3 shows down, 2 left to go. The blood still isn't doing exactly what we want it to do, but it's also not completely malfunctioning, so whatever. All in all, it's going pretty well. Interesting note - the director, who had been super-involved up until this point, has now disappeared. It's fine by me, but it's just kind of funny.

My body just keeps on betraying me. For the fourth or so day in a row, my alarm has failed to wake me up. In fact, most of those days I had two alarms - my clock and my cell phone. This whole oversleeping thing is screwing with my productivity. Luckily, today is the last day of classes...

Off to playwriting class. Hopefully the prof brought food as promised, as I ate breakfast but skipped lunch in order to get things done.

Last playlist of the semester:

Metric - The Police and The Private
* Mates of State - So Many Ways
M.I.A. - M.I.A.
The Holy Ghost - Genghis Khan
* Arctic Monkeys - Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong But...
Enon - Leave it to Rust
* Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Phenomena
Fischerspooner - We Need a War
Dandy Warhols - We Used to be Friends
Rouge Wave - Nourishment Nation
Ambulance Ltd. - New English
Elliott Smith - Junk Bond Trade
* Neko Case - Star Witness
Stars - Your Ex-Lover is Dead
The Mountain Goats - Dilaudid
#* Scout Niblett - Lulluby for Scout in Ten Years
* The Joggers - Ziggurat Traffic
Yo La Tengo - Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo
* Head Like a Kite - Words of a Friend
* Arab Strap - If There’s No Hope For Us
Built to Spill - Big Dipper
Beulah - A Good Man is Easy to Kill
TV on the Radio - New Health Rock
The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
* Belle & Sebastian - White Collar Boy
The Decemberists - July, July!
Elf Power - Drawing Flies
Cat Power - He War
Weezer - Only in Dreams

Due to "an unforeseen scheduling conflict" Enon won't be playing at Worthstock after all. Boo.

Tonight's my last radio show of the semester... The webcast is back up, too. So tune in from 6-8 pm EST to hear the best of what I played this semester.

The group project for d'turgy is (basically) done. Whee.

My lack of sleep is palpable. 2 hours or so last night. And I won't be able to get a ton tonight, either - I need to write a position paper for ToN, as well as do my intro paragraph/thesis for the final paper. In theory, neither of those should take very long. However, when you add in the reading that should get done before I do either of them... Well, then it gets a bit worse. Tonight is also the second housing lottery (rising juniors this time), so that will eat up some time.

Off to campus to deal with costumes and blood.

A sign that maybe I was a bit more sleep deprived than I had realized: I took a nap around 7 pm, setting my alarm for 10:30 so I could be at Mertz by 11 and go to Nifty Fifties and do things with people. I woke up around 3:30 am. Oops.

I would just like to say one thing: Booyah. The damn paper is finally done! I'm going to go print it, and then I can hand it in and finally look my professor in the eye again.

I finished outlining the rest of my paper last night, and then my body gave out on me. I went to sleep around 12:30 or so, planning on getting up around 4 or so to finish things up. I was woken up at 7:30 by my second alarm. And my body is still not happy - my head feels out of it, and my eyes don't want to focus. Grr.

On the plus side - Enon is playing Worthstock! It has been verified! I'm thrilled. :)

Playlist for the week... A pretty good show, all in all, I think.

* Head Like a Kite - Noisy at the Circus
* Rouge Wave - Are You On My Side
Longwave - Everywhere You Turn
Elf Power - Drawing Flies
* Arctic Monkeys - A Certain Romance
The Arcade Fire - Wake Up
* Quasi - Invisible Star
* Little Mountain - Draw a Little <3 in the Sand
Elliott Smith - Sweet Adeline
* Voxtrot - Soft and Warm
Final Fantasy - This is the Dream of Win and Regine
* Albumen - Circle Down
* Neko Case - Margaret vs. Pauline
Neutral Milk Hotel - King of Carrot Flowers Part 1
* Belle & Sebastian - For the Price of a Cup of Tea
*Tapes ‘n Tapes - Just Drums
Stars - What I’m Trying to Say
* Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts
Asobi Seksu - Sooner
Beauty Pill - Rideshare
* The Crabs - I Surrender
Enon - In This City
* Mates of State - Punchlines
Sleater-Kinney - The End of You
Built to Spill - Made-Up Dreams
Yo La Tengo - Big Day Coming
Spoon - All the Pretty Girls Go to the City
TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
Beulah - A Good Man is Easy to Kill
* The Joggers - Era Prison

Enon may be at Worthstock this year. I don’t know for sure, but I hope it’s true...

