.

Except in econ, where all $60 from the 4 they "don't get to sell" at $15 is counted as a loss.

*headdesk*

So. I think it's telling that, at one point during the writing and rewriting of my last paper, my works cited page included a census taken by the New South Wales Department of Corrections (yes, that would be as in Australia) and the website condomdepot.com.

It's going to be an interesting couple of years, but I'm having fun!