I feel like my head is made out of doggie kibble. Maybe it’s the result of too many sugar-free, starch-free days (this is my last “Phase 1” day – hoorah!). Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading Marian Keyes slightly trashy chicklit novels like they’re going out of style. Maybe it’s the mocking look that my employee ID pass gives me, with its opposite-of-Dorian Grey-style face that remains perky, optimistic and skinny as year after year of government employment (it’ll be three years come Sept 9th) wear on me and transform everything from my wardrobe to my personality into a hollow, lifeless corporate drone. Ugh.

I think I need either a change of vocation or a vacation. Speaking of which, my beloved auntie has FINALLY gotten around to finding lodgings for herself and her husband, my mother, my cousins, and JVL and I to stay in while we’re in Victoria. It’s a little on the extravagant side, and technically speaking my poor Mum will have to do without a bed for the balance of the wedding weekend, but who am I to complain? It has a fireplace! And many skylights.

Speaking of hotels: I finally found my bloody room confirmation for San Diego – the Comicon is July 13-17, but I did the booking sooooo long ago I’d forgotten when and where. This is the trouble with being too precocious and “organized”. Anyhow, now it’s up to JVL to book the flights. If anyone has hints for cheap ones, let me know, ‘kay?

In academic news, I got my paper (*and* my Stephen Fry DVD, hurrah!) back from prof with remarks. I have to say, I was a little miffed about the A-, but he gave some cogent reasons for doing so, which were about as complimentary as a diss on one’s writing skills can be. Check it out:

“This is an interesting, inventive and witty paper. I particularly admire the last two sections, where your argument is very focused. You are a very good prose stylist — but I think you need to relax about it. You are often guilty of what Fowler in Modern English Usage calls “elegant variation” — constantly supplying odd synonyms and circumlocutions rather that repeating a simple noun or providing a pronoun. For example, just count the number of ways you refer to money or the lack of it. If you own a thesaurus, throw it away. Also, I think you try very hard to produce interesting verbal flourishes and long, decorative turns of phrase. I wouldn’t bother — the risk is verbosity. You will always write elegantly. I suggest the greater challenge for you is economy.”

This pleasant although negative feedback steeled me to call my Old English professor, who was very nice about hearing from me, despite the fact that I’m asking him to give me a final grade on a course I took almost four years ago. I need to call him again this afternoon to set up a meeting time for next week, but the bad news is he thinks he’s lost my final translation exam. This is super duper bad, since not only may have to re-do said exam, which gave me nightmares for weeks before I took it, but also I scored an 82% on it the first time around, a feat which I sincerely doubt I can re-enact. Le sigh.

I find myself thinking about buying a Vespa a lot lately. I’ve been all like, “Hey, if I could cough up $2000 on a washer/dryer and dining room set, why not for a motorcycle!?!” Then I usually follow up that hazy line of reasoning with a little talking-to about the health benefits of bicycles; the environmental damage caused by gas; how ontario is only sunny and warm half the year and then the vespa would sit in a garage all winter and be useless and need expensive tune-ups in the spring; and most importantly how it would INSTANTLY get stolen. Yet still… I WANT ONE.

Went to my last yoga class for a while (until the studio re-opens) last night. I got all excited because there was a lady there who looked a lot like and I thought, ooh! we can go hang out and I can show her my condo and maybe we can shop at Winners together! But it turned out not to be her, and in the crushing disappointment, I felt I had to go do some shopping damage at Winners all by myself. I bought some comfy shoes (as a matter of necessity – my feet were slaughtered from the heels I’d worn to work that morning, and I needed ones that would give me blisters in fresh, as-yet-unwounded places), and then I decided I needed a new bra. Make that two new bras — how could I pass up a $40 lime green Lejaby? And of course what with BC and San Diego coming up, two small summery tops were definetly in order. And a little cream cardigan with rosebuds. All in all, I should avoid Winners like the plague. It tempts me in the same evil way that PriceClub tempts JVL. (But, but… the shoes have little white leather trilliums on them! Our provincial flower! For Ontario government, get it? I *had* to buy them!)

Lastly, in this hideously long update, our old roommate (that’s “Mr. Paint Tray Borrower” to you LJ kids), was supposed to move out yesterday. Yesterday seems to have stretched into today, and I pray to God it doesn’t sort of lean over into tomorrow too, or so help me, blood may be shed.
I. Need. More. Space. Really, really badly.

ps – I still haven’t seen SW:ROTS yet. JVL and I were going to try tonight, but no dice. Maybe on Sunday? Want to seeeeee iiiiit!