morning panic

This morning I had a panic about all the things I am supposed to be doing, but am not. These include: reading the complete works of Dostoevsky, finishing the french novel I started last century, finishing the comics page I am drawing, doing the 6000 word essay I haven't started for my course, all of which is very stressful. So instead I trained my brain with Dr Kagemusha's time-wasting device and got a very satisfactory score on multiplication, beating my previous personal record. All is well with the world. Went to first "study group" last night, which was really enjoyable and actually helped a lot. Still the prospect of what I am supposed to be doing later on looms ever larger.

Funding proposal

At the moment I am contemplating putting pins in my eyes, swallowing a broken glass, jumping down the stairwell - anything but this funding proposal, which is crawling along at an ungodly 15 words an hour. I wish I was exaggerating. Part of the problem - no, wait - the whole problem is that I am not the slightest bit interested in my proposal idea: it is so dull, I can't even be bothered to repeat it here. It was my third idea, after all. The first two were a bit more interesting, but they had already been done somewhere in the world, so I had to switch. I suppose this would be flying along a lot faster, but I have been taking regular breaks every 3 minutes to check my email, eat chocolate, download songs, draw pictures and then colour them in... It's all incredibly demoralizing and makes me wish I'd never started this MA programme in the first place. Then there is the strange phenomenon which Dan mentioned the other day, which is when you are working on something you start getting really inspired about things you would like to read or do. In this case I have had some brilliant ideas for comic stories I can do, and my doodling has really improved 100% since last week, but I frustratingly can't justify drawing when I should be extrapolating costs for an imaginary project which is never going to get put into practice. Where's the justice in that? I'm going for a walk.

Bagpipe music

Not much happening in my life, but when has that ever stopped a columnist? Interesting lecture today by a shell executive and someone from Amnesty, arguing about corporate responsibility. They both made good points, but, for my money, the shell guy made the better points. After all, a company can only do so much, and can't dictate how revenue is spent, any more than a company can stop its employees spending their wages on kalashnikovs and besieging a local old people's home (for example). Lunch at the Hari Krishna man was unusually sparse, perhaps because he splurged yesterday, with ginger beer and poppadoms. Still, as it is free, one shouldn't complain. Listened to interesting radio programme about Louis Macneice, my favourite poet, whose anniversary it is this year. Odd to hear him reading out his own verse in those clipped Oxford tones, ("We are dying, Egypt, dying"), without a trace of emotion. I don't think poets read their own work well, as a rule. Yeats is just dreadful, like some senile old loon; wonder what kind of actor Shakespeare was.
After 32 years of trying to master small talk, I have decided to give up. Alright, I wasn't really trying the first ten years, but come to think of it, the problems only started once I did start trying. Anyway, it's a waste of time, I can't do it, at least in my native language.

Not exactly productive

All my fantastic plans for getting on with work today were sabotaged when my Icelandic friend hauled me off to the pub and poured 3 pint of Guiness down my neck. Now it isn't even six and I don't feel like doing anything else today. Interesting getting to know people from course, some of whom are completely different to my previous conception of them. Everyone (including me) seems much more relaxed this term. Makes me sad we are not going to be studying that much longer together. Have to run out and meet someone...

Christmas, New Year, Christmas...

I wonder whether anyone else senses the law of diminshing returns operating with particular efficiency around the festive season. Christmas has been getting progressively crapper since 1981, apart from a small blip in the graph in 1998, when Christmas was crapper than it has been before or since.

I mentioned this to Simon (who has kids) and he said "Well, Christmas, it's about the kids, isn't it?" Well, that's frankly unacceptable, if you ask me.

If there's one thing worse than Christmas when you're not a kid, it's New Year full stop. This year I didn't even bother staying up for it. I've done it all: linking hands with old friends and singing "Auld Lang Syne", or watching a firework display. I even remember drinking myself into a coma on Nana Plaza, allowing some small toerag to make off with my grandfather's watch (or did I give it to him?) It's all terrible, terrible...

Still, griping aside, I did get a chance to put my feet up for the first time in several months and got to see a few old friends.