The Last Few Days, Part 1: Thursday Through Saturday
A number of regular readers of my blog have emailed me, and both of them wanted to know when I'd update it again. Your guesses were correct: I've been busy. Last week was the end of the Session 1, and something's been going on pretty much every day since then. In the interest of not having a single huge post, because people don't seem to like those, I'll split it up into three posts covering Thursday/Friday/Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and hopefully none of them individually will be too long (although they might still be).
So then.
Thursday
The University of Sussex handles their finals a little differently than any other school with which I'm familiar. Final papers aren't handed in to your instructor, but to a central office on campus, and they must be in on time, no exceptions. Even a minute late means a penalty, and if it's 24 hours late, you get a zero. No excuses, no exceptions. This is perfectly reasonable, of course -- just hand the thing in on time -- but the emphasis that was put on the hardness of this deadline was eventually intimidating.
Like many other students here, I got myself together on Wednesday to write my 2,500-word paper. That's about seven pages, which isn't remarkably huge (for each of the past two quarters at UCI, I wrote at least one 10-page paper). If you know me and my habits well, it shouldn't surprise you that I was up writing it until about 5:00 am, although it may surprise you to know that by then I was only about one-third done with the thing. Fortunately, the Internet connection went down at that time, and as a few of my sources were online, I was more or less forced to go to sleep at last.
I'd downloaded a virtual alarm clock the week before, so I set it for 10:00 and went to bed.
I woke up at 12:30.
The alarm hadn't gone off, and now it was 12:30 and I had 1,700 words to write in three and a half hours. No, that's not correct: I had to write 1,700 words, go to a computer cluster, print out two copies, and deliver them to Mantell, which is near nothing.
At 3:30, I emailed the eight-page Word doc to myself and ran out the door. I knew I didn't have enough money on my account to print it twice, but I had plenty of change, so that wasn't a problem. The computers in York House are always broken, slow, or occupied, so I ran to IT and logged into an open computer. While that was happening, I went over to the PABS machine (Print Account Banking System) to put more money on my account, but it was broken. I only had enough for one copy.
However, I also had a copy card for use with the photocopiers (these are separate things here; the card doesn't work for printers, and the PABS account doesn't apply to copying), so my new plan was to print one and run to the library, where I knew there were copiers. While my paper printed, I filled out my two coversheets (there are coversheet forms that get stapled to the copies -- it's all very complicated). Then off to the library.
I should mention I forgot to bring my watch when I left, so I wasn't sure what time it was at this point. I did remember seeing that it was 3:45 when I logged out of my computer, though.
I wouldn't say the library is near IT, exactly, but it's a shorter run than the one between Park Village and IT. Up the stairs (there are a lot of stairs -- the building looks like it was built to defend against the Huns) and into the Copy Center. Picked out a copier, put my card in, put the pages in the feeder, and hit the button. Sounds of copying, but the feeder doesn't take my pages, then a blank page comes out. No time to complain; lift the lid and copy them one at a time on the glass. Brought my stapler with me, so staple staple and then off out the door and back down the steps.
In addition to not being near anything, Mantell is also the better part of the way up a rather steep hill. Ran up that, up more stairs, found the room. This is where it gets nerve wracking. There's a box for every class -- every class -- and trying to find mine in the few minutes that remained before 4:00 was like that scene in Poltergeist when they're trying to flee their haunted house and Craig T. Nelson can't seem to find the key to unlock the car door. At 3:58, I found it, signed in, and was done.
Suddenly, I realized how hot, sweaty, and unshowered I was. I realized it was 4:00 in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything all day. And I realized that I had absolutely nothing to do until the next week.