I have an interview for the InterAct internship lined up for the first week in May. *grin*

Monday did not exactly have a stellar start. Appointment at Worth, being really tired and frustrated at failing (yet again) to finish my ToN paper, and then 3 hours of listening to Allen talk.

But it got somewhat better. The first summer housing lottery went by without too much trouble. I reattacked the paper, deciding that I should start over (sort of). I've got a full page done. Considering how slow it's been going, that's fantastic. I walked home about 10 minutes ago, enjoying the clear sky and listening to music.

I got to my room to discover that my voicemail light was on. 3 messages! The first was a wrong number. The second was the same wrong number, but a more detailed message. Delete, delete. The third one, however...

The literary manager from InterAct called! I need to call him back and talk with him, perhaps go into Philly for an interview. They didn't look at my cover letter and resume and just recycle them! I admit, I'm more drawn to the Wilma -- I liked their mission statement and production history a bit more (though a lot of that might be because they seem to really like Stoppard...). But really, at this point I'm just thrilled to get a phone call.

I swear, if I can ever actually get this paper done, I will have to throw myself a little celebration party.

I've spent much of today outside, reading in the sun. It was nice, as was my nap. Now, however, I have to get down to work. So I'm in McCabe. Hopefully this will yield productivity, but I'm not betting on it.

I've been super mood-swingy lately, and it's starting to get to me. It's draining. Also, people and life have been rather disappointing lately. There have been some notable exceptions to the rule, granted, but they're vastly outnumbered.

...And... absolutely no work getting done, because having a massive mood swing is so much better. Just as time consuming, but easier to get going on.

Remind me never to do a show with blood ever again. It's just annoying to deal with. On a very related note, I need to procure a catheter bag and an IV tube ASAP. Blarg.

Most of today was pretty good, other than play stuff. I hung out with some people outside Sharples, and ended up pestering Saka. That was a good plan, since it resulted in us spending time talking together and watching the first disc of Firefly. Yay for quality bonding.

Now, though, I should really get some work done. Most of today was eaten up by costuming stuff, and I really need to get a lot done. Especially because, in theory, I should head over to the mall tomorrow. Because the coat we have does not, in fact, please the director. So I need to find another one. And that trip will also eat up a large chunk of time. Grrowl.

In other news - I'm pondering, as I often do when my hair is making me grumpy, getting a radical haircut. Summer is coming up, perhaps I should actually try short hair for once. However, the likelihood of this actually happening is slim... I don't really know what I want, and there's no sort of place that I can go to and just let them do what they want. Also, I really don't know if I'd deal well with short short hair - I'm so used to being able to pull it back when I don't want to mess with it. But still. I always get tempted.

My last five moods, according to imood: lonely, weary, exhausted, bleh, and now sleepy. Hmm.

Though I am sleepy right now, I am also kind of excited. There will be people for me to hang out with this summer! Miriam, Allison, Julia, and Blair will all be here, which is fantastic. Yay people!

Also - last night I printed up my resumes/cover letters/envelopes and will be mailing them out today. So we'll see how that goes.

I was able to file my federal taxes online, but Pennsylvania had to be difficult. So I'm actually going to have to mail it in, grr. On the plus side, I picked up some lovely paper and envelopes for my resumes/cover letters at Career Services (thanks, Cari!). So I can get those printed out tonight, then mailed tomorrow, and then feel like I've at least tried.

Tonight was the night of study breaks - ice cream floats at 9 pm, and then my showing of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at 10 pm. Both were pretty well attended and fun. So, yay. And I have pretty drink umbrellas in my hair - they were left over from our luau, so we broke them out for the ice cream float party. My hair seems to attract umbrellas. Or at least my fellow RAs like to place them there.

