Guys I woke up at six-thirty this morning. I woke up at six-thirty in the morning, when I didn't have to! And I am still on Perth time, more or less! And I only got home from the airport at like twelve-thirty last night!

I don't even know.

Also have a yuletide letter, even though it is SO LATE OMG, because I'd already written three quarters of it before I left for Perth and whatevs, even if you probably don't need it because you have started already, awesome Yuletide writer, I'm going to take the chance to babble about these fandoms I love ANYWAY! :D:D Seriously though, this is SO LATE OMG, feel free to ignore completely!

( Letter! )

Okay I am going to POST THIS. And then fix up that student email thing for Appalachian. And then POST THAT FUCKING FIC I FINISHED LIKE A MONTH AGO, OMG. And then write my Yuletide fic! And finish the yagkyas fic too augh augh god.

here is a short quiz on community living standards! it is not very difficult!

it is three in the morning, during the last night of the exam period. you discover that a male of your acquaintance is an asshat! do you:

a) well, it's three in the morning! during exam period! and if you go to his room now there will probably be lots of shouting and noise. maybe you should wait until morning!

b) go to his room, knock on the door, and when he doesn't answer, ring him, and if he still doesn't wake up to let you in, decide it can wait until morning.

c) okay, so he hasn't woken up when you knock gently! it's time to SLAM YOURSELF BODILY AGAINST HIS DOOR, until he - and every other fucking person in the corridor - wakes up!

let's say you choose answer c), because you are a temperamental asshole like that. after you have been slamming for ten minutes or so, the person living in the room next to asshat guy comes out, explains that she has an exam the next morning, and asks you politely to be quiet. your response:

a) "oh no, i'm really sorry! i forgot exam period was still on! i'll go away and be quiet now."

b) "oh no, i'm really sorry, but listen, this guy cheated on me with my mum/raped my dog/killed a kitten, i HAVE to let him know what a douchebag he is. i'm really sorry though, i'll try to be quick about it!"

c) "well, i don't fucking care! because i am angry! and my ~pain~ is the most important thing in the universe right now! you're just going to have to listen to me slamming against the door, and then shouting, and then crying, and then makeup sex, for the next two hours! because that's what i want right now!"

if you chose c) again: congratulations! you are the girl in the corridor at three am this morning! you win the FAILS AT COMMUNITY LIVING award.

(no, really, her response to, "i have an exam in the morning, please be quiet"? "i don't fucking care right now." those were her actual words. you know what I care about? THE FACT THAT I GOT LESS THAN TWO HOURS SLEEP LAST NIGHT, COMING ON TOP OF TWO WEEKS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION. AND, OH YEAH! I HAVE AN ADVANCED JAPANESE EXAM IN THREE HOURS.)

Also, omg I CANNOT STOP listening to this song. FUCK but Patti Smith is amazing. Who would have thought smells like teen spirit plus a fucking BANJO would be this awesome???

I'm totally wishing I nominated this as a yuletide fandom now. No, really! Post apocalyptic dystopic urban fantasy, from the poem in the middle, scavengers picking through the ashes, children of the mills! Children of the junkyards! Sleepy, illiterate, fuzzy little rats, haunted, paint-sniffin',
stoned out of their shaved heads; forgotten, foraging, mystical children, foul-mouthed, glassy eyed, hallucinating... it would be fucking AWESOME. And then, I'm worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed; our little group has always been and always will until the end, tell me that would not be an AMAZING story. Ragtag survivors thrown together, urban dystopia and fantastic elements - that is like fucking CRACK to me, guys! Man, I wish I'd discovered this song about three weeks earlier. D:

...My yuletide letter is COMING! Really! Omg I'm so sorry for being slow, yuletide author, you are amazing and I love you lots. I will hopefully get it done tonight? I just need to go run around the exchange office signing forms for a couple hours first. -_-

Two assignments and one exam down; one assignment and two exams to go. And a million forms! I CAN DO THIS.

I was gonna try and write my yuletide letter today, and it might still happen, but right now I am fucking BRAINDEAD omg.

Which is kind of problematic, I still need it!

God, I just have to last until Friday...