Later, I was invited to an impromptu end-of-session potato latke event over at Charles and Lori's. Three of their other friends, Sinmi, Huma, and Sateary, rounded out our group. We ended up migrating over to Sinmi's kitchen in Norwich House because it was bigger and cleaner than Charles and Lori's tiny, filthy food-preparation area. I was excited to learn that Sinmi was from Nigeria. I had yet to meet a student here who wasn't from the U.S., and besides, I've had a keen interest in Nigeria ever since their Minister of Defense's widow contacted me about a financial issue. Turned out that Sinmi goes to UCSD and knows nothing about the Minister of Defense's widow, so that was a bit of a let down. Huma and Sateary are both from UCI. So many UCI students here.
Dinner ended up being a lot more than latkes. We all helped in one way or another, but in the end it was mostly Sinmi. Her improv cooking skills are pretty amazing.
We had mini pizza-things, chicken in some kind of tomato sauce, veggie patties, and vegetables. And latkes. They came last. I didn't eat all of that, but it was certainly the fullest home-cooked meal I'd had in the past few weeks.
Afterwards, I got my laptop and we went over to the TV room in York House to watch some of my DVDs. Huma had never seen "The Office" and was eager to, so we watched an episode of that. "Peep Show" was a big hit with everyone, and while they all agreed it was weird, everyone was able to get into "Look Around You" (the first series; "Water" and "Germs"). Malcolm, one of the RAs, wandered in when we were watching "The Office" and stuck around for a bit. After Huma and Sateary cleared off, for a joke I put in one of my DCI DVDs and we watched 2001 Cavaliers... and Charles, Sinmi, and Lori were genuinely interested in it. Lori passed out on a couch pretty quickly, but the rest of us went on to watch 2002 Cavies, 2001 Vanguard, and '87 Velvet Knights. I was just so surprised and pleased they were interested I had to take advantage of it.
At around 2:00 in the morning (hey, we didn't have any class or commitments the next day), a porter came in to tell us she was locking up. She saw the "Peep Show" DVDs and said, "'Peep Show'! That show is awesome!" So that was nice.
Friday
I went into town to shop for books for my next class. I was supposed to meet Lori, Charles, et al. at 2:30, but I was a little late and ended up doing my thing by myself, which is just as well. I needed to do some pretty me-specific shopping, like I said. As usual, in the course of surveying secondhand bookstores in Brighton I stopped by Dave's Comics, which is awesome.
Of all the books on our reading list, I could only find one: Beckett's Murphy. I bought it and had a great calzone at this Italian restaurant that sort of shares patio space with The House, where they tried to charge me $40 for fish and chips (remember that?). While I waited for my food, I started to read Murphy. That thing's going to be a pain. Beckett is... weird, as you may know.
After that, I wandered out to the pier and settled into a deck chair to read some more. However, I fell asleep almost immediately. The book was impenetrable, the weather was cool, the view was relaxing -- I'm only human. I think I slept for about half an hour. That's thirty minutes of sleeping in public, like some kind of hobo. No one threw me over the edge or anything. And when I woke up, there was about 80p in my hat. Nice people here.
Later that night, Charles, Lori, and I watched some "I'm Alan Partridge," including "Bravealan" from the second series ("Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!"). I feel justified in saying it was a hit, although "Peep Show" was clearly the winner.
Saturday
My new and sudden group of friends had plans to meet up at York House Saturday morning for a walk to Stanmer Park (where the Kite Festival was) and into the village. I'd never been to the village, and it seemed like the sort of thing I ought to see. That morning the weather was looking pretty dire, but I went to the rendezvous point anyway. I was a bit late and none of them were there, but I decided to press on to the park. If the weather hadn't scared them off, I'd find them soon enough, and if it had, I'd go on my own.
Apart from a rapidly dampening birthday celebration and a circle of trailers (gypsies!), the park was empty. The rain was a steady sprinkling now, but I decided to continue on to the village, which was about a kilometer and a half up a paved road. During the walk, the weather got steadily worse until it was at the point where anyone would have been forced to say, "Okay, it's raining." You know how there are those people who refuse to acknowledge it's raining until they're being pelted with M&M-sized drops? What's with them, anyway?
