We all plan. I planned to be asleep by 11 pm last night… when in reality it was more like 1:30 am then I finally dozed off. On that good nights rest I got (hey, 6+ hours is good around these parts!) I planned to 1) go to breakfast, 2) read in my room from 9-10:30, 3) exchange my bed linen, 4) read in Sackler Library from 10:45-12:00, 5) Lunch, 6) read in English Faculty Library from 1:15-5:30 or 7:00 depending on if I felt like I could work though dinner productively, 7) dinner (either at the hall or a can of food at the dorms), 8) write paper, 9) get some sleep tonight, at least 4 hours hopefully.
That was the plan, still is a working model of the plan, but I’ve had to adjust. Y’see, instead of reading from 9-10:30 (see step 2) I got dizzy and had to lay down for awhile, so at 10:30 I was staggering back up out of bed to pull off my sheets and run downstairs with them. I could still go to the Sackler Library… but it is already 11:00 and lunch is at 12:00 – by the time I settle in I’ll be wanting to leave to go eat… not really productive to do that, which means it gets bumped to do the reading here I missed this morning… but I can’t go to the Sackler after lunch or I won’t get around to the English Faculty library, which is a pretty long walk out and has bad hours – so step 4 just got replaced with step 2 and bumped past step 7 into where 8 was which leaves 9 in a highly questionable position of maybe not happening at all.
OR… I could discard that reasonable assessment completely, stubbornly go to the Sackler Library anyway only to be told that my books won’t be in until mid-late afternoon (because no one works on a weekend apparently) and thus, not wanting to have wasted the time entirely, walk all the way to the English Faculty Library, arriving at 11:40, making Lunch a complete miss and take until 12:15 to actually find the books I need in the tiny room in the basement where they all are (hey, at least I get privacy I suppose) because half the titles in the room are German and Icelandic and I had to rack my brain for my library card number as it was taken to vouchsafe my return from this room of treasured books by the desk clerk. Oh yes, flexibility… right into a pretzel shape. I’ll have to get out of here by 5:00/5:30 because I still need to put minutes on my phone and all the shops close at 6… and the EFL closes at 7pm anyway… /sigh. Did I mention that today is just another day? One of THOSE days certainly, but every day seems like one of those days when you are trying to work with layered systems of inconvenience.
Then… just when you are bracing for the storm… you find 80% of your reading list is completely readable and though there were a few manic panic moments of “where the hell is this thing?!” escape from the library by 5pm seemed possible – and happened! Miraculously. I will even get to eat dinner – if it is any good – and start my paper after, because I have written off the one title in the Sackler library I needed, since I somehow ended up actually buying the other one I have waiting there and so don’t need to go after dinner. Huzzah! Sleep might even happen. It is too early to tell yet, but there’s a ray of light at the end of today’s tunnel. Even put minutes on my phone on the walk back, damn I am good. … or lucky. I’ll take either about now.
Rice and broccoli… does that count as dinner? I am really not sure at this point. It seemed like food at the time; I have reserves of KitKats and Jaffa Cakes in the room. Time to get writing, wish me luck ^.~
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