clo_again

Just to say that the dissertation got handed in (ten minutes before the deadline. Even when I try not to be me, I can't help it) bound and hopefully correctly footnoted and with a copy on cd and everything. It looked very smart all properly bound and I felt hugely guilty because I still don't think it turned out that well, so having it look so official felt kind of a fraud. But A has ordered me not to think about it anymore and I won't, especially once I sort the giant stacks of books lurking around my room. Tomorrow. Tonight, I sleep.

Have decided to buy two new fish on Monday, because Kermit is looking lonely all by himself and Gonzo's too imbalanced to go back in the bigger tank. I would get them tomorrow but I need food and I can't carry both. In keeping with the Muppets theme, they're going to be called Beaker and Bunsen, short for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. One day there will be a Miss Piggy but it needs to be the right fish. I'll miss saying Rizzo. It's such a fantastic word. To be honest, I can't see Gonzo lasting much longer the way he is, although I said that over two months ago too and yet he's still half-swimming around at odd angles.

A also just pointed out that in three weeks, I'll be finished at university (unless I end up resitting this year. *touch wood* Don't laugh. I've barely read a Shakespeare play all year and my exam is in three weeks.) Finished forever. It's an unspeakably depressing thought. Which is why I am buying fish, because I need to be distracted with shiny things.

Going to bed now. If I can make myself move and work out how to change my sheets while majorly sleep deprived. Cannot brain today. Have the dumb. *So much* dumb. Which is why I'm still on hiatus from life and the internets until at least tomorrow.

Pretty much finished the final section (I know; I was initially meant to finish it like twelve hours ago. Ssssssssshhhhhhh.) And I'm over 1,500 words overlength. Without the conclusion which needs to be at least 400 words. That said, I want to get it down to around 10,600 as the top limit, which means cutting out around... 1,300 words ish when it's all said and done. Mmmm. This could be interesting. Though I want to rewrite the stupidly long introduction and a good 5-600 words can come off that.

And I have to have it done in the next two-two and a half hours tops because I need to do footnotes before printing it out at around half eight and there are billions of them. Covering about twenty books. All of which have just the title and a page number, so I need to organise them into true English-type anally retentive attention to detail.

On the plus side... almost finished. Ish. If a first draft can ever be called finished. >_<

edit: Cutting words out is proving harder than I thought it'd be. I'm at 11,153 now and need to get rid of at least another 500, preferably more like 6-700. And all I really want at this particular moment is a nap. Aaaaaaaarrrggh. Oh and footnotes? Don't even mention footnotes to me.

edit: Also I really really really haven't analysed enough in my first section but instead ramble on at length with description. It's really annoying. I have no idea how to change it. I can only hope there's enough in there and that I can pull something out my ass with the conclusion to salvage it.

Am only on page 16 of 52 in editing. ;_;

edit: 10,997 words. So bored. The thing with me is that I do the research and planning before I write, so what I end up with is pretty submittable and tight enough that any restructuring causes major headaches. This is nice in that I don't rewrite as much as some people. It's bad in that when I want to tighten things up more, taking stuff out means losing important stuff. And I don't have time to rewrite the entire damn chapter. Which is still 4,000 words and too long and it's just stupid.

AND I NEED TO DO THE FOOTNOTES, ARGH.

edit: My tiredness has suddenly caught up with me. Argh. I don't know if I'm not finding as many typos as usual because I'm missing them through lack of sleep or because I wrote this more slowly than my usual essays so I was typing better. Trying to wake up enough to care at this point.

Also, really not impressing myself on the read-through. To be honest, I don't think it's that good but there's nothing I can really do about it now. It's frustrating when I did read so much and try hard but it just doesn't seem to be coming across. Hopefully, hopefully I can make up for it with Creative Writing and Shakespeare. *touch wood*

edit: And no, I'm not being one of those annoying people who says their work is crap when it's awesome. I genuinely think this is barely worth submitting, given that the mark I suspect I'll get for it will pull down my average enough for it to may as well be a fail mark for something not handed in at all. It's sloppy and unfocused and, typically, the part I'm happiest with is the 2,000 words I wrote over last night with no sleep. Because I need stress. If I'd had four deadlines for each individual chapter, they'd each be much better.

Trying to talk myself out of sleeping for ten minutes. I really don't have the time. Argh.

GOING MAD FROM BOREDOM NOW SEND HELP WITH CHOCOLATE BEFORE HEAD EXPLODES K THNX.

Also, scary emails from head of security in response to the somewhat irate email I wrote about the porters never being there when I had urgent post to collect over Easter. Vaguely afraid of porter!wrath and also, confused about what the hell his solution to the problem is since he seems to be talking in circles. Also he says there's a notice saying "Call security on blah-blah-blah if the porters aren't there' and it's like WE DID THAT and the bloody phone IN THE NEXT ROOM rings, which is clearly pointless. He also says something about "not opening up mail to unsupervised access because you're all thieving students and stuff gets nicked" (or words to that effect) and it's frustrating when I never asked for that; I wouldn't *want* that. I just want a porter to be there at a specific hour every day so I know when to go to collect my post. Really. It's not rocket science.