Before long I came upon the church and museum that mark the outskirts of the village. Somehow, the foul weather made it even more appealing. Maybe I've read too much Dickens.
I'm always interested in old buildings, which in California usually means anything built in the '70s. This church, however, was built in the 18th century. I went into the churchyard to take a closer look at the headstones, some of which were nearly as ancient as the church itself.
The village proper was just up the road from here, but by the time I got there the rain had ceased to be charming and had become a serious issue. There was a family trying gamely to eat at a picnic table sheltered under a tree, but nothing was safe from the downpour. Trust me on that; I was under a tree myself.
Every time I thought it was about to subside, it'd just get louder and harder and wetter. Despite this, I carried on up the road until suddenly it just... ended. In this:
Before the rain gave me a concussion, though, I managed to duck into some kind of dry storage barn-like building. There was a van in it with its back door open, so I figured someone else was around somewhere, but if there were, I couldn't see them. But farmers are supposed to be hospitable, right? Surely they wouldn't mind if I waited out the rain in there, whoever they were. I sat down on some pallets and wrote some postcards, which, in a rare instance of forethought, I'd brought with me.
After a while it all died down and I ventured out into the open again. Forty minutes or so later, I was back home and exhausted. After a nap, I joined Charles, Lori, and Sinmi for some lunch. I don't understand Sinmi's ability to just throw things together and have them turn out so great, but thankfully, I don't have to understand it to eat it.
That night was Charles and Lori's last among us here in Brighton, so "the gang" got together again at Park Village 36 to use up as much of their remaining food as possible. Someone made a really great fritatta-like thing out of eggs, cheese, beans, corn, and snow peas, which we supplemented with toast and beans. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I didn't contribute anything to this shindig, but whoa there. Don't think that. I brought the Hob Nobs.
After dinner we watched "The Mighty Boosh" ("Bollo"), which was a big hit, and some more "Peep Show," by popular demand. Charles, Lori, and I made some vague plans about meeting up in London on Monday, as they were stopping there to visit a friend on their way back to New York, and then I stumbled back to my place. I had an early morning and a big day ahead of me.
So then.
Thursday
The University of Sussex handles their finals a little differently than any other school with which I'm familiar. Final papers aren't handed in to your instructor, but to a central office on campus, and they must be in on time, no exceptions. Even a minute late means a penalty, and if it's 24 hours late, you get a zero. No excuses, no exceptions. This is perfectly reasonable, of course -- just hand the thing in on time -- but the emphasis that was put on the hardness of this deadline was eventually intimidating.
Like many other students here, I got myself together on Wednesday to write my 2,500-word paper. That's about seven pages, which isn't remarkably huge (for each of the past two quarters at UCI, I wrote at least one 10-page paper). If you know me and my habits well, it shouldn't surprise you that I was up writing it until about 5:00 am, although it may surprise you to know that by then I was only about one-third done with the thing. Fortunately, the Internet connection went down at that time, and as a few of my sources were online, I was more or less forced to go to sleep at last.
I'd downloaded a virtual alarm clock the week before, so I set it for 10:00 and went to bed.
I woke up at 12:30.
The alarm hadn't gone off, and now it was 12:30 and I had 1,700 words to write in three and a half hours. No, that's not correct: I had to write 1,700 words, go to a computer cluster, print out two copies, and deliver them to Mantell, which is near nothing.
At 3:30, I emailed the eight-page Word doc to myself and ran out the door. I knew I didn't have enough money on my account to print it twice, but I had plenty of change, so that wasn't a problem. The computers in York House are always broken, slow, or occupied, so I ran to IT and logged into an open computer. While that was happening, I went over to the PABS machine (Print Account Banking System) to put more money on my account, but it was broken. I only had enough for one copy.