Just out of interest, shit Lily needs to do over the next week:

-Translate at least the intro/chapter titles of the other four and a half Japanese language books I've borrowed (topic: representation of women esp. through gendered language); translate at least the abstract of four of the Japanese-language articles I've downloaded, hoping at least that many of them will be relevant; write a 100-character paragraph for one of the books I've already translated, plus all eight of the books/articles I haven't; work out what the fuck my actual question is and write an 800-character proposal about it.
Deadline: Sunday, 5pmish. Or maybe midnight! Or, who knows, considering I don't actually know where the hell we're supposed to submit it!

-Write a couple shortish letters to the editor (I'm thinking 300-400 characters) plus one-two longer world news articles of maybe two or three times that length. Must be funny!
Deadline: technically, Friday before the Japanese exam, but I suspect the rest of my group will be pissed if I leave it that long.

-Go over readings, listen to lecture recordings and possibly do background readings for two-three topics for my Modern Japanese Society exam (ENGLISH THANK GOD)
Deadline: Tuesday morning.

-Chase up the fucking pathology centre in fucking Dickson to get them to send me my fucking tuberculosis test results so I can send the fucking overdue forms to fucking North Carolina (seriously, I wasted not only an hour of my time this morning trying to get this done, but also incidentally caused a doctor here to have to try and chase this up herself for me, except she FAILED, and also I filled up an emergency appointment slot with this shit which I really shouldn't have done.
Deadline: Technically, three days ago! :D :D :D

-Do readings/listen to lecture recordings/do background reading on four topics for my Chinese history exam.
Deadline: Wednesday

-Sign, like, seven different forms about my exchange (including one that needs to be signed by the Asian Studies sub-dean, except he won't do that until he's seen prospective course outlines for what I might do next year, except most of the US people haven't replied to my email asking for them yet!)
Deadline: 1st of December, in theory, except they have to be handed in in person to the exchange office, and that's only open Tues-Thurs. And I leave on Saturday!

-Go over the last two topics we did in Japanese in detail, plus revise my notes on the first one, plus revise some fucking kanji because it's a no-dictionary exam and apparently I have lost the ability to remember how to actually write the things!
Deadline: Friday afternoon.

-Pack up all my shit and clean my room ready to move out.
Deadline: Saturday morning.

*SCREAMING*

dear pissy girl in the computer labs:

guess what? there are FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE in b&g! and only about twenty-five computers in the labs! also, only about five or so of those are macs, and all the pcs are so old and shit that they don't even run flash player/freeze up all the time when lily is trying to look shit up in japanese.

that means that if you leave the computer labs for half an hour at the prime studying time in the middle of exams, while still logged into a mac, leaving your shit all over the desk... you're going to piss people off!

so don't get grumpy at ME when you come back in and find that a) someone has logged you out of the mac so they can use it (not me, in this case, though i did take advantage when i looked over and saw that they'd logged out and gone) and b) someone (me!) has pushed all your stuff to the back of the desk. IT WAS ALL THERE, i did not steal your thumbdrive or your bag or your earphones or anything, and hey, the person who logged you out didn't (as far as i know) steal any of your print quota either! there is no need to be so pissed off about it.

SERIOUSLY, who leaves all their stuff lying around in the computer labs for that? (wait, i know: fucking EVERYONE. ARGH.) it's so dumb though. like, going to the bathroom or to the kitchens for five-ten minutes to grab a drink or some food or something, i can understand, but i was in here for at least half an hour before she came back, trying to get a fucking shitty old pc to work.

searching for japanese-language books for a critical bibliography (which is ten sources not six oh god oh god oh god; i have to write 100 ji on each plus 800 ji of the essay proposal i would write if i was actually going to do a proper japanese-language research essay on this topic, AUGH) and UGH ALL TITLES ARE ROMANISED WHYYYYY.

also the topic i was originally gonna do was representation of working women in tv dramas, except obvs there are like no relevant books. so now i'm doing... something about survival of regional dialects? IDK. UGH.

also i am STARVING. except the printer's broken, so i can't even print this shit out, head to the kitchens and eat while i translate. MY LIFE, SO HARD, ETC ETC.