This is totally an excuse to avoid writing more and I still have the third section to finish and the fourth to both plan and write, so I need to stop messing around on the internets. I really do.

Argh. That's all I can say right now. Argh at life.

Current overall word count: 6,271 words. It's looking likely that I'll be able to at least finish Gods and Mentors and probably the shorter Damsels sections tonight and even get them up to and over the right word count. Which means I'll have to do Monsters and Villains and the conclusion either (or probably) over tonight and tomorrow to get everything done, since I want to rewrite my introduction and the Heroes section needs no small amount of poking.

On the plus side I'm happier with the 800 words I've written of Gods and Mentors than anything else so far. As long as I manage to keep the damn thing from going off on tangents...

No sleep tonight then. Joy. Though am momentarily distracted from woe by this being the song I wrote Aeneas/Pallas slash to back in college. If I had another couple of weeks for dissertation (or I'd thought to start earlier), I could've totally slashed my four main heroes to get to understand them better, only that would involve slashing Bilbo and no, brain refuses to go there.

Odysseus/Shadow could be all manner of pretty and testosterone-y though. Odysseus/Shadow/Beowulf even more so. Mmmm. Someone write that for me to make my horrible day better?

edit: Also play.com, plz to be dispatching my Spaced now. I'm going to need it come Friday. Really, really need. So. Mush! *pokes*

edit: Do you ever wonder if you're actually achieving anything in your academic work or if you're merely wandering in circles of pretty prose that mean nothing? Because I feel like that now. Yeah. Even though I'm teaching myself things about fantasy that I never knew, like the perfect mentor being suspended between humanity and divinity and the fading, broken gods in American Gods can be seen to symbolise the human spirital condition right now. Or it could all be bollocks, I don't know.

Oh and current overall word count: 7,120 words. This is not a cause for joy as I still have at least 4-500 words at least left of the second section, an approx. 1,500 for the third and 2,000 for the last, bringing me in way over length without the conclusion even written. I'm debating cutting 'Damsels' down to 1,000 words, since two of my texts feature pretty much no women at all and as cool as Laura and Penelope are, there's no point stretching what there is to say about them longer when I'm short on space as it is. Oh, and my introduction needs rewriting. And the Heroes section tweaking. And all the footnotes and bibliography doing and I have so much work to get done in the next...oh, fifty hours?

Which is why I'm going to make dinner. Because I am hungry dammit. And play.com still has not dispatched my Spaced, so clearly checking my order status every five minutes is not spurring them to move faster.

It's just dawning on me exactly how long it's going to take to write this dissertation. Forget having Wednesday free for edits and rewrites. I'm only just coming up on 2,900 words now and I still have countless thousands of things I need to say and analyse and discuss. Which means I'm not on 2,900 words at all, because half of them are going to have to get cut out.

I may go buy myself a Hot Fuzz poster to stop myself panicking. Breathe, breeaaaaaathe. I have so much work to do. -_- Such. An. Idiot.

edit the one that's on a new post: 3,050 words and I have freshers being annoyingly loud outside my door. DEAR FRESHERS, SHUT UP, AM VERY BUSY AND STRESSED. Gggrr. Just wait until me and Kayleigh finish earlier than them in May. WE WILL HAVE VENGENCE.

I was meant to have finished this section half an hour ago but I still have at least a thousand, probably more, words to go. It's too long. So much is going to have to get cut out. ;_; It doesn't help that I mis-pasted into the main file a minute ago and thought for a second I'd passed 4,000 words. Yeah. That was nice.

edit the ninety-nine trillionth of the day: 3,654 words and I should make 4,000 by by stopping-for-dinner break at half eight. This is good but also exceedingly bad given that it means I'm already running hideously overlength.

Then again, it's better to have too many words than none at all because I write looooooong sentences in essays and can easily cut loads of stuff out. So, things are looking a tiny bit brighter right now. That is, they will be if I stop typing this and get a bloody move on with the actual thing.

Hot Fuzz poster is not in stock. Woe. Ordered it anyway. Yay! Think I am developing geeky love for Simon Pegg, though that could be dissertation stress talking.

edit the ninety-nine trillionth and one: Just realised the stacks of books beside me on the desk are almost/are over shoulder-height. Help help, I'm being buried alive by books! Aaahh!!!

Current overall word count: 4,013 words. Bite me alien boy!

No, that has no relevance I've just wanted to yell it triumphantly since Children in Need. Triumph over, I am horribly overlength and will be lucky to even start the second second by tonight but I really have to, regardless of sleep. I don't have time to leave it to tomorrow. Still, going to have dinner and bask in my minor accomplishments for an hour now. ^_^

*breathes* I just glanced at my calendar to see "4 DAYS TO GO". 8,900 words. And not just 8,900 words, 8,900 words of stuff I won't be ashamed of.