However, I also had a copy card for use with the photocopiers (these are separate things here; the card doesn't work for printers, and the PABS account doesn't apply to copying), so my new plan was to print one and run to the library, where I knew there were copiers. While my paper printed, I filled out my two coversheets (there are coversheet forms that get stapled to the copies -- it's all very complicated). Then off to the library.
I should mention I forgot to bring my watch when I left, so I wasn't sure what time it was at this point. I did remember seeing that it was 3:45 when I logged out of my computer, though.
I wouldn't say the library is near IT, exactly, but it's a shorter run than the one between Park Village and IT. Up the stairs (there are a lot of stairs -- the building looks like it was built to defend against the Huns) and into the Copy Center. Picked out a copier, put my card in, put the pages in the feeder, and hit the button. Sounds of copying, but the feeder doesn't take my pages, then a blank page comes out. No time to complain; lift the lid and copy them one at a time on the glass. Brought my stapler with me, so staple staple and then off out the door and back down the steps.
In addition to not being near anything, Mantell is also the better part of the way up a rather steep hill. Ran up that, up more stairs, found the room. This is where it gets nerve wracking. There's a box for every class -- every class -- and trying to find mine in the few minutes that remained before 4:00 was like that scene in Poltergeist when they're trying to flee their haunted house and Craig T. Nelson can't seem to find the key to unlock the car door. At 3:58, I found it, signed in, and was done.
Suddenly, I realized how hot, sweaty, and unshowered I was. I realized it was 4:00 in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything all day. And I realized that I had absolutely nothing to do until the next week.
Later, I was invited to an impromptu end-of-session potato latke event over at Charles and Lori's. Three of their other friends, Sinmi, Huma, and Sateary, rounded out our group. We ended up migrating over to Sinmi's kitchen in Norwich House because it was bigger and cleaner than Charles and Lori's tiny, filthy food-preparation area. I was excited to learn that Sinmi was from Nigeria. I had yet to meet a student here who wasn't from the U.S., and besides, I've had a keen interest in Nigeria ever since their Minister of Defense's widow contacted me about a financial issue. Turned out that Sinmi goes to UCSD and knows nothing about the Minister of Defense's widow, so that was a bit of a let down. Huma and Sateary are both from UCI. So many UCI students here.
Dinner ended up being a lot more than latkes. We all helped in one way or another, but in the end it was mostly Sinmi. Her improv cooking skills are pretty amazing.
We had mini pizza-things, chicken in some kind of tomato sauce, veggie patties, and vegetables. And latkes. They came last. I didn't eat all of that, but it was certainly the fullest home-cooked meal I'd had in the past few weeks.
Afterwards, I got my laptop and we went over to the TV room in York House to watch some of my DVDs. Huma had never seen "The Office" and was eager to, so we watched an episode of that. "Peep Show" was a big hit with everyone, and while they all agreed it was weird, everyone was able to get into "Look Around You" (the first series; "Water" and "Germs"). Malcolm, one of the RAs, wandered in when we were watching "The Office" and stuck around for a bit. After Huma and Sateary cleared off, for a joke I put in one of my DCI DVDs and we watched 2001 Cavaliers... and Charles, Sinmi, and Lori were genuinely interested in it. Lori passed out on a couch pretty quickly, but the rest of us went on to watch 2002 Cavies, 2001 Vanguard, and '87 Velvet Knights. I was just so surprised and pleased they were interested I had to take advantage of it.
At around 2:00 in the morning (hey, we didn't have any class or commitments the next day), a porter came in to tell us she was locking up. She saw the "Peep Show" DVDs and said, "'Peep Show'! That show is awesome!" So that was nice.
Friday
I went into town to shop for books for my next class. I was supposed to meet Lori, Charles, et al. at 2:30, but I was a little late and ended up doing my thing by myself, which is just as well. I needed to do some pretty me-specific shopping, like I said. As usual, in the course of surveying secondhand bookstores in Brighton I stopped by Dave's Comics, which is awesome.
