Monday, March 31, 2003
 

Today has been living proof that my life is incredibly dull. As if that really needed proving.

Got up. Showered. Studied. Lunched. Headed off to library.

Ok, the library bit is going to get expanded. I was there for two hours, just locating and copying stuff I'd already found citations for. In other words, the groundwork was done, and I was just locating the items. I hauled those heavy dusty icky bound journals around, photocopied my life's savings away, refrained from bashing in the head of a chick on her cell phone, ran all over the place looking for books. Of the library's eight floors, I covered seven of them. For reasons unknown, getting from the third floor to the second or first (fourth floor is main floor) requires using the elevator (a yellow caution tape has been hanging across the third-to-second floor staircase for as long as I've been here). I always use the stairs, no matter how many books I'm carrying, for the exercise and because I don't like the little dark elevator. But the book I required on the first floor left me no choice. So I had to ride in the stinky claustrophobia-inducing creaky dark elevator. Hmmph.

I also ended up with seriously blackened hands from some bound newspaper items. In my undergrad library, the newspaper book review sections were on microfilm, which, while dizzying, were less of a pain than these (since they were messy, fragile, heavy, big, and generally awkward). And, call me a nerd (shut up, peanut gallery), but I kind of like to play with microfilm. Yes, I'm a dork.

Some chick who's wait-listed at Duke for some science program read her entire letter to the admissions committee, line by line, aloud to someone on the phone for her/him to critique. In the library. And she prefaced every last line with "this sounds really stupid, but it's true!" I wanted to tell her that if it sounds stupid, then it's probably inappropriate content for a letter in which she begs to be admitted for a higher education program, and that she should spare us all the pain of hearing it read aloud. But I behaved (because when I'm teaching next year, I'm sure I'll get my fill of making comments like that). Speaking as a former librarian, do not use your cell phone in the library, or I will personally shove it so far up your butt that your nose bleeds. As it was, I nearly pitched my two-ton volume of Simone Weil at her.

After all of this, I was hot and bothered. Actually, pleasantly cool and bothered, but you get my drift. So I rewarded myself with another walk/run, which was a major destressor.

Now I'm trying to summon the initiative to do some more work before CSI Miami. I think I'll start by stapling my bazillion (conservative estimate) photocopies.

In conclusion, the requisite reminder: Name that Kitty!

Elvisette philosophized at 8:40 PM