seriously, i need to make posts in here occasionally that aren't just bitching about uni. (hey guys, guess who has to be out of b&g by 10am next saturday morning? and who has an exam friday afternoon? NO OF COURSE I DON'T NEED TIME TO PACK UP ALL MY SHIT, DON'T BE SILLY!)

oh yeah, and my GRANDPA friended me on facebook the other day. LOL and all of that, yes, but... what do i DO?

so one of the requirements for going to north carolina is a tuberculosis test taken within twelve months of your arrival. okay! so i went to dickson on monday, because apparently that is one of the only places in canberra that actually does the mantoux test i need, and i got stabbed in the arm with a needle and told to come back in three days to get the results, and to not worry about making an appointment or anything, they'd just slot me in.

fine, i thought! so this morning i got up early (for me, shut up), got a transfer bus ticket (two-way, but the second trip has to be started within ninety minutes of the first) and went into the pathology centre to wait.

i got in there aroung ten am; it was pretty full, but not too bad. they took my details and told me to wait.

and so i waited. and waited. and waited.

at eleven forty-five, i finally got called in to talk to the pathologist.

the best part? she looked at the injection spot on my arm for all of ten fucking seconds, and told me i was done.

that's right. i waited an hour and forty five minutes for someone to look at my arm for ten whole seconds. seriously, I was in her office for less than a minute in total.

of course the transfer ticket had run out by then.

*SCREAMS*

Also, apparently I am playing tennis or something this afternoon?

*Waits for the full impact of this to sink into everyone I went to high school with*

Then again, badminton was the only sport in Japan I didn't humiliate myself in on a regular basis, and they're related - right? Right??

(Seriously though. One time, in softball, I actually managed to hit the ball with the bat - except I somehow managed to hit it directly up. And then it fell straight down again. On my head. I already fucking knew how gravity worked, thanks!)

Oh maaaan. I've been catching up on LJ and fic and shit on the library wireless, because it's been a couple days and, you know, I thought that me and my laptop were safely hidden in this little study alcove!

I just went to a site with a dark background, and suddenly the face of this guy sitting at a desk behind me - who I totally didn't even see sit down - was reflected up on my screen. Like, he's in direct line of sight.

D:D:D:

Essay I'm meant to be writing is on Dracula and The Waste Land, fear of female sexuality and of social/moral/racial degeneration and degenerates, ie shit that normally gets Lily's geek on! Fuck, I spent like the past two semesters worth of English classes inwardly bitching about the fact that I didn't get to talk about this kind of shit as much as I wanted - not that that stopped me, of course! So why the FUCK can't I actually write this essay??

Exchange shit is going craaazy, forms and vaccinations (omg TWO big scary needles tomorrow, plus a mantoux test on Monday, ugh ugh AMERICA WHYYYY) and loans and all of that, plus an extra bonus trip to Centrelink today that turned out to be completely pointless! Thanks, Centrelink! Kristen went home today, poor girl, after two days of basically waiting outside various offices (exchange office, sub-dean of asian studies faculty, campus health service, travel agent, centrelink...) as I ran back and forth with various forms. And I'm still not fucking DONE, either! At least we got to consume dead pig at Amy's on Tuesday. Ha, and Melbourne Cup is a public holiday here (OH CANBERRA) and yet I still have no clue whatsoever who won. (And no, I don't really care, either.) So now it's back to using up all my credit and spending all my time in hancock emailing and fucking around on gmail chat! ...Seriously, what did people DO before technology???

Shit I need to do tomorrow/am totally going to do anyway even though I probably shouldn't:

-ESSAY, fucking CHRIST, Lily!
-HEALTH SERVICE AT 11.30 FOR MY VACCINATIONS NOOOOO
-Try and fill out as much of these fucking exchange forms as possible. Except that they need to all go in at once, and I can't finish a couple of them until I get course outlines from Appalachian State to give to the Sub-Dean so he can sign off on my enrollment form for ANU so that, I don't know, about six other levels of people can run around passing forms to one another. JESUS.
-Okay, so I shouldn't, but I totally AM going to head into Borders tomorrow to finish reading Liar. So fucking good omg! I really am going to have to buy it, but maybe for Christmas or something, ugh.
-Also, food, at some point? Crap. Time for the mince+beans+pasta holy trinity again! Actually, there's a free vegie garden here now, which is kind of shit, but they do have silverbeet (it's pretty much all they have, because it's basically unkillable) which would be kind of awesome for the greens portion of my diet. Also, fresh parsley! And coriander! :D Pity all the rocket's gone to seed.
-Did I mention fucking ESSAY? This is not exactly helping! And it needs to be in by 4.30, ugh.
-ALSO BIG SCARY NEEDLES NOOOOOO

