November 1, 2009

A snapshot

I've signed up to THE IRON NODER CHALLENGE 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, so I thought maybe an occasional daylog would be interesting to keep track of my progress/descent into madness.

I'm not a prolific noder

I've written, I think, 10? I'm sort of hoping doing this will make me better at noding fairly quickly, as I usually take a while about writing them. For this reason, I have a couple of half-done writeups gathering dust which might end up making an appearance. I might also be forced out of my comfort zone subject-wise and style-wise, which should be interesting.

I have too much to do already

I've got two pretty serious university essays due in around the middle of the month and a dissertation abstract to do, as well as approx. 1 metric fuckton of reading. As a final year undergraduate, I'm fairly used to pressure to write stuff by this point, and indeed tend to crave it - I can bang out 1000 words in a day if I have to, but this afternoon I've barely managed 200.If need be, I can try for a Stakhanovite burst of noding towards the end of the month when all that stuff's done...

Another project...

I guess the other thing that's happening with me right now is I'm attempting to grow a beard, at the suggestion of a couple of friends. When I first agreed to try it, I was very, very drunk, but it's 10 days old now and starting to look fairly serious.

Lord Matthius (who has good advice for anyone planning to do this in So you've decided to grow a beard) suggested I post status updates on it. At this stage I'm wondering, because my hair is naturally curly, how my beard will turn out. I'd quite like one sort of like John McCrea has, particularly as my facial hair is mostly concentrated under the jawline, but it's possible it'll end up going all bushy as it attains a volume of its own. If this happens, I'm not sure what I'll do, but I'll probably try and keep it quite short. It's already a lot of fun to stroke pensively, which is something.

Bluh.  Yesterday was amazing. Went to the spiral dance in SF, had a great time. Today, though, is out to get me.

We gave our landlord 30 day's notice yesterday afternoon, that we'd be moving out on Nov 30.

Today, our water heater broke.  Leaking water from the top, all over the garage floor... and through the sheetrock, into the living room, drenching the carpet, the carpet pad, and the floorboards beheath.  About a third of the carpet goes "SQUISH" and leaves footprint puddles when you walk on it. And the smell, oh the smell, it's like a zillion wet dogs.  We've cleaned up as best we can, sopped up water as best we can, and left a message with the landlords. But why couldn't it have happened BEFORE they gave notice, they'll be a LOT less happy to work with us now that we're not going to pay them anymore money.

Also spent about an hour fighting on the phone with my folks about whether or not they want to come out and "help" us move.  They want to see the new place, be involved, I'm just afraid they'd add to the stress and workload.

I'm already terribly freaked out about how we're going to get packed, moved, and the old house cleaned in 30 days. I don't need all this extra stress and drama on top of it!