The Last Plane Is Out For The Winter...

Do you remember the scene in The Thing (uh... let's go with the John Carpenter version -- they're both good, but c'mon, Wilfred Brimley!!!) where the final plane leaves and the researchers are left alone for the winter (technically summer in Antarctica) and our heroes are plunged into months of darkness?

Well, that's not how I feel.

HA! Gotcha... bear with me, Dear Reader, we'll get there.

I just finished my semester. I attended my last class on Tuesday and got stood up by my last undergrad during my last office hour right after. Fuckers. I composed this beautiful email to them saying that my TA hours were over for the semester and wishing them all the best of their exams and for a happy season. Sure nuff', 3 hours later, I've got 20 emails from them. I'm crappin you negative! And they were all exactly the same: "I know that the midterm was 2 months ago and you've given me about 80 chances to correct any problems or grade errors, but can you change my midterm grade because one question you marked wrong I actually got right."

Uh, kid? Do you really expect me to take your word for this when your final is only 3 days away and it's obvious that you are only shitting yourself because you just read the chapter on ANOVA this morning and you have no fucking idea what to do? Seriously, I got about 10 emails today asking me how to do a question they got wrong from their first assignment, and about 30 asking what a t table is. What it IS!!! Not WHERE it is but WHAT.... These are students who expect to pass stats in 3 days. Honest to dog, I hope that they shit themselves to death. Seriously to death.

Okay, I don't mean that. But I do hope that Frau Professor DOES. It would make me totally happy if on her way to the exam, when she parked her car, a whole flock of birds shit all over her car, and her... and just kept shitting until she was drenched it bird crap, then panicked, and shit herself until she DIED. Oh, and if the bird crap went in her mouth, all the better.

So the classes are done. A plane leaves.
The TA hours are done. A plane leaves.
I brought my books home.
I cancelled going to some wrap up things that I just couldn't make myself go to because my brain just refused (get up, Psyche... get up, you have to go to your clinic observation... you have to go... -- Nope. Brain shut off... the last plane has left for the season.)
And the planes all spin their propellers, and take off, and fly away into the low, low, burnt amber sun. And as the last plane reaches the horizon, the sun dips bellow and both are gone.

It's not actually the responsibilities that have left as the cold dead winter sets in. Rather, as the longest night approaches, it is my brain that has left. Flown away. Gone for a period of total darkness. It refuses to work. It has gone limp like a non-violent tree-hugging protester. Well, brain, congratulations on your incarceration. I hope you get out before the new semester starts.

And I hope I survive, although I am pretty sure I will. Keep in mind that the entire cast of characters from The Thing was made up of males. I think I'm more like Sigourney Weaver in Alien/Aliens. I survive it, along with the cat. Like I survive every semester, enter a lengthy period of sleep (with cat), after which I waken to find more face-hugging soul-suckers begging to burst out of my chest. When I return to school, I feel like Ripley entering that Alien nursery. The slow dawning realization of the amount of terrifying work I have to do. The feeling that any single one of these projects could burn me into oblivion.

It's interesting, the way The Thing and the Alien movies are similar but different. One is a testement to motherhood in every disgusting, biological, sweet, desperate, how do I choose a carreer or a child?, return to domesticity -- while the other is a bunch of guys sinking deeper into paranoia then destroying themselves and everything they've worked for. Well, I guess both films embrace the descent into parnoia due to a small group of isolated people being beset upon by a horrible alien. Blood and acid figure prominently. So on. So forth.

Are you still reading? Do you want to make a double bill now? Fuck, I do! Watching these two movies together is the exact opposite of doing grad school. And like I said earlier, the last plane is out. I can't do anything other than mindless stupid bullshit and enjoy.

And that's what happened when I left. I was exhausted all day until I boarded the bus and left school behind. I was on the last plane? and it was like falling awake. I felt more like myself than I have all semester.

Tucked into my bed, with my cat. With a girl with a headless doll. Happy to sleep until the next crisis. Until the sun comes up. And hoping I don't find an exploded icy crater full of frozen corpses - although if you've ever been to my university, it's not too far from the mark.

Honk Shu Honk Shu

Psyche sleep now. Or soon. Psyche sleep soon.
The last assignment was handed in on Tuesday. I'm cancelling tomorrow's office hours because undergrads are liars and don't come to your office hour appointment when they say that they will. And I just have one last little piece of stupidity to hand in tomorrow. I have to give a little 20 minute presentation on how I've developed professionally this semester.
Seriously, Professors... fuck OFF. I'm not a 20 year old whose never had a job before. It's just stoopid busy work, like when you were in grade 1 and on Valentines Day you all had to build a construction paper mailbox to put the valentines IN. Just a waste of 20 minutes so your teacher could write cheques for her utility bills. I don't think that these profs who "co taught" this course planned a single class. They did subtley insult each other's opinions from time to time, which was interesting.
Anyway, I'm obviously grouchy and tired (and hungry?) and not drunk so I'm just sounding off.
It's my blog, I'll do what I want.
I'm just so looking forward to it being OVER for a little while so I can get a little break. I'm just hoping that my proposal does NOT clear ethics right away. I need the break before data collection. I need the time to sit and vegitate. I need to get my brocolli on!!! (Notice how I picked the least falic vegetable possible so as not to mislead you?)
Seriously... I'm sooo tired.
Time for some chocolate Jesus.

The Big Gaping Hole In My Face Has A Big Gaping Hole In It

I just had "crown lengthening surgery" yesterday. Yeah, my endontist works on a saturday... and is from Transylvania apparently ("hey don't make an appointment for Oct. 31, that's our national holiday and I can't be trusted!" wacka wacka)...
It was weird and I was very nevous going in. It's not that I actually THINK I'll be in any pain or that ANYTHING bad could possibly happen. My brain is just fine with the entire thing. It's my cortisol levels that over react and go through the roof causing my body to tremble and me to cry for no reason. So when Dr. Vlad asked me, "What's the matter?" All I could do was sob and say, "Nothing! You're a very nice nice doctor!" Ungh... this is me after a dose of lorazepam. Whoever I inherited my central nervous system from should rot in hell for this.
Then instead of recuperating and spending the day watching old reruns of monster movies and Road to Avonlea, I spent 8 hours scoring and preparing a WISC/WIAT. Today I will write it up, probably while at work, while I also prepare a powerpoint presentation of my proposed reserach that I forgot I have to do on Monday.
I am really glad that my face doesn't hurt because apparently this kind of procedure can leave a person swollen up for days and in a lot of pain. But I seem to be doing just fine, as long as I keep to soft foods (Fillet Mignon Smoothies?). But I still have a ton of work to do and feel stressed out of my gourd.
Oh well. Nothing I can do.