On the bright side, I totally fucking SMOKED both my Chinese history assessments. Yeah, that essay on Kangxi I was stressing out about? I kicked its ASS, apparently! Pity I handed it in five days late...

Actually, on that subject - apparently there is some government grant? To students studying overseas? Specifically, studying overseas in the US and Canada? The ANU gives out a few each year to exchange students to those countries, and it's based entirely on marks, including this semester's. So I actually have to pull my act together, fuuuuck... Not that I have that much of a chance, first year's results weren't bad, but last semester - UGH, jesus. But STILL. It is like five thousand bucks, how totally amazing would THAT be? :D:D:D

...Except that procrastinating about my essay is not exactly HELPFUL. *Fails*

I am sitting under a tree! With my latop! Using the free wireless! Listening to music! This living in the future thing is awesome.

So I've accepted for exchange next semester, which is so awesome omg - except, well. Remember how I was all, I'm gonna go to North Carolina, because it'll be warmer! and all of that? Well, turns out I'm not going to Chapel Hill or NC State like I hoped. Nope, I'm going to Appalachian State. Which is, um, in the Appalachians. One thousand metres up. There was a specific mention in the briefing materials they sent me that it was gonna be cold.

...Yeah, you can all laugh at the irony now. I already am!

Booked my tickets today (!) and I pick up my US passport on Friday - it's getting real, folks! Craaazy. I'm going to be doing that thing where I leave at like nine in the morning on the 29th and then arrive at seven in the morning the same day. Time travel FTW! ...Yeah, so I'm stupidly excited about this. Shut up, I'm twelve and I don't care!

Okay, and now the wireless has just dropped out. Which is fair enough, I suppose, considering that I'm sitting opposite ANU's biggest library, but stiiiill. Damn you, everyone else who's trying to use the wireless at the same time as me! You better not be trying to download anything, is all I'm saying.

And now I'm in Hancock and everything's fine. Humph. SO MUCH FOR THE FUTURE.

...Also, I forgot my jacket, and now I'm cold. FUCK.

So I ran out of money on Thursday, and the stew that was supposed to last me until Monday got finished at lunchtime yesterday, and all I had in my fridge was, like, a tomato, a little bit of limp coriander and half a carrot. I was staring in the face of a diet of nothing but porridge cooked without milk for two days, it was a terrifying thought. But this is why you should always keep couscous in your cupboard, kids! I cooked the couscous, chucked in some grated carrot and some finely chopped tomato and coriander, and added some vinegar and garlic, and it was really fucking good. Okay, so it's hardly a well-balanced meal (oh my god protein!) but, fuck it, it beats Mi Goreng. I'm actually pretty proud! And, you know, the thought of eating dinner tonight doesn't fill me with fear and dismay!

In other news, if the light above my head doesn't stop turning itself off and on randomly with this really loud TINK! noise soon, I'm going to have to STAB SOMEONE. (Or, you know, give up on actually being able to use internet on my computer and go back to my room. Actually, if I go back to my room I might actually get some work done on my essay! ...But then again, maybe not.)

(Yes, the essay is two thousand words, and yes, it was due on Friday, and yes, I... haven't started yet. UM.)

I'm in the library with my laptop: internet on my computer, yessss!

Except I'm really hungry, I should go get something to eat!

But there's no wireless in the kitchens!

But, there's no food in the library!

