This weekend

Ok, I'm just thinking aloud. I'll get nothing done tomorrow on Magnificent Octopus; I have to spend the whole day at Eviljob, and then I have to go to an evening party held by one of the professors with whom I do get along pretty well. It actually is a type of "have-to" commitment, in the way that social things sometimes are; I'll need his help someday I'm sure, plus he feels somewhat kindly towards me, for which I am grateful, plus he's a friend of another prof whom I'd like to have as an advisor if I ever manage to break free from the hellhole I currently occupy. To not attend would be a snub, and I can't do that, and wouldn't to him, of all people, anyway. Then I have to sleep, 'cos I have to go back to Eviljob on Sunday. The weekends are the easiest to get the hours in, so there's only an illusion of free will operating here; I'm required to put in x number of hours per week, and if I don't do the bulk of them Sat/Sun, other things will crop up, and it won't get done, and then Ancodia will get written up and terminated.

Ok, well, not *immediately*, but that's not the point. People never remember the ten thousand things you've done correctly or well, they only remember the bad things--and those become "patterns" they've seen in your behaviour in the past maybe three weeks. I fall short twice in a handful of months, and all of a sudden, it's "you're *never* here!"

Absolutes are a major pet peeve of mine. Eviljob loves them.

And so this leaves me with Sunday evening to do any real work. And I have a final on Tuesday for which I've not even *begun* to study, as well as a paper due. Both in this class I'm taking like a fool with my advisor. Then I have five other things due in another class; he's let me slide so much because of what's going on with Octopus that I'm in danger of not catching up in time.

And I'm going to get a spiral-cut, honey-baked ham for Monday. :-) The other cats can have some, but it's Puff's. If the Dr says she may, that is. And I'll hug her and try to get her to understand that I'm sorry.

I need a break. For that reason, I'm looking forward to the end of this term. My son-friend is still having seizures. He's already on Tegretol and Depakote, and he's allergic to Dilantin. So his Dr says there's nothing more to add to the regimen. Well, nothing until he can afford to get to a neurologist. I've been paying for him to go to the regular Dr, and helping him out on his rent, and I suggested he take magnesium supplements (though I've not had the time to check into what a therapeutic dose is, and I've asked him to multiple times, but he's dragging his feet on it; I think he thinks I've made this property of magnesium up), and see if his regular Dr would prescribe something that's in the benzodiazepine family, since that's at least Mostly Harmless, potentially beneficial, not likely to interact with much, and won't add another blood level to keep track of. Well, he finally asked, and his Dr said he thought that was an excellent idea. So I'm hopeful. I don't like the idea of Papa Government any more than the next guy, but really, I'm all for socialised medicine. My brother'd make a hell of a lot less probably, but a little penury's good for the soul. Or so I hear. If he could manage chaste and obedient too, he might become half as holy as he currently thinks he is. And it would help out people like my son-friend. For them, I don't see any other way, and I can't run myself into destitution paying for everything for him; if I do that, then none of us have anything. As it stands, all of us have *something*. He's been applied for disability for over a year and a half, and has some last court date in September/Octoberish on it. I hope it's successful, because otherwise, my next suggestion is to look for some research or teaching hospital that might take him on as a case and move there, wherever it is in the country.

Mom fell this afternoon, and she says she has a large goose egg on her temple and a huge bruise and minor lacerations around her brow to temple area. With my luck, she's knocked something from her eye surgery loose, or something. Sigh. She says she feels fine, just achy. Could she have called me earlier to let me know? No. Could she have taken herself to her Dr for a quick look? No. Rampaging pain in the ass.

I was going to make a comment about her apparently having nothing to concuss, but I didn't.

It's 'cos I'm kind that way.

I did all of the stupid changes to Octopus. Well, a majority of them. There are some that I'm still debating. And so I have just the more difficult changes to make, the things that could have and should have been brought up six to eight months ago. Things like, "I don't like this justification argument you've made that you're basing upon common knowledge". Well, I think it *is* common knowledge, and common knowledge is public domain. I don't *have* to justify it, or cite anything to use it. Maintaining obfuscation, we're talking about something that really is a close equivalent of "Mathematics is perceived paradoxically by many as fundamentally common sense-based, yet difficult." I don't have to cite that! That's freaking common knowledge. If the majority of us inspected our own beliefs, we'd find that certain topics (e.g., physics, math) we think of as "common sense". We would think we could look at a physics problem (I'm not talking quantum physics here, but everyday rotational motion, gravity kind of stuff), and answer it correctly because it's common sense. Allegedly. After we're done answering that simple, silly question though, drop our asses into a physics class, and all of a sudden what was "simple" is now "hard". Most people avoid math like the plague. I don't need to qualify that--it's freaking common knowledge.

She's just getting all happy and ambitious with that correcting pen over there.

I *think* those corrections are just trying to have something to say. The other remaining corrections are quasi-legitimate citation needs, and so on those, I'm deciding in favour of conservativism and putting the citations in, even if I don't wholly agree. But than that leads me to another problem: I don't have the time to read these additional studies she's tacked on by Monday. No way, no sir, nohow.

Now her solution to this is to do what "Everybody else does". Everybody else just skims the abstract, and shoves the citation in there. Per her.

Well, if that's the truth, then I'm not Everybody else, and I'm proud of that. I personally think that's questionable behaviour. I would not allow, much less tell, one of my students to do that. I think that's "grey-area" behavior. It's not dishonest per se, but it's also not wholly honest; it's shortcutting.

I need to get away from this whole scene. This atmosphere does not mix well with my way of doing things. I know I make more work for myself a lot of the time. I will admit that. But I don't think this is a "right" way of doing things. We had this conversation today, and I'm still a little upset over it. What if someone asks me about it, I asked--what would I say?

I'm paranoid that way.

I'm not going to think about it any more tonight. I'll cope on Sunday, or I can try to read as much as possible tomorrow...I don't know. Something. I'll think more clearly after I've slept.

George Noory's rejoin just now was "More Than A Feeling", by Boston; that song has always struck me as missing something. It sounds overlearnt, overprocessed, over...somethinged. Canned, somehow. Hard to explain. Kind of like broccoli, I'm glad I don't like Boston, 'cos then I'd have to listen to them, and I can't stand them! :-) Except I love broccoli. And the logic in the prior statement. :-)

Oh, hell...let me cite that properly: It's from I think Lewis Carroll.

I want a goddamned font named Sarcasm. It would be a popular font, I think.