aamcnamara

In four days, I will graduate from college.

In the meantime, among other things:
- My last days at work. I shifted four or five ranges of books today, in order to shelve the lion's share of the previously in-processing books. Talking to my boss and another student worker, I realized how much I actually have put into organizing and neatening the stacks. It's been so gradual that sometimes I forget how neglected it was before I got here. I hope I get to go and do this somewhere else now, I really do. If I never work with old books again it will break my heart.
- The increasingly pressing need to go through my thesis committee's notes on my senior thesis. I keep meaning to do this, and keep doing other things instead.
(- Like look for jobs. Which is useful! But polishing my thesis and submitting it to the library ought to happen before I leave campus.)
- We are up to four mice caught. The problem with old pretty dorms is, apparently, that they are full of holes.
- Movies. Lots and lots of movies. We had a million senior week plans, and none of them really came to fruition except the "watch a ton of movies" one.

Also, I've been reading books. I got a cache of used ones recently: a Sladek mystery (entertaining), Jumper by Steve Gould (pretty good, though I had some plausibility problems--I do want to find the sequels), some Liavek stories by Mike Ford (more straightforward than other work of his I've read), and Sunbird by Elizabeth Wein (which I reread in a gulp, wincing for Telemakos all the way).

And I just finished A Stranger in Olondria (Sofia Samatar), which is...fascinating. It brushes past the edges of societies that could host entire novels. It is about death and life and religion and books and stories. I want it to be in the Imagined Worlds class I just took, except that that class mostly read lighter fare, and this book is very rich. (I dog-eared a page in it, which I hardly ever do.) Reading about it other places on the web, I can tell that I will have to come back to this book, and that I will probably get different things out of it next time.

(I can't tell if Samatar made the mispronunciation of her main character's name similar to the name of the main character in The Dispossessed on purpose. I hope she did. It made interesting things happen in my head.)

I've contemplated, recently, what kind of books I want to write--or what kind of books I have inside of me--as I've been emerging from the college cocoon. The inside of my head is a very different place than it was four years ago. Even over this last semester, writing my thesis, the way I think about putting words-onto-pages has shifted. I think I like the changes, but I am not sure what to do with them yet.

The nice thing is that I have time to figure this all out. Am I the kind of person who writes flashy adventure stories that happen to have queer characters (or whatever) in them? (The world does need those books.) Am I the kind of person who writes thought-provoking books that don't follow any pre-set patterns? Can I combine those? How can I combine those? How does my brain default to combining those, and do I want to do something different? The last couple of novels I've tried to write have been fairly surface-level YA urban fantasy things, and I think maybe I need to dig deeper for whatever ends up being my next big project.

One of the things I haven't had very much in the last four years is a solid aesthetic space (nb: what I mean by this is a little fuzzy even in my own head): it's all been equations and academic prose. When setting up my post-college life, I definitely want to figure out how to both build in time to write (get up super-early?) and to find people or a place to talk about this sort of thing. LJ/DW are a good place for this in some respects, so I might end up blogging some of my process here, but it would also be fabulous to have a not-online version.

...I think that's all I've got right now. I feel a little bit like I'm surfacing; hi, world. I'm still here. Somewhere.

So apparently I've survived the first full week of classes! Almost everyone I know, especially seniors, is going around with haggard faces going "How...how did we do this semester thing before? I do not understand." Hopefully we'll all find our feet soon; having an actual weekend today and tomorrow should help me, at least.

...yesterday, though, I had to turn in my first physics homework in nearly ten months--the price of not taking any physics last semester--and that was tough, though ultimately I think it all worked out. The up side is that I also received a package containing the fun things that Kate and I bought with Christmas money: pirate and Shakespearean magnetic poetry--to go with the queer magnetic poetry she gave me--and a TARDIS-blue teapot that's just the right size for me to make tea for myself in the mornings. Our fridge is now covered in words (and sentences like "Ye wicked homoerotic musket"), which will be awesome for tea parties. (Except that everyone will cluster around the fridge and get in my way when I try to make tea for people.)