Of all the books on our reading list, I could only find one: Beckett's Murphy. I bought it and had a great calzone at this Italian restaurant that sort of shares patio space with The House, where they tried to charge me $40 for fish and chips (remember that?). While I waited for my food, I started to read Murphy. That thing's going to be a pain. Beckett is... weird, as you may know.
After that, I wandered out to the pier and settled into a deck chair to read some more. However, I fell asleep almost immediately. The book was impenetrable, the weather was cool, the view was relaxing -- I'm only human. I think I slept for about half an hour. That's thirty minutes of sleeping in public, like some kind of hobo. No one threw me over the edge or anything. And when I woke up, there was about 80p in my hat. Nice people here.
Later that night, Charles, Lori, and I watched some "I'm Alan Partridge," including "Bravealan" from the second series ("Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!"). I feel justified in saying it was a hit, although "Peep Show" was clearly the winner.
Saturday
My new and sudden group of friends had plans to meet up at York House Saturday morning for a walk to Stanmer Park (where the Kite Festival was) and into the village. I'd never been to the village, and it seemed like the sort of thing I ought to see. That morning the weather was looking pretty dire, but I went to the rendezvous point anyway. I was a bit late and none of them were there, but I decided to press on to the park. If the weather hadn't scared them off, I'd find them soon enough, and if it had, I'd go on my own.
Apart from a rapidly dampening birthday celebration and a circle of trailers (gypsies!), the park was empty. The rain was a steady sprinkling now, but I decided to continue on to the village, which was about a kilometer and a half up a paved road. During the walk, the weather got steadily worse until it was at the point where anyone would have been forced to say, "Okay, it's raining." You know how there are those people who refuse to acknowledge it's raining until they're being pelted with M&M-sized drops? What's with them, anyway?
Before long I came upon the church and museum that mark the outskirts of the village. Somehow, the foul weather made it even more appealing. Maybe I've read too much Dickens.
I'm always interested in old buildings, which in California usually means anything built in the '70s. This church, however, was built in the 18th century. I went into the churchyard to take a closer look at the headstones, some of which were nearly as ancient as the church itself.
The village proper was just up the road from here, but by the time I got there the rain had ceased to be charming and had become a serious issue. There was a family trying gamely to eat at a picnic table sheltered under a tree, but nothing was safe from the downpour. Trust me on that; I was under a tree myself.
Every time I thought it was about to subside, it'd just get louder and harder and wetter. Despite this, I carried on up the road until suddenly it just... ended. In this:
Before the rain gave me a concussion, though, I managed to duck into some kind of dry storage barn-like building. There was a van in it with its back door open, so I figured someone else was around somewhere, but if there were, I couldn't see them. But farmers are supposed to be hospitable, right? Surely they wouldn't mind if I waited out the rain in there, whoever they were. I sat down on some pallets and wrote some postcards, which, in a rare instance of forethought, I'd brought with me.
After a while it all died down and I ventured out into the open again. Forty minutes or so later, I was back home and exhausted. After a nap, I joined Charles, Lori, and Sinmi for some lunch. I don't understand Sinmi's ability to just throw things together and have them turn out so great, but thankfully, I don't have to understand it to eat it.
That night was Charles and Lori's last among us here in Brighton, so "the gang" got together again at Park Village 36 to use up as much of their remaining food as possible. Someone made a really great fritatta-like thing out of eggs, cheese, beans, corn, and snow peas, which we supplemented with toast and beans. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I didn't contribute anything to this shindig, but whoa there. Don't think that. I brought the Hob Nobs.
After dinner we watched "The Mighty Boosh" ("Bollo"), which was a big hit, and some more "Peep Show," by popular demand. Charles, Lori, and I made some vague plans about meeting up in London on Monday, as they were stopping there to visit a friend on their way back to New York, and then I stumbled back to my place. I had an early morning and a big day ahead of me.
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