Not. Possible. I think I need a DON'T PANIC icon. Really, really need.

edit: Okay, okay, I'm breathing. Got the first five hundred or so words of the Heroes section planned and half-written, with an idea of what I need to do with it which is more than I had a couple of hours ago. Aiming for it to hit around 2,500 words, maybe a little more. Just worked out the other sections need to be around 2,000 (Gods and Mentors), 1,500 (Damsels ie. girls ), 2,000 for Monsters and Villains and 1,000 or more likely whatever's left over for the conclusion which'll bring me in at around 10,100 words. In theory.

This is probably of no interest to anyone but every time I decide things like this about this damn dissertation, I promptly forget it and have to panic all over again when I next think about it. At least now it'll be here every time I run to LJ to babble about how much I'm going to fail.

Ow. In conclusion; allergic to plasters (band-aids) or at least the type I have now. It looks like I've been bitten by a vampire. Possibly a vampire I was allergic to. Ouch.

Word count: Do. Not. Ask. Or I keel you all.

BUT. I do need a favour, if anyone feels like helping me out and has both time to waste and a copy of American Gods. I need to find all the references to "hidden Indians", ie. the magic-eye pictures of say, a vase of flowers (I think that's what was in the book) which looked at another way becomes a picture of people or something else, in AG "hidden Indians". I'm using it as my metaphor for the introduction because I hatehatehate introductions that go "In this essay/dissertation/meta, I will be blah blah blah". Only I can find the last reference (with Shadow in Whiskey Jack's trailer looking at the waterfall) but not the initial conversation or mention that I know has to be in there somewhere. I've re-read most of the damned book and I can't find it and I really want the damn quote. Anyone have an idea?

Or better, if anyone has a searchable e-text of it that'd be awesome. Awesome *beyond words*.

Back Starting to write now. Sigh. It's so not going to be done by Thursday.

edit: Oh my god I think the woman in Sea of Souls also played Fuschia in Gormenghast. Which I watched just a few days ago. That's not going to distract me at all.

I don't know, maybe it's not. Hm. Still distracting.

edit: It is her. And Sea of Souls was much better with the two 'sidekicks' as the Radio Times site put it. I also kinda wish they hadn't made it so outwardly supernatural or marvellous as I should be saying, now I've read all this stuff on fantasy. It was more fun when it wasn't explicit over if there actually was something going bump in the night or not.

Not dead. Tired to the point where sitting upright is an achievement but not dead. Haven't started writing dissertation yet. Haven't written plan yet. Going to fail. World is ending.

Same old, same old.

Comments, facebook, emails, anything not urgent is getting left until at least next week. May be around on LJ. Probably not. May keep a running word count total, Maybe not. Depends on how depressed it'll make me.

Just saying I'm not dead and I'm going to disappear until I've actually written something. Because yes. Stress. So, just don't expect much from me for the next couple of weeks.

Reading SGA fic. This counts as fun.

Yeah. I'm failing a course I designed myself.

edit: Totally just offended Aucusatory Hoodie Fresher without meaning to. We were both in the kitchen, me cooking and her washing up, when she started washing my stuff from lunch up too. Now, you have to understand this about the freshers: their concept of 'clean' is very different to mine. For a start, mine doesn't involve dried food left on saucepans or a film of soap left on mugs. So, to save myself having to go through all the 'clean' stuff to rewash it all later, I said "No, don't wash my stuff up! It'll give me something else to avoid work with later."

To which she cheerfully agreed and went back to her room. When I, promptly, started washing up because I usually do it while cooking so I don't have to do it afterward. And of course she promptly walks back to find me washing up when I'd just told her not to because I wanted to do it later. Which was just an excuse to save her feelings because there is no polite way to say "Look I appreciate your kind gesture but you'd be doing me a better one by not doing it."

Only now I've gone and offended her anyway because she went all quiet and went out. Honestly. I almost prefer the selfishness of the other two, because at least then you have a right to get mad at them. It's hard to get pissed at someone who was only trying to be nice but was unknowingly making your life harder in the process.

People. -_- Argh.

Have absolutely nothing to say really. Just, reading Beowulf again earlier killed my concentration and now I'm staring blankly at my Odyssey a-level notes and thinking how much I want more Cutter/Stephen fic. Possibly Cutter/Stephen/Connor. The cast of Primeval has no right to be so utterly pretty, especially not when I have a dissertation I should be focused on. And dammit, there needs to be more fic for it.

Spent last night cleaning and tidying my room from top to bottom but all it's done is make me realise how much dirt and dust is caught in my keyboard in comparison to the shiny desk. Does running a hoover over it work? Though the last thing I want to do before writing my dissertation is to break my keyboard. Yeah, maybe I'll suffer (the word is suffer Heaney you fuckwit, thole my ass) the dust.

Parental hinted she might send me a box of chocolate and easter stuff since I won't be at home for Easter weekend. I begged for the Dalek eggcup with a chocolate egg in it from M&S. Will wait and see if she gets it right.

Dammit, I really want Cutter/Stephen/Connor and variations thereof. Must read Odyssey notes. Must not fic. In any way. Ack.