Now, of course, I need to get work done. Boo work. I really just want to sleep, but I need to do this close reading for ToN at the very least. I'm clearly not going to get my paper done (again) for tomorrow... *sigh* I need something to hand in so I don't feel like a complete slacker.

I was a slacker earlier today, of course. The really strong need for sleep - as well as the desire to hate the world a little less - compelled me to not go to playwriting today. I just wasn't really in the mood to listen to people's stuff get criticized and everything. So I slept, then made my way to campus for the judging meeting of the Newton Book Collection contest. Yay library internship.

I also worked on cover letters. I need to get envelopes for sure, and maybe nicer paper. I'll buy that tomorrow and then mail things out on Friday, I guess. Which is pushing the deadline for one of them. At least it's the one I'm less interested in (I like the other theatre's shows more), but still... I really should have gotten this done a lot earlier. *hangs head guiltily* At least I've felt like a competent RA the past few days - having supplies people need (cups, scissors, color pencils), throwing study breaks, answering questions about housing, etc.

And now work.

Operation branch out into other social groups to prevent being depressed when all my friends graduate seems to have begun in earnest. Interestingly, it has not begun intentionally, it's just sort of happening. I know some people, so I sit with them and chat, and other people are there, so I start talking to them, and so on. This has led to me sitting outside of the science center in the sun two days in a row (hence the sunburnt arms) and sitting out in the hall just now drinking birthday wine with people. It's nice.

Of course, I will still be horribly sad come graduation of this year. Also, I will not be able to partake in any of the possible post-graduation festivities (trips, etc), which is sad. But at least I'll be here to see everyone graduate.

Off to do some work now, then sleep. Because sleep is good.

Playlist du jour:

* Quasi - Poverty Sucks
Longwave - Everywhere You Turn
Luna - Weird and Woozy
The Decemberists - The Legionnaire’s Lament
The Weakerthans - Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)
* The Mountain Goats - Dinu Lipatti’s Bones
* Neko Case - Dirty Knife
* Built to Spill - Untrustable Part 2 (About Someone Else)
* Mates of State - Think Long
The Magnetic Fields - Meaningless
* Head Like a Kite - Pour Me a Drink!
* Ambulance Ltd - New English
* Belle & Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue
Beulah - Your Mother Loves You Son
Elliott Smith - Junk Bond Trade
Wilco - Kamera
Stars - Reunion
* Arctic Monkeys - Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured
Criteria - Self Help
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Caterwaul
Desaparecidos - The Happiest Place on Earth
Doves - Sky Starts Falling
* The Joggers - Ziggurat Traffic
* Eels - Bus Stop Boxer (from With Strings - Live at Town Hall)
Pedro the Lion - Of Minor Prophets and Their Prostitute Wives
Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee
Architecture of Helsinki - To and Fro
The Go Find - Summer Guest
Enon - Old Dominion
* B. Fleischman - From To

Whee... I didn't get my ToN paper done, so I hung my head in shame in class. *sigh* Last night, the sleep just won. It's been doing that a lot this semester, which I guess is okay for the most part. I just need to get stuff done. At least the weather is lovely right now - I sat outside for awhile today, which was great, except for the slight sunburn on my arms.

There was a voicemail for me from the manager of the costume shop saying that the costumes for my show are missing. They were in the dressing room, and now they're not. This is bad, obviously. I emailed the director, stage manager, and cast to see if any of them knew what had happened. I've only received a reply from the director, which, despite the RE: in the subject line, is not actually a reply in any way to my email. He didn't express concern about the missing costumes. Hell, he didn't mention the costumes period. The costumes for the show are missing, and the director doesn't even seem to care. Can you tell I'm a little upset? I will be really happy when the show is over. From now on, I'll stick with dramaturgy, I think.

Right now I'm attempting to finally revise/expand my position paper. It's going alright, I suppose. I can salvage most of the "this is what the article argues" stuff from my previous attempt, and then I just need to make a point. Right. "Just." Blarg.

Edit: The stage manager has the costumes, apparently. While I'm glad that they're not gone for good, I'm still grumpy over things like lack of communication and... Oh, I don't even know what all is making me grumpy at this point.

