vendredi 3 février 2006

It was just one of those days.

Yesterday was not one of those good days.

I woke up, turned on my computer, only to find out that Firefox had given out on me. It wouldn't load. WOULD NOT LOAD. How was I going to procrastinate on getting dressed to go to school? I restarted my computer. I begged and pleaded. All to no avail. So I had to use Internet Explorer - the indignity of it all! - which has NONE of my bookmarks because ALL of my bookmarks are in Firefox. Bastards.

Then I was driving along happily to school, when all of a sudden I noted BIG HUGE SMOKE CLOUDS in front of me. Huh. Interesting, isn't it? Wow, hope that everything was okay with the car in front of me. And then I realised that said SMOKE CLOUDS were coming from underneath the hood of my car. MY car. And that little thermostat thingy? Oh, it was WAY above the Hot mark. WAY ABOVE. And so I freaked out, but since I was only a mile from school, I kept plugging along, hoping fervently that my car wasn't going to explode on the middle of Sunset. Because that would have sucked A LOT.

Luckily, I made it to the parking garage, my car looking as though I was hosting a BBQ under its hood. And I called my father to find out what to do, only to get a long-winded lecture about how I did NOT listen to him the first time he gave me a lecture on what to do when things go wrong with my car, and if ONLY I had listened I would know how to check my own oil and where things like the radiator were located. I didn't even bother telling him that I didn't know how to pop the hood of my own car, because that surely would have resulted in more lecturing. I mean, that's why you have guys around. I've never had to deal with my own car problems; I could always refer them to the closest male friend. Unfortunately, all of them are on the East coast still. Bastards.

And then, not related to me, but three people in my first class spilled their water bottles all over the table.

It was a conspiracy, I tell you. An evil, evil conspiracy where all the stars AND the planets were aligned against me and everyone around me.

And that was all before 10AM.

Luckily, the rest of the day was better than that. I mean, where could it have gone, more downhill? I shudder to think of it.

I found out that inadvertantly, by the end of this quarter I'll have fulfilled all of my course requirements for this interdisciplinary center haphazardly I joined last year, even though I didn't plan it this way, and that they will likely fund my dissertation year, and maybe even next year too. Money is good!

I troubleshooted Firefox, and did what their forum said to do, so now it works, even though it's all en français now. Oh well. C'est la vie. And if it continues malfunctioning, I'll just leave my computer on once I've reinstalled Firefox for the umpteenth time.

Apparently, I BSed my field notes sufficiently well that my TA told me that my field note writing style was improving, and that my observations were clearer and more detailed. Awesome. Maybe I should never do real-life observations and should make them up. I am such a good researcher.

And, oh, the car saga. I was in the parking structure at school for a full hour after classes and meetings, doing things like filling the little coolant container and the radiator (both absolutely bone dry, hence the smoke), watching the radiator steam up again, refilling the radiator, watching it steam, etcetc, all the while with my father lecturing me via phone on how I should have known how to take care of my car. (You would think he was a mechanic, but he's not. Just like my college roommate's parents thought he was a contractor, with the amount of crap he built for my room. But he's not a contractor either.) Keep in mind, I was in a skirt and flip flops. I almost wore heels to school yesterday, but thankfully I didn't. But hey, now I know what the innards of my car look like! And then Jen came and she followed me home, my car mildly steaming all the way, in case my car decided to go kablooie, but I made it home safely. And then we went shopping.

Then my parents came to check out my car, and my father realised my radiator was leaking, and so now I have his SUV to drive for at least the weekend! Let's talk about me driving SUVs! It is fun! I like being high off the ground! Unfortunately, SUVs don't corner very well, and they're larger than my baby Camry, so combine that with the thrill of me being taller than almost everyone else - well, that makes me a very very very very bad driver. (And normally, I am a good driver. Idiot males have told me so.) I used to drive my ex's SUV around, and every time, not only did I feel totally like a soccer mom (especially since I used to drop him off and pick him up at school), I nearly got in at least 500 accidents, not to mention that I had to take up two parking spots because I can't maneuver boats at all. And let's not even talk about parallel parking. So watch out, LA!