*Weeps*

Ugh, I suck so much. :/

( YAGKYAS Secret Santa Letter under the cut - if you don't know what that is, do me a favour, and don't click? )

Ugh. The major essay for my Ming-to-PRC Chinese history class is due in, like, a week. And I stopped doing the readings after week one because there was never actually any class discussion in my tutes so I didn't actually need to, and then I stopped going to classes a couple weeks later because I am lazy as hell, and, um, yes, I am starting to discover why this may not have been the best idea ever. :/ Actually it shouldn't be too bad, I just need to stop being lazy and go to the fucking library. And write the precis on one of the tute readings for this class, which is due like four days after the essay. And then start on the three (THREE!) assessments for Japanese due at the end of October, oh GOD. (Seriously, last term was TEN WEEKS. How many assessments did we have due for Japanese then? ONE. This term? Fucking FOUR, and an exam! AUGH.)

...Augh why is nearly everything in the Asian Studies library that is Kangxi-related and not written in Mandarin written in French?? Goddamn FRENCH.

On the bright side, I have lemons AND an eggplant AND pita bread? AND I finally watched Fast & Furious last night (DO NOT JUDGE ME) and it was the most epic, car-racing-as-sex-metaphor gay love story EVAH. Also utterly ridiculous, but then, who cares?

...Et tu, Natalie Portman???

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Fuck. FUCK!

So most of you probably know that I'm planning on going on exchange to the US next year. I've passed the first stage and been accepted as an exchange student by the ANU, and have been waiting for the ANU exchange office to send me the application form from the American university.

They sent it to me yesterday; I was out all day and only checked my email late that night, and could only start working on it today.

The fucking deadline on the fucking American website is TODAY.

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

There was a note attached from the exchange office person who sent me the application asking me to send it back to her as soon as possible, and I presume that she would have NOTICED THE FUCKING DEADLINE, so hopefully there must be something else going on. Last time I went in to talk to them about the fact that my application HAD NOT ARRIVED YET they said that they were still waiting on the American university to send them the forms, so maybe it's the American uni's problem?

But seriously. SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

And it's not like I can get the fucking thing DONE in a single day either, I need to get at least two academic references from my lecturers. Which, DUDE, it's a specific form they need to fill out, it's not as if I could have asked them beforehand. AND OBVIOUSLY BUSY ACADEMICS ARE ABLE AND WILLING TO DROP EVERYTHING FOR A SINGLE STRESSED OUT UNDERGRADUATE. Fucking Christ, normally you need to allow a couple WEEKS to get things like academic references back!

Double bonus FAIL points for the fact that they waited until the holidays to send this. I AM NOT IN CANBERRA RIGHT NOW, FUCKING HELL. So either they accept faxed forms or they have to wait a day or so for me to express them. Bonus fail: public holiday on Monday! So even if I get my forms done by tomorrow (and, okay, there is a LOT I have to do; study plans for five different universities and a personal statement and AUGH) they still won't arrive until Tuesday. So I'm going to TRY and get it done by five pm, but...

FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

Okay, this essay is kind of kicking my ass, fuck my epic procrastination, but -

From the dedication/acknowledgement of one of the books I'm using, on early Japanese socialism: "I should like to record my gratitude to the working class, which involuntarily provides the surplus value from which the various states finance such scholarships."

Painfully earnest eighties class conciousness (eighties! how can there still be painfully earnest socialism in the EIGHTIES!) FTW.

The fact that this book is written by John CRUMP is just the icing on the amusement cake.

(Of course later on John Crump turns out to be all sexist and patronising and annoying, and has subchapter headings of things like artisans, samurai, peasants, workers, WOMEN, because of course women are a special class all of their own and are not at all part of any kind of economic or social class because they are LADIES, all off on their own doing LADY THINGS, but it's still pretty funny.

...Or possibly I only slept two hours last night and I'm starting to feel it. YOU DECIDE.)

dear self: it doesn't matter how accurately you have judged the exact amount of vodka you need to drink before you go out in order to give you a nice buzz without getting too drunk or having to pay for shitty overpriced drinks in bars, if you are going to be one of only two girls in a group of, like, ten, then there will be lots of guys buying you drinks! lots of drinks!

and that plus the vodka means that you will get really fucking pissed.

and then you will lose your room key (!) in a nightclub somewhere and have to wake up the duty student at, like, four am - still really trashed - which is just embarrassing. and also means that i cannot open my food cupboard until the office opens tomorrow and i can get a spare key.

it's good to be me today. :/