After around nine hours of reading the first 50 pages of Der Schimmelreiter, in 19th-Century elegant German, I can't even read English paragraphs without my mind trying to interpret them in some Germanic literary way. I suppose this is what 13000 words of German with no translation aid other than Google does to you. I don't claim to have understood a majority of it at all, although I have a fairly good idea of what happened. The high class of language is wasted on me, for the time being, although I am always partial to the most poetic of descriptions. Nevertheless, for the remaining 90 pages, I should have the English translation coming to me in the next week courtesy of Amazon. I feel guilty, yes, but spending 10 hours on a weekly reading assignment isn't practical in the context of all I have to do this year, and besides, I can cross-reference with the Deutsch when it comes to writing the essay on it.

I've also got a stressbucket from the Orbital. We were notified of the deadline a week ago, but the deadline is today, and that was nowhere near enough time for me to do what had been subtley requested by the higher-ups and the issue theme. I'd need four students to write 300 words each on what Egham is like compared to their homes. To make that work, I'd ideally need a Northener, a European, an American and an East Asian, but finding people at short notice is tricky. I've resorted to contacting friends, but I'm still not at all certain that this'll work, so I've asked ticca to help me out with a Plan B, with the option of keeping the 300 word interviews and doing them over a series of issues as a regular feature, which may work better, but which will give our design team a bit of a headache.

These two examples should give you some idea of what this year is shaping up to be like. It's demanding, but should hopefully be rewarding as well. I know I can't wait on the essays like last year, simply because I have so many this year...6 a term, I think. This means that I'll moreorless need to do an essay a week, on top of manging the Writers' Circle, for which I need to do some serious planning on the Tuesday, my Orbital role, and my duties for the German Society.

We had our first Stammtisch on Thursday, which turned out well, and I didn't panic when Astrid appeared and offered to pay for drinks. Last year, I ended up with a double whiskey, which left me running rather tipsily across campus to reach Anime with a roll of Stollen under my arm. We still had the Stollen this year, although this time I washed it down with some rum & lemonade, before walking up to join those who had finished Anime and were standing around outside. Rachel, 'Forest', comes from my part of Nottingham, and is lovely in every way, whilst there was an amusing sarcastic astrophysicist who lived in Wales for a number of years yet goes to great lengths to deny his cymricity.

( Wallet Update, and no, I've not got it back )

( A little bit of Wanderlust )

( ...and Joblust )

I've been reading a little on Japanese history. I know some early modern Chinese history, and its just as fascinating. I'll need to do four essays on these two countries for my East Asian history course; deliciously demanding.

Ginger and Mint tea is fantastic for relaxing when you have a cold.

current mood: erfüllt, aber noch gestresst

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current mood: irritated

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Oho, this is ironic. See, I keep reading entries that go like this, and feel so very sorry for whoever wrote them. I wondered about it only a few weeks ago, actually, and wondered when I would have to be the writer of one. Well, I now am, although I must admit it's not about the person I thought it'd be.

I've also got a legitimate reason not to send in the Orbital stuff right at once, because all the other reasons from the way everyone I e-mailed ignored me, MOTD messed up my message timing, the Orbital deadline was 9 hours earlier than I had reckoned, and my back-up article was affected by a computer crash. I had one reply from someone, and with his and alatier's contribution, I can build a decent page, provided it forms a series...

Ne, let me stop talking in circles and confuse those of you who skim read and think I'll just be going on about magazine stuff again.

My Nana is in hospital in Reading. She's had a Stroke, and is bleeding profusely in her brain. It's very likely she'll die, given her troubles over these past five years since her heart attack on a plane to Johannesburg when she fell in such a way as to break a back. It's a wonder she survived that, and she's had a few scares since, although she had seemed to be picking up a lot.

In fact, she phoned me exactly a week ago to offer me a jacket. She then tried phoning on Friday to arrange a meet-up this week, but I was out, and then she said she'd phone back on the Saturday. She never did. This is frightfully ironic, as I remember the day before my other grandmother died, my grandfather was meant to be driving me home, and went towards my grandparents house instead. He said 'oops' and then 'would you like to pop round seeing as we're here?'. I was eager to get back for something, so I said no, and that night my grandmother died of breathing difficulties. This time, I was given the option, but my own laziness in not phoning back has cost me again.

I'm really bad at this. I'm a champion at making a mess of things. I should, however, be able to go and visit her tommorrow, even though she won't respond. I only hope she can hold out until then. My father, her son, is driving down right now to be with her, and he's tired, so I'm worried about him too. Maybe I can go with him tonight, seeing as I have an excuse Orbital Editor Anita will accept. I've got no homework for tommorrow other than reading either, which is somewhat fortunate, although I worry that the Writers' Circle planning will take a dive.

Heh, my grandmother is dying, and I'm worried that I'll miss deadlines. What does this say about me? Suffice to say, I don't like Mondays at the moment, given how I lost my wallet a week ago. It's not that I don't care about her: I figure I'm only coping through relative disassociation coupled with focusing on work to avoid thinking about it. I'll be a crying wreck at some point soon enough, but for now, it's still faintly hiding behind my steaming cup of mocha.

So, anyway, here's a 'My grandmother is dying' post. That sounds so cold...but, well, I've a large friends list, and I've seen others go through this, so I know what sort of things are said.

Irony of ironies, when she phoned me, she told me how they were finally getting their new house. Slowly, the elements that made up my family of my childhood are being eroded, as they eventually must. On the heel of the wallet incident, for which my other grandfather is sending £100 to make up for, all I can realise is how much of a bitch life can be. But, then again, well, that's life.

Now to phone my Editor and explain...well, this year hasn't got off to the best start, has it?

current mood: shocked

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