Also, I made a post about my work in Special Collections (and how it made me want to be a Special Collections librarian) on the new-and-improved MHC library blog. It was very easy to write, because basically it's the story of my life with old books.

I am nearly done with applications to everything ever (knock on wood), waiting to hear back from grad schools, and meanwhile researching summer opportunities. Almost all the library paid internships want me to be in an MLIS program, which is fair, but also sad. (The others want you to be a full-time student, presumably for the next academic year as well, which--hopefully I will be! Might apply to some of those, just because.) I may end up doing temp work somewhere, particularly if I do end up using my Rare Book School scholarship this summer--most summer programs frown on their participants running off to Virginia for a week to learn about book history. The future is still scary, but I have done most of what I can to figure out what's going to happen.

I finally have a desk to work at. (Background: my desk does not fit through the doorway between the rooms of our in-dorm apartment. There is not room for a desk plus a chair in the bedroom. I found this slightly unhelpful.) It only took a month--and contacting Facilities Management twice--and contacting Res Life twice--and a few misunderstandings--for, finally, an email the other day saying, "Facilities says they can send some guys over tomorrow or Friday, but they want you to be around. When will you be in your room?"

...I told my boss I couldn't work this afternoon. If someone was actually going to show up and do something after an entire month of the runaround, by God I was going to be there. Waiting. Watching the door like a cat watches a mousehole. With bells on, if necessary.

And they did show up! Like always when you contact the professionals, they tried a bunch of things that my friends and I tried--take it through! tip it sideways and take it through! tilt the legs through the doorway first! They actually took the door off its hinges, which we had only thought about, but it didn't help much. They took the drawers out of the desk. They unscrewed the feet from the desk and tried tipping it sideways again, but no dice. Finally, what worked was tipping it up entirely on its end and tilting it juuust enough to get the (too-wide) desktop out the door so that the (just narrow enough) rest of the desk could follow.

(To the amusement and eventual amazement of me and my friend M, who were watching and talking about Criminal Minds and particle physics knock-knock jokes.)

So I have a desk now! It has my first-year plant and a nice lamp and my picture of Mount Holyoke before the big turn-of-the-20th-century fire; and I can sit at it on a real chair with my laptop on a flat thing and brainstorm ideas for my thesis and revise grad school essays and and I have a desk you guys.

Of course what I am using it for right now is writing blog posts but that's not the point okay?

All my academic things are done before fall break (which is going to be fun and hopefully I will also get things done, at least sort of) but aaa, extra things, I have so many of them. Preparing a presentation about my research for next week and the aforementioned grad school essays and also Hamlet rehearsal. Fortunately Rosencrantz and Guildenstern don't have very many lines. (In writing news, there is no writing news, but I am getting to the point where I feel like my head will explode if I don't write something fictional. We'll see what happens with that over break.)

No words! Because I got up and packed the rest of my belongings and then aliseadae and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and then there was dinner and the tail ends of packing...

...so I guess I will be trying to write 1.5k tomorrow on planes. Should be a good time! While at the museum I did scribble down a few plot points, so at least I have some things to be getting on with. And then I'll drop all my stuff off at campus, dash off to visit my grandfather for a day or so, and return just in time to move in properly/figure out my entire schedule/start classes. Not necessarily in that order. It's kind of surreal that it's all happening so soon.

We'll see if I hit 35k proper by the end of tomorrow, but as-is I am pretty pleased with my progress during August. If I keep going through the semester, I should have no problem finishing the draft.

See you all in a couple of days!

Some words! I may have to go back tomorrow and revise a bit--someone knows things they shouldn't, as things stand. (Of course, the question is, who does know those things? The protagonist has to learn them somehow.)

Other news of the day: the physics class I was planning to take has been cancelled. Partly "oh, man"--that's two out of three classes for fall semester gone. Partly "ooh" because the possible replacement class for my minor-capstone was scheduled opposite that physics class...but if that's now cancelled, too...

