[	mood	|	busy	]
[	music	|	Full House in the background	]

09/09/09... I enjoy symmetrical dates, and there's not many of them left for a long time. The good thing is that hopefully those stupid New Year sunglasses will be a thing of the past.

I've gotten a lot done since my last update. I am moved back into Somerville in my little attic space. I picked out a new bedroom set (bed, bureau, nightstand, and a really nice desk with a hutch over it for lots of storage) at Bernie and Phyl's and qualified for a free tv because I spent so much. :P  Getting all the new things up here was ridiculous though. Attempt 1 involved the boxspring, mattress, bureau, nightstand and desk... the bed itself and the hutch weren't in stock and would arrive later. But first the full-size boxspring wouldn't fit up the attic steps, and then the delivery guys couldn't even get the bureau up my grandmother's steps to the second floor. I was really surprised and wanted to tell them to try harder, but I didn't want to sound like an elitist jerk so I trusted them. He also said there was no way the desk was going to fit and didn't even try it. And I was home by myself and didn't know what to do so I just had them take everything back until I could figure it out. My mother called my uncle who had helped my grandmother move in furniture in the past and my other aunt and uncle who had lived up in the attic for a few years, and they all thought that my stuff should fit. And we measured the staircase dimensions and compared them to the furniture dimensions, and I didn't think we'd have any issues (although it is hard to predict how the twist in the staircase will affect everything). We took down the railings in my grandmother's stairs that my uncle had recently installed and asked Bernie and Phyl's to try again. I also went to Sleepy's and special-ordered a split low-profile full boxspring because Bernie and Phyl's didn't carry split fulls. Then in Attempt 2 (mattress sans boxspring, bureau, desk, nightstand) everything went up ok. They actually did things like taking the drawers out of the bureau this time... I swear they were just being lazy the first time. The desk was a really tight squeeze since it's so long and wide, but we got it in.

The timing worked out nicely on the rest of my stuff, and Sleepy's delivered by boxspring last Thursday and Bernie and Phyl's delivered my hutch and bed on Friday. The Sleepy's delivery went fine, but Attempt 3 from Bernie and Phyl's was another horror show. They were late because the truck had broken down, and they were getting lazy and pissy again. The headboard was not fitting up the attic stairs, and we finally told them to just leave it on the second floor so my family could try it alone later. The guy once again tried to tell me that the desk hutch was definitely not going to fit, and I told him that that's what he said about both the bureau and the desk and they fit just fine when they actually tried. :P  And sure enough, when they tried, it went up on the first try with no issues whatsoever. They were just being lazy-asses again. Later that night my brother and mother tried to get the headboard up, and there was literally about one inch less space than we needed. So my brother had to pull back the carpet at the corner of the steps and cut a small square out of the (cheap) floor underneath to give us the extra space we needed. And it finally got up the stairs, yay! So now my room is finally fully set up, aside from my free tv which will be in stock in about two weeks. The only thing is that my attic ceilings are severely sloped, and I only have a full-height ceiling in the center of the room, one wall of which is taken up by a closet and the other by the windows. When the desk hutch arrived, I had to move the desk to where my bookcase had been, blocking the closet, because it was too tall to fit anywhere else. And I had to (hopefully temporarily) stick my bookcase blocking one of the windows right next to my bed, where it looks really stupid. If I can find a way to prop up the shelves I can maybe lean the bookcase on its side and create a makeshift low-but-long bookcase against one of the free low walls. Other than the slope issues (and narrow winding staircase), it's a nice little space that feels almost like a studio without the bathroom and kitchen.

And, in addition to all of that, my classes started yesterday! yay! There's a puppie named Nicolas who comes to work with one of the theater staff guys and wanders around the theater offices... I like him. The workshop yesterday was the one that is going to focus more on shorter pieces, and the one that hasn't met yet will focus on longer plays. We have a short assignment due for the class we haven't had yet that I think is supposed to get us used to the workshop format and giving/receiving feedback before we start the longer pieces. The professor of the class we had yesterday has collaborated with a guy who's written music for Disney movies... that makes me very happy. He's also written songs for the mid-90s PBS show The Puzzle Place.

And now I'm working weird hours on Mondays and Tuesdays when my classes meet and starting early/staying late on the other work days to make up the hours I miss at class. It kind of helps though because when I feel sad there is always stuff I have to get done to distract me. I keep losing my internet connection today, which is really annoying. But lunch is just about over so I should post this and try to finish my figure upload that keeps getting lost when the connection drops.

[	mood	|	busy	]
[	music	|	"five... five dollar... five dollar footlooooooong"	]

This is a pretty busy week for me. Work is busy because it's Dan's annual week off while Neuron is getting it's big issues that it sends to the Society for Neuroscience conference in October put together, and we also have a Dev. Cell deadline this week too. I also spent a lot of this weekend (I was in Somerville) helping my mother edit and organize her paper she has to hand in this Friday for her Masters class. She had to plan a special teaching project (she chose to start a book club to see if it will affect her students' motivation to read) and do a bunch of research on the topic and get the project launched. Her next class will be on actually gathering and interpreting the results of the project, but this one was mainly just planning it out and writing up the research.

I also have the deadline for a fellowship I'm applying for coming up this Friday too. That deadline really snuck up on me. I think for most of September, I was somehow of the mindset that it was a week earlier than it actually was. It hit me when I was home (as in Somerville) on Thursday night that I had just one week left to get the fellowship application together. I quickly wrote a rough draft of my statementt of purpose and sent reminders out to my three recommendation writers. Friday when I had my half-day in the office I faxed in a rush request for a transcript to Holy Cross. It is now Tuesday, and I have the application form itself completed, feedback on my first draft of the essay and a second draft written, one recommendation here already, and notice that the other two have been mailed. I don't have any word on the transcript situation. I'm nervous because it seems like the mail is slow out here and I'm worried that I won't get the two recommendations and the transcript in time. I'm hoping that by Thursday night I have everything and can package it all up and get it sent in without having to stress about it.

I also have a ton of reading every week for the 16th Century Lit class I'm in. It's a good class, but it's intimidating because I think a lot of the grade is participation based and it's very hard to force myself to speak up. It's also hard to get through lots of the readings because the main anthology we've been using doesn't modernize the spelling, so I'm left with "eche" for "each" and "mete" for "meet" (which, of course, does not mean "to be introduced to" but rather "fitting" :P). I'm kind of used to Renaissance meanings of words (such as "meet" and "happy" and all that) because of all the Shakespeare I've had, but the spelling still throws me off. Tonight I get to read the Defense of Poesy online because my book I ordered has not arrived yet. I started it at lunch... it's not too bad. And it keeps my mind off the fact that I'm still missing two recommendations and a transcript.