My head is reaching that awful numb state where I can't focus on much of anything and my eyes just seem to glaze over. This is bad because I need to accomplish the following things:

1) Finish reading the revised script for King Lear
2) Write my ToN paper so I don't have to hang my head in shame in class on Tuesday
3) Write cover letters so I can apply for internships
4) Do my taxes

And I just got an email from Adriano; he'd like to see 5 to 10 new pages of stuff for Wednesday. I've barely thought about my play lately. The most productive thing I've done is read No Exit, since that's the sort of direction it seems to be drifting towards. *sigh*

On the plus side, when I was sitting out by the science center, two little girls put a bouquet of dandelions on the arm of the chair I was using as a footstool and called me "lady." Their cuteness almost made up for the devil child in the mall yesterday. Almost.

Choir is done for the semester. Brahm's Requiem is a gorgeous piece, and I think we did a pretty good job. It was miserably warm in the concert hall, though. Blerg. Ice cream with my parents after the show made things better, though my brain still doesn't want to function very well. Because of that, I will probably be going to bed fairly soon.

*crash*

One of the best forms of procrastination is cleaning. It's productive and useful, so you don't feel as guilty. Plus, if you're crazy like me, organizing is kind of soothing. Anyway, I got going on a cleaning rampage this evening. It started with vacuuming my room, and then it continued on down the hall to the storage room.

If you have never entered the ML storage room (or any dorm storage room), consider yourself lucky. It's a scary place. Smashed boxes spilling their contents across the floor, broken lamps, shattered mirrors, moldy fridges... I enlisted Adam (he was nearby, always a mistake when I'm going cleaning crazy) and attacked.

It's still not fantastic - there is plenty more work to be done, including writing down people's names and telling them to get their belongings out of there (seriously, if you've graduated, haven't lived in the dorm in 2 years, transfered schools, etc. your stuff should not be there) - but you can walk from one door to the other. And you can even do it without stepping on broken glass, which is quite amazing.

I walked into my room about 15 minutes ago, and it looked different, or felt different, or something. It took me a second to realize that it was the sunlight streaming in through the windows. It's been so long since I've come home when the sun is still up. A lot of it has to do with daylight savings, I suppose, but still. It was weird.

Also, another sliver of my 15 minutes of fame: my very first letter to the editor.

And now I'm going to go take a nap, since I'm barely functioning at the moment. Seriously - I think of something I need to do, then 5 seconds later I've forgotten. I'm out of it. Sleep will help. Sleep always helps.

Okay, so when did a become a go-to person for Drama Board? It started with costume design, but I just got an email about doing d'turgy for a play next semester. I've never even been in a Drama Board production...

There was a confused robin scurrying around outside a few minutes ago. He looked pissed, and I can't say I blame him. I was a little upset to see snow flurries outside of my window earlier. But now it's switched over to hail, which really sucks. Curse you, you bizarre weather.

So apparently there was a memo about a mass exodus of MLers that I missed. So many people are trying to live elsewhere next year. Which is cool and all, except I now have this feeling of being abandoned. It's totally not intentional, I know. But I was determined to stay in ML my senior year because I knew people here, because this is my social group that isn't made up of solely seniors. But half of that social group is leaving now, it seems. And that sucks. Yeah, ML will still be ML, but... I don't know. There are a few people whose departure completely took me by surprise. And those are, of course, some of the people I was most looking forward to leaving near.

On the plus side: Katie got her SAM position, so she and Allison will be just a few doors down the hall from me next year. That's going to be nice.

In other news - today ended up being a mental health day. I was going to go to campus for dinner and my radio show, but then I started coughing a lot - the sort of coughing that I did the Tuesday from hell, where I nearly throw up. So yeah. I need to get some cough syrup tomorrow so this thing will just go away.

Dear Blogger,
Why did you post the last entry but not the numerous attempts before? Including one made about five seconds earlier?

What I've been trying to post since around 1 pm:

My body and frustration won at least a small victory today. Last night, after putting together my annotated bibliography for ToN and still having nothing to say for my Orlando position paper, I decided to sleep. It was about 2:30; I thought I'd get up around 7:30. I did. I checked my email, read comics, got some food... And realized that I still had nothing to say about Orlando that would fill more than a page. And I also realized that I was still really, really tired. So I emailed my prof with my annotated bibliography, assurances that I'm working on rewriting my other paper, and an acknowledgment that no, I haven't written the position paper. I then I went back to sleep. I feel bad about letting her down again, but... I don't even know right now.