...anyway, we'll see how things work out. There's only so much I can do on that front before the semester starts, though.

I also voted in the primary elections, partly/mostly to make sure I was still registered to vote in MN--I really want to vote against the ban-gay-marriage-in-the-state-constitution thing in November. (It's already illegal in Minnesota, this is just to make it double-plus-illegal. Or something. Possibly the best proof that people are scared gay marriage will become a normal thing, still scary.)

Tomorrow, maybe I will actually type up some of my research notes. I have only had the notebooks sitting on my desk for a week...

Getting toward the end of the short story, as-yet-untitled, previously mentioned.

Oh, how I adore this protagonist. Deeply messed up and tenacious as hell.

Not sure how anyone else will feel about the story, but I have been enjoying writing it--which is, in the end, maybe what counts. Wordcount's creeping up, still a bit low (2100 words just now, maybe as many as 2500 when it's done?) but the beginning might be a bit thin and who knows how revisions will go and anyway shortish short stories are okay.

It's kinda nice how this midterms period is not making me full of stress. I took a midterm on Friday; I spent all of yesterday afternoon on another one, and will do more on that today; I have a paper to write before spring break; but it's all just...things. It isn't "oh god midterms aaaaugh". The fact that I'm actually writing a story, and liking how it's going, attests (I think) to the good state of my brain.

(I think the last time I was this relaxed during midterms was, er, first semester sophomore year. Whee!)

I had Spontaneous Haircut Time tonight. Came back from dinner and all of a sudden it was just too much hair. (Somewhere from 1.5 to 2 inches.) Cut it off with scissors, buzzed it down, scooped all the bits of hair into the trash. My head is now reassuringly fuzzy again.

Then, adventures in physics! Reading up on various things on the Internet so as to understand this one article (I have to write a three-page paper for quantum by Wednesday). Ought to go work on the homework that's actually due tomorrow before I collapse into bed, but we'll see how far I get with that.

Yesterday was Drag Ball. It was a less intensely personal experience than last year; I was just me but in a dress and ridiculous wig (dollar-store knit cap plus curly yellow ribbons) and lots of eye makeup. Fun seeing everyone else's costumes, as always.

Still not really working on fiction. I've got a couple of extra things due this week--quantum paper and application for summer research funding--so I'm trying to keep up with the work. It helps that I don't have any Midsummer rehearsals this week! One of these days I'm going to slide in under the submission cap at Strange Horizons, though. And I have some bits and pieces of things I should type up. We'll see how it all goes.

There is a new issue up at Ideomancer! magick4terri continues to be awesome, and pretty much exclusively out of my price bracket. I really want the new Swordspoint audiobook. I also want to keep revising A Returning Power.

First I should probably finish this essay about Machiavelli, though. And maybe study for the physics test I'm taking tomorrow...

End of the semester. Grr.

24-hour play festival tonight! I haven't written anything for the stage in years, I've never been up as late (early?) as 3:30 a.m., so... it should be an awesome time. Met most of the other playwrights a week or two ago, and they all seem like excellent people with whom to stay up until four in the morning writing plays. I look forward to it.

Each playwright gets a currently-mysterious prop. I wonder what mine will be.

I've done a little work on A Returning Power--not much--I'd like to get more done, and type up the handwritten bits of stories I've got in a notebook, but the play festival may well take up all of my brain this weekend.

Good thing: my physics midterm got moved, so I can take it Wednesday next week instead of Monday. I wasn't really looking forward to taking that on not-very-much sleep.

Meanwhile... meanwhile. Planning classes for next semester: trying (again) to get into a novel-writing class; going to take two physics classes (classical mechanics and advanced quantum), one at Smith, which should be an adventure; and hoping I can get into another Smith class, Art and History of the Book, which (if I can take it) will make me exceedingly happy.

It's hard to believe that the semester's more than half over already.

