The Bond

Next Valmai Hammerhand story is up! Just in time for me to get really distracted by the new semester, and leave you all sweating over the cliff-hanger... ;-)

No, no. I promise, I'm enough of a dork that I'll keep writing, even if it means forgoing sleep. I can't seem to go any real length of time -without- writing, anymore.

“Stay safe, Wynn Swiftknuckle,” I said, standing again. My voice sounded thick and unfamiliar in my ears.
He nodded solemnly. I had so rarely seen his face without a smile.
“I’ll be in Mansour,” he said. “When it’s over…”
“I’ll find you,” I assured him. Assured myself.
“Run far, Valmai,” he said. “Run fast.”

Hey, just for fun... After you read this, I would -love- to hear speculations from those of you who don't know already (i.e., those I haven't told outright) on where you think Emlyn's gone. I'm always curious to see whether the groundwork I'm laying is doing anything, or not.

Insecurities

Classes start tomorrow. Several things about this are making me anxious.

1. I'm not yet, apparently, enrolled in my 3-unit thesis dealie. This is the thing that gives me academic credit for writing the Honors English thesis I'm supposed to do this semester.

2. Uh... I've got to write a thesis this semester. Crap. What the hell was I thinking?

3. I have like fifty dollars I need to pay off, and I can't do it this late at night, and was too much of an idiot to do it, say -during the day- at -any time this week-. Sheesh.

4. No sign yet of the $1,000 I'm supposed to get from my scholarship. It never came at all, last semester. So I guess it's $2,000, now, if I can still somehow get the $1,000 they bilked me last time. God, I wish I was more organized and had fewer issues with telephone conversations...

5. I've been a hell of an insomniac lately. Something tells me I'm not gonna get a good night's sleep tonight... And my first class is at nine.

At least my schedule this time around should be a lot easier on me than last semester. Last time, I managed to line up one of those coveted three-day schedules that the cool kids always get. No class Monday or Friday, just Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

I was, by the end of the semester, a nervous wreck.

Turns out that my natural tendency towards procrastination, paired with my natural tendency towards near-anal-retentive perfectionism and deep desire not to dissapoint my professors combine badly with a three-day school-week. I would do absolutely nothing from Friday to Sunday, and then begin a sleepless stress-fueled cycle on Monday night every week.

Not good.

This time, I've still got classes only three days a week, but they're spread out. My hope is that I'll feel less like I've got a long weekend, and more like I've got a perfect chunk of time in between each day of classes to spend in the library -doing my goddamn thesis research- or else, y'know, class readings or whatever.

So on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll have an intro class for Roman art and architecture (and let us pray that I do better in this one than the Greek version of same) first thing, from nine to nine-fifty. Then, a small break (applesauce and granola bars! whee!), followed by Homer at eleven, and then an anthropology gen-ed (the last of my NATS classes, thank all that is holy) at noon. Then I've got an oddly-timed break from one to three-thirty, which is when my Intro to Gay and Lesbian Lit class will start. I figure I'll prolly walk home for lunch and then back, unless I can harass a friend into eating with me on campus somewhere. Fridays will be pretty much the same, but without the Gay and Lesbian Lit course.

I'm pretty excited about the lit class... I've heard great things about the course. I've also heard really good things about Prof. Soren, who'll be teaching the art and architecture class. I had Prof. Vivante, who is teaching the Homer course, just last semester, and thought she was pretty neat. The coolest thing about that one is that I've already got the right edition of the Odyssey, complete with highlighting from the course of her's that I've already taken. I'm bummed about reading the Iliad, though, I gotta say. graynonymous, who is evidently using his mad Ancient Greek skillz, was complaining just today: "I've barely translated 10 lines of the Iliad and I'm already sick of Achilles whining." I couldn't agree more. I -hate- the Iliad. Stupid Achilles. Don't get me wrong, Brad Pitt's butt in _Troy_ was basically the movie's only saving grace. But the character is still a total berk. Maybe this course will change my mind, but I doubt it...

The gen-ed is the only true unknown. I've enjoyed anthropology courses in the past, in general. It's a subject I tend to find pretty interesting. But my experience with the NATS courses has been universally bad. The gen-ed program at the UofA, at least as far as the sciences are concerned, totally sucks.

I think part of my frustration with it is that I came to the U on a science fair scholarship, of all things. I was, for a brief period, utterly convinced that I wanted to be a researcher when I grew up, and I had two years of independent research on planaria to back that idea up. I realised eventually that I had done well at the science fair not because of my good science (see, I never actually managed to -finish- an experiment, if that gives you any idea), but because of my ability to talk the judges through my research, and glibly explain my complete lack of results. Turns out my talents are geared more towards language than science. A shocker, I know.

Anyway, the point is, I've taken some pretty advanced science courses. I -know- the basics. Please, for the love of God, do not make me sit through yet another class where we discuss scientific theory... If I have to listen to some idiotic freshman who is only at school because all of her friends are say -one more goddamned time- "but, isn't evolution, like, just a -theory-?" I will commit homicide.

But in order to graduate from the UofA without a science degree, you've gotta take the NATS gen-eds, and all of them are, evidently, geared towards people who never even took -high school level- science courses. God, how I hate the NATS.

This one's a Tier II, though. Maybe, just maybe, it will be better. My fingers are crossed, anyway.

Oh, God. I'm supposed to write a thesis this semester.

I think I'll just panic myself to sleep, now.