the percy senility fund

I'm sorry to say that my faithful Dell Inspiron 600m laptop computer (aka Sir Percy, aka Ladislaw) has officially become senile.

I just had a new hard-drive installed last Christmas, which more than doubled my disk space. But ever since then, things have only been getting worse. The power cord has frayed right near where it plugs into the computer. Around May, near the end of the semester, I finally bit the bullet and bought a new cord, out of fear that I would lose all my data and have no way to retrieve it.

The universal power cord worked fine for a while, except for one thing: it couldn't charge my battery (which is, itself, a hand-me-down from my brother-in-law when he bought a new computer). That wasn't too awful, since I have become accustomed to not using my battery much. And I could still pull out the original power cord from Dell and plug it in for a while, just long enough to get the battery charged up. But it was still annoying.

Then the universal power cord started having trouble of its own. I'm not sure, but it seems that part of my laptop where the power cord plugs in has become loose, so that the cord doesn't fit it right. That was a very annoying problem all during the summer (mind, this started only about a month or two after I first bought the cord -- which was pretty pricey, too). Still, things worked all right.

In the meantime, besides all the power cord drama (which is by no means finished yet ... stay tuned), my computer has just plain been running slowly lately. Even when I clean up my files and de-frag the hard-drive, it doesn't help much. I've been thinking for a while now that I would like get more RAM, but that is both expensive and difficult. So I'm making due instead.

Now, to finish the power cord drama: It's recently been getting harder and harder to get either power cord (the original or the universal) to stay in the right position, so that they are actually providing power to the laptop. That means that, unless I either command the luck of the gods or decide to sit with my hand pressing the cord in just the right place, the battery runs down to critical levels. This has happened a number of times in the last few weeks, but today it's been worse than ever. I have sat all day long with my hand pushing the cord, and after leaving it for a mere hour and a half (while I ran Mom for an emergency chiropractic visit -- seriously), it had already run down the battery completley. As in, 0% battery remaining. Clearly the battery is getting old, too.

I'm not sure it's worth it at this point to upgrade everything. Actually, I've been thinking that for quite a while now, but I have been holding off on looking for a new computer because I didn't want to buy another until I could afford a MacBook Pro. And I was far from affording a MacBook Pro. Still am.

So, in hopes of raising awareness about Laptop Senility Dysfunction (LSD) -- and also some money -- I am establishing the Percy Senility Fund. Should you wish to contribute, please send me an email, and I will provide donation details. (If you don't know my email address, I don't know you well enough to trust an email from you, so ... I guess we'll have to figure out some other donation possibility. Maybe a PayPal account.)

Plain? It's as ugly as a parson's widow! (22 points)

updated, plus my top twenty favorite lyrics (part two)

I have to explain what's been going first. My parents recently purchased and installed a new VoIP phone system, but once we got the phones working, then the internet wouldn't work. We've been trying for the last week to get the problem fixed so that both the phones and the internet work, which is partially obstructed by the fact that my mom can't seem to decide whether she wants to just cancel the service or not. In the meantime, I've been mostly living offline ... except for really big tasks (such as applying for jobs), for which I go over to my brother's house.

But for the evening, I have the phone line knocked out and the internet hooked up again while Mom and Dad are at the temple, so I'm taking advantage of the time to update my blog and write some emails.

I've decided I want to start doing a weekly music moment, where I can share my favorite lyrics, musicians, and songs. I plan to normally do this on Mondays (musical Mondays -- gotta love the alliteration!), but this week I'm pretty behind-hand, owing to the above-mentioned internet problems.

So, with apologies for its late-ness, here is the second half of my favorite lyrics list:

10. Do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once? I am one of those melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it. (Green Day, "Basket Case")
9. Delilah, I can promise you that by the time that we get through, the world will never, ever be the same, and you're to blame. (Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah")
8. Feels like lightning running through my veins, every time I look at you. (David Gray, "Please Forgive Me")
7. Couldn't take the blame, sick with shame; must be exhausting to lose your own game. Selfishly hated, no wonder you're jaded; you can't play the victim this time. (Evanescence, "Call Me When You're Sober")
6. I won't be seeing you for a long while, I hope it's not as long as these country miles. (Camera Obscura, "Country Mile")
5. Don't believe that the weather is perfect the day that you die. (Armor for Sleep, "The Truth About Heaven")
4. I should, I wish I could, maybe if you were I would -- a list of standard-issue regrets. (Ok Go, "A Million Ways")
3. I need your grace to remind me to find my own. (Snow Patrol, "Chasing Cars")
2. The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair. (Relient k, "Be My Escape")
1. I am a writer, writer of fictions. I am the heart that you call home. And I've written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones. (The Decemberists, "Engine Driver")

So there you have it -- my favorite lyrics. As mentioned, this list is by no means complete, and you can be certain you'll be getting lots more of this in future weeks. And thanks, NM, for sharing some of yours!

My future plans

Well, folks, here it is. The decision of the moment. After much debate and summer's worth of attempting to be decisive about my future, it comes down to this: I'm moving home. As in, with my parents.