Last week! Last week I did everything I had to do before the end of classes, mostly, and then I went to a Janelle Monae concert at Smith, which rocked. I like her music a whole lot and her stage show is fantastic--cloaks and capes and masks galore. And tuxedos, of course tuxedos. I bought a t-shirt.

Friday was Pangy Day, or Pangyneskeia Day (it means something like "all the aspects/attributes of a woman" in Greek; Mary Lyon narrowly avoided naming MHC that instead), which is something of a spring festival and has had gorgeous weather every time I've experienced it. Which is twice so far. Picnics and not completely failing at throwing frisbees and avoiding Preposterous Hats! I had to miss the maypole for quantum mechanics. G'rr.

Then I had a concert Sunday with the early music choir I joined this semester. Apparently we sounded good! This semester has been in several ways hellish (mostly the way where I would like to have a brain and time in which to use it, please), and that choir was... a part of that, admittedly. There were a lot of weird languages thrown at us; one of the pieces I had to perform in our first concert having seen it with the group precisely once before: at the dress rehearsal. They expected me to go off and figure it out on my own, I guess, but with Gaelic and Gallic and Ladino et cetera--each with their own language, own way of notating, and own style/sound--none of which I had seen very much before--it's really, really hard to do that. Even if you listen to the sound files. (Other thing which is hard for me: figuring out how to pronounce things by listening to sound files of them being sung. When I asked for pronunciations in the rehearsal I often felt like I got brushed off as Not Trying Hard Enough or something.)

So that was interesting and I'm sort of glad it's over and I do not think I am going to go back. Which is a pity because early music is fun, or it ought to be. It certainly sounds awesome and it can be quite enjoyable to sing. (Other thing I discovered this semester: I will curl up into a Ball of Cope if you don't seem willing to give me assistance or aid. I will not keep on with whatever it is, and I will get through it, but I might not enjoy it very much. This is also applicable to real analysis.)

During the concert I started developing a fierce headache. Despite it, I went over to execute peeps in a microwave with The Mob and Kate and Kate's roommate, it being the birthday of the lattermost of these. I was official Devourer Of Corpses. I also ended up lying on the floor because I was tired and my head ached, was dragged out of a doorway, and was made into an art installation wherein a number of interesting objects were placed upon me. I have not seen the photos of this, but I was promised they will not go on the Internet.

Monday I had added a plausible fever to this combination, skipped Greek, and spent the whole day in bed with tea and Kelly Link short stories and pointless computer games. Yay! I had no brains.

Tuesday, I was feeling better and had a brain. I went to my classes--it was the last day of them--and wrote evaluations of my professors and drank a lot of orange juice. Yay?

Yesterday I accumulated an earache, asked the Internet about my combination of symptoms, and was told I probably had overdosed on cocaine. Thank you, webMD! My father, in consultation later on the phone, said it was likely a sinus infection working its way into my ears. (Euglh.) This seems more plausible. I decided not to go to the techno!contra (I hear it was kind of epic) and though I am sad I missed it, that was a Very Good Decision. I turned off the lights at nine p.m.; at nine-forty-five I took painkillers because my ears were hurting too much to let me sleep. I do not remember them kicking in, or me going to sleep--it was just morning and my ears didn't hurt.

They have been twinging a bit so far today, but mostly they are, and I am, way better. At least since last night. I also got the contra-ers to pick me up a neti pot from the pharmacy in Amherst, which is a) weird and b) might be working? Hard to tell exactly, but y'know. We try what we can. We hope our ears have stopped being messed up by the time we get on a plane next week...

I ought to be reworking this paper for my final. I wrote an outline! Sort of! I spent yesterday (until collapsing after dinner) working on real analysis and quantum takehome finals, so I feel like a bit of time writing a post for the internet and oh yeah reading the story from the new Bordertown anthology they put up on tordotcom is all right. And looking at Elise's shinies for sale. And--

Okay, maybe not all of those things... I bet I can write a paragraph or something on this paper before lunch. Onwards.