Also, while lying in bed earlier, I was mulling over some of the research I had skimmed last night. Specifically the differences between the fantastic and fantasy. While the average person would probably call American Gods a fantasy, based on the definitions I've encountered, it's probably more fantastic. There is doubt about whether what's happening is really happening. The main character doesn't believe things at first. In fantasy, the fantastic elements are usually much more of a given thing. There is magic in those worlds, and everyone knows it and accepts it. So. Do I still use American Gods? Do I switch over to another book, like The Golden Compass or Sabriel? Both of those definitely fall into the realm of fantasy. But they also fall into the realm of young adult. Which doesn't mean they're not good books; I think both are fantastic. But I need a fantasy book to at least somewhat compare with Rushdie's Midnight's Children. And I think being a young adult book automatically gives something a disadvantage when it comes to being taken seriously. I mean, I guess I could just note this in my paper and move on... I don't really want to read a book that's completely new to me for this paper. I'm fine with rereading something - that can be mostly skimming - but given time restrictions, a whole new book is not a good idea. And since I'm most familiar with quality young adult fantasy, well... Hmph.

I guess at this point I'm trying to decide between American Gods and The Golden Compass (which wins over Sabriel due to number of awards it's won, I guess). If I wanted to get really ambitious, I could do both as well as Midnight's Children; that way I'd have examples of fantasy, fantastic fiction, and magical realism. But that's a bit too ambitious for me at the moment. But still. Um, Mom, can you bring me both American Gods and The Golden Compass?

Dear Blogger,
Why do you keep on trying to tell me that my blog doesn't exist? It hurts my feelings.

I have "upgraded" my status from weary to exhausted. I am functional, at least to some degree, but not very happy about life in general. Today there were various frustrations (I thought the costume shop was open when it wasn't, which messed up my oh-so-nice plans, I felt thwarted yet again when it came to design stuff, and I just felt generally inept and grumpy). I called home, and talking to Mom cheered me up some... And after dinner I skipped Housing Committee to go to McCabe and try to get some work done.

And I did get a bit done... I did a bit of research for my final ToN paper, which gives me a nice working definition of magical realism and some of it's common elements. I think that for my fantasy book I'll work with American Gods (Mom, can you bring that up this weekend? I don't know if it's in my room or somewhere in your stuff, but hopefully it's been unpacked...), at least partially because it, unlike other books I was considering, doesn't really fall into the category of young adult fiction.

Still to do tonight: Orlando response paper, annotated bibliography for my ToN paper, perhaps some other reading. I really wish I could think of something coherent and interesting to say about Orlando... My thoughts generally drift towards Woolf's construction of sentences and the abundance of semicolons, with occasional moments of thinking about identity and liminality tossed in for good measure. WFC, you have tainted me.

Okay, off to try to get some work done before my eyes glaze over any more.

It's been a few weeks since I've gotten only 4 hours of sleep, I think. I now remember why I try to avoid it: it makes me very grumpy. Also, my eyes have this unfortunate tendency to close against my will.

Blarg.

I am listening to Brahms's Requiem, on repeat, with my headphones on. I'm hoping that I'll learn the music by aural osmosis or some such thing. I'm also hoping that my vocal cords and throat will feel inspired by the music and stop with the scratchiness and coughing. I really need to be able to sing on Wednesday, and I really, really need to be able to sing (and sing well, if at all possible) on Friday.

In general, today was interesting - my d'turgy class went to Baltimore to see a show at Jim's theatre. The show was okay (and the set was fantastic), the tour was kind of nifty, and pizza with Joe and Emily afterwards was fun. But it ate up 8 hours of my day, which is very sad. Even sadder with the amount of work I need to get done. Usually I'd do a bit tomorrow morning, but I have to be on campus by 10:30 to take care of costume stuff for Zoo Story. Boo. Though it looks like I'm going to win the battle of the hoodie, so that makes the late night ahead of me a bit easier to take.

Alright. Back to King Lear I go.