I hate the thought of it, I really do. I can't stand the idea that I'm 28 and have multiple college degrees, and yet I will be living with my parents. Again. But the fact is that I just can't afford to move anywhere else right now, financially speaking. And, even though I've had many, many kind offers to live with various friends (thanks, guys!), this is actually the decision that feels the most right to me for the time being. I'm worried that I'm going to start acting like a bratty teenager. Oh well -- at least I'll relate better to my nieces and nephews. :)

And, on the bright side, I will still get to see Muse in concert in Orem on September 12th! Can't wait. About once a day, as I'm listening to them, I briefly hyperventilate in anticipation of said event.

So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome, 'cause The Man's just gonna call you a fat, washed-up loser and crush your soul. So just do yourselves a favor, and just give up!! (31 points)

some good news

I've been pretty down lately, feeling like I don't have real plans for the fall and that nothing is going to come through. Today, especially, it was a real struggle to keep myself afloat.

I have to admit -- though it will make me sound a tad foolish -- that this is partly due to a mild depression over the end of the Harry Potter series. I always get slightly depressed from reading a really good book -- it's my test for what makes a book "great" -- and this one was a little worse because it's the end of a whole series. No more Harry. Well, not new Harry, anyway.

Also, I've had a hard time sleeping lately. I'm not sure how much of that is from staying up late at night to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, how much is due to the stress of filling out applications, and how much is just plain insomnia. But it doesn't help my mood during the day, I'll just say that.

I really hate all of my viable options for the fall. Every one of them involves living with someone -- sponging off them, basically -- and I really hate that. I've had a good time in Kansas with Margo, but it stresses me, too, to know that I'm mooching off her and her family. But the plain fact is that I'm going to have to live with someone else for a while. I'm in no financial position to be finding my own place right off the bat. So I'm coming to terms with that.

But there are glimmers of light among all this darkness.

First, I got my hair cut today. Margo's cousin has a cosmetology license, and she cut it for a very reasonable price. I'd heard rave reviews about her work -- although admittedly all from her family -- so I was looking forward to having it done well. And so far, I'm very happy with it. Margo tried to convince me to chop it off, but I just got it trimmed, so it's still pretty long.

Second, I finished two of my applications today. Well, mostly at least -- I still have to get letters of reference and transcripts in for one place. But the other application (which only required a cover letter and CV) is completely done. I'm planning to mail it tomorrow. On Monday I'm going to call up to ... the first place ... and ask whether it's OK with them to have references and transcripts sent directly to the department.

So, all is not lost. I will go on, and I will enjoy life, and somehow things will work out. And tomorrow I'm going on a temple trip with the local branch, and I plan to have a good, long talk with Heavenly Father about all my options and frustrations -- and that will make things better, whether in one way or another.

Optimism is always harder than pessimism. (Not a direct quote, but it's a philosophy espoused by ... 25 points)

missing matt

Well, Muse is no longer in Texas.

They were in Houston last Saturday and San Antonio on Monday, supporing My Chemical Romance. In between those, they played in Frisco (near Dallas) at Edgefest, a big annual rock concert sponsored by one of the local radio stations. Unfortunately, that was a Sunday, and with it being such a busy week, it was impossible -- well, at least unplausible -- to go to Houston or San Antonio.

It took major effort to refrain from going to see them in Frisco. Only the fact that it was a Sunday kept me.

Oh well. After all, they were only supporting MCR, who I don't really care about anyway.

Now I have grand visions of going to Chicago in August for Lollapalooza -- the next US gig they're playing -- but it's really not practical. Oh well. Maybe they'll hang around in the States for a while after that and I can catch them elsewhere.

This life could be the last, and we're too young to see. (37 points)

huzzah! & grrr!

Huzzah! Margo is here visiting. Good luck on comps, Margo.

Grrr! Erin didn't make it after all. I have no idea when I'll see her again. (Sniff!)

The last quote, which so many of you astutely and accurately identified, was from "While You Were Sleeping," a personal favorite of mine.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. (17 points)

some stories

The other day, as I was heading toward the library to do some research, I found a woman standing by the door of the building where my office is. I was about to go out the door, but she stopped me by asking whether I had a phone she could use. So I let her use my phone, and tried to focus on the music coming through my iPod and pretend that I wasn't listening to her conversation. But of course, I was. After some time, she finally seemed to reach a real person. She asked about a traffic ticket she had received in 1983, and then whether she would be allowed to come in and do her time in jail for that, instead of paying the fine. And that was the whole conversation. She gave me back the phone matter-of-factly, and I went to do my research.

My research these days includes text mining, characterization through verbs, characterization through reference, the creation of personal identity through reference, and the concept of a nation in the Anglo-Saxon period. It gets frustrating, because there's so much to do, and so much I want to do, and very little time to do it in. I would love to be able to spend a few hours a day in library for research, but I just can't afford the time. Oh yes, along with everything else, I'm trying to translate Wulfstan's Sermon of the Wolf in my "spare" time. Just one more thing I want to do but don't really have the time for. I've pretty well made up my mind that I'm not going to be able to do my own personal reading this semester -- I'm doing well if I can finish my reading assignments for my classes every week.

