worryingly jolly batman

Advice requested!

Tomorrow night I have two potential engagements (of course, because I can go weeks without having anything to do on a Friday night and then I always end up having two or three things on the same night). I have either: first meeting of a bookgroup some women in my class are starting, or Fangirl Friday (just what it sounds like: Wellington fangirl meet-up.) To be brutally honest, I'd most like to go to Fangirl Friday because I know a few people who will be there & they're lovely! (And I'm not just saying that because they might be reading this, although: hi.) Also it's in a location that is handy for everything incl. walking home. Meanwhile, bookgroup will be awkward as there will be plenty of people there I don't know & I don't think I'll be able to drag anyone else along, and also the people in my class who are organising it are the super-glamorous, put-together people who make me feel like a giant, clumsy, inarticulate idiot. HOWEVER, I hve hopes that repeated exposure to that sort of person will make me feel a little less giant, clumsy, and inarticulate around a) them, in class and b) people like them, in my professional life. Plus also I really like book groups & need to make friends/contacts within my class or tbh I'll never get a job.

So um. Advices? Anyone?

Relatedly: I've been off class a bit lately and I found out today that one of the groups I'm working in has done all this stuff under heaps of pressure and I had no idea. Which: OK, I was away. But on the other hand, I feel a little bit aggrieved that I had no idea what was going on and wasn't able to help out, which I would have been if I'd been told. :-/ I kind of want to write the project manager an email and say that I feel really out of the loop and I find that really stressful. Should I bother? I know that I would appreciate this kind of email! But I don't want to seem confrontational. Sigh?

Had a weekend away in wellington that was by turns amazingly wonderful (seeing old friends and my family) and screamingly shitty (seeing... my family, shitty weather, getting sick for the first time this year). But the absolute capper is getting home tonight to find that my precious and onl;y a few months old external harddrive has independently decided to WIPE EVERYTHING and I can't find any of the sixty-odd gigs of TV, movies and comics that I had saved there. I am about reading to KILL THINGS. Please, please, if anyone has any suggestions as to how I can recover any of it, I'll love you forever.

As I was beginning my study for my essay test at 11 this morning* I was bemused to hear one of the office ladies wandering around saying "it's me, Marianna! I'm sober! I'm bringing guests around!" Apparently she needed to mention that she was sober before using my room to show prospective guests- frankly this is unsurprising because my room's kind of a pigsty. But that's not the funny thing, the funny thing is she sticks her head around the door and says "Tui, this is Louise, can she have a look at your room?" And as I live and breathe, it was Louise Tie! Who goes to my old school! I am not kidding! :D VERY conincidental. Anyway, I did the propaganda-it's-really-great-here jazz and then got on with my study, but it was nice to see her.

Then, during the test, which was sociolinguistics, I found myself writing a page an a half on Henry V, which I'm doing in Shakespeare at the moment. I, um. I just don't know what came over me, although in my defence the essay was on face and politeness and I was analysing Henry's use of face throughout the play and with particular attention to his speech at Harfleur...

Finally on this-is-the-last-day-of-term-and-I-can-be-fucking-random-if-I-want: I really, really feel like an aero bar. But I don't think they sell them here any more. :(

*That is to say, the test was at eleven. I started studying for it around 9.30. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.