In the meantime, though, I'm really enjoying my classes this semester. Scholarly Writing is turning out to be very useful; it reminds me of how much I love writing, and of how much more I should be doing to write well. Medieval Literature is also interesting -- even if it does require a lot more reading than I can usually cover in one week. We just finished reading Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and are now about to start on Asser's Life of Alfred. Reading Bede has given me a whole new perspective on the early Christian church in Western Europe. I have a new respect for the men and women who were involved in church affairs.

I recently bought several three-ring binders so that I can organize all the papers I have. There's a whole binder just for Haj and the handouts I get every time I talk to him. And I've got a rainbow array of binders for all the articles I copy in my research. They're pretty empty for the time being, but I expect to fill them most of the way before the end of this semester.

Hmm ... So I really didn't intend for this to turn into a rant about how much I have to do this semester. It's just that that's what I think about these days. Here's something else for you --

I found out the other day that Muse is supposed to be coming to the US on tour this spring, supporting My Chemical Romance in their Black Parade tour. (And a lot of fans are really ticked about that; they hate MCR, most of them, can't believe that Muse have to be a support band for anyone else, and many are upset about them getting "more exposure" in the States -- since that makes it harder to see them here -- and playing such large venues.) Assuming this is true, they should be playing in San Antonio and Houston, as well as Dallas for the Edgefest concert. However, I can't find any confirmed information about any of this. When I found out the other day, I just about hyperventilated, trying to figure out how to get tickets. I finally asked NM, since she and her man frequently attend concerts like this, and I thought she'd have a better idea. Neither she nor her man could find anything more concrete than what I had. But, she did mention that her man is quite good at getting scalped tickets for a really good price (say, 1/4 of the regular price), so if we find out that they really are coming, she suggested that we just go and let him do his thing to get us in. That thought has me grinning foolishly even now.

Oh, and along with everything else I'm doing, I've been working on converting my protected music files so that they're just plain old MP3s. Sometimes that's quite fun, others it's just tedious.

The last quote was from "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake. Congrats to Erin.

So much time, so little to do. (Pause.) Strike that -- reverse it. (42 points)

exhaustion

It's already setting in. Yup, it's been two weeks of school, and I don't know how I'll make it through. Things seem to be falling apart in our Relief Society right now, and that's keeping me worrying a lot. And then I'm trying to do about five different research projects at once right now. Today and tomorrow I really need to work on a couple of submissions for a conference I'd like to go to in Glasgow this summer (the submissions are due on Feb 1). And I'm still working on my application for Lancaster Uni -- I'll keep you all posted about how that goes.

The last two weeks, we've had three candidates here for a professor-ship we are trying to fill for Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department, so like a good graduate student I've been going to their job talks and stuff. It's been very instructive, and I even got to offer my opinion on the candidates yesterday. This morning the final candidate is giving a composition workshop to the Teaching Fellows, so I'm planning to go to that as well, and looking forward to it. She seemed pretty sharp when I watched her job talk yesterday, and I can always use new ideas for teaching composition.

She's touring the facility and picking up slack. (11 points)

Oh yeah ... the last quote was from the song "Hysteria" by Muse.

aarghs and yays

Aargh 1. I'm really annoyed with my students. I think I'll have to give them the lecture on Monday, about how they're in college now, and they're responsible for their own education, and it's not my job to remind them every day of what homework they're supposed to do.

Aargh 2. I was supposed to get Vertigo in the mail today from Netflix, but it didn't arrive. That's the only time so far that the a movie from there hasn't gotten here on time.

Yay 1. NaNoWriMo is almost here! I got a new idea for part of my plot the other day in a Linguistics class, although I'm not sure yet if it will actually work.

Yay 2. The other day I had an appointment with my professor for Research Methods and Bibliography in Linguistics (which, incidentally, is the class where I got that idea for my novel). We were supposed to meet to discuss these papers we're working on, the first part of which (intro and lit review) we turned in recently. It was a very good meeting, and coming away from it, I felt reassured about my ability to make it in the academic world.

Yay 3. Today I finally went to a study group session with some of the girls from my Old English class. The other day I had decided that I really needed to start making allies in that class, and I did have some good conversations with a couple girls when we recently met in the Rare Books Room of the library for class (we practiced transcribing different hands from medieval manuscripts -- great fun). So I promised faithfully that I would come to the study session today. And about half-way through it, I thought to myself, "I'm good at this. I can do this. I like this a lot." Unless something stops me, I'm going to go ahead and switch to Medieval.

Yay 4. In lieu of our not-yet-arrived Vertigo, we are watching The Three Faces of Eve tonight. Margo and I have never seen it before, and we thought it would be a good, somewhat-creepy movie for Halloween.

Yay 5. Margo's been doing an internship at the local hospital, and they had their annual bake sale today -- they have their neuro patients bake the stuff, using the activity as a therapeutic communication situation, and then they sell the stuff in the hospital lobby and donate the money to a charity. So Margo and I drove out there today during lunch-time and bought some stuff, and we're eating it while we watch our movie.

You used to make us laugh -- really was a gas. 33 points