In a minor sort of way.

Part I : When I leave for my Canadian History Since 1867 class, it is rainy and cold. That means that I have to struggle with the very fussy and sensitive zippers (there’s two on the same track) in order to make my kitbag waterproof. That’s never fun. The zipper does not close very tightly, so the slightest pressure can make it split open like an overripe cantaloupe.

Then I get to our stop, reach into my pocket for my toque, and…. it’s not there. I seem to have misplaced the damned thing again. So now, not only do I have to wait outside in the pouring, freezing rain for my bus, said rain will be falling directly on my head.

Needless to say, I was feeling cranky.

Part II : I get to class right before the professor starts class. This is good in that it means I was not, technically, late. But it’s bad in that I had no time to fill my water bottles (I have a bunch of 500 ml bottles I used for that purpose) and so I have nothing to drink.

And I like having something to drink during class. It’s a small, pleasant ritual to sip water now and then, and I find it helps me to keep my mood balanced.

Then I remember the bottle of Sparkling Ice (a carbonated fruit juice blend) I have had in my bag for a couple of weeks. Perfect, I think. I will drink that. I fish it out of my bag, and absentmindedly open it while trying to concentrate on class.

Kasploosh! The damned thing erupts like a startled volcano and shoot red juice blend all over the place. On my notes, on my desk, on my tablet, and especially on me. I guess being in my bag for a couple of weeks subjected it to enough jostling and wiggling that it built up a lot of pressure from the released carbon, and today, I released that pressure rather spectacularly.

So not only do I have to go to the men’s room on the opposite side of the building to get paper towels (and thus miss minutes of the lecture dammit), but I don’t carry a spare shirt with me, so I have to spend the rest of the class (and the bus trip home) in a shirt with a red stain so big there is far more stain than non-stain on my front, feeling like a prize idiot.

My notes are mostly okay. I know from bitter experience that there is no point in trying to actively intervene when you spill liquid on your looseleaf. Anything you do will just cause things to fall apart. All you can do is take out any pages that got wet but don’t have anything on them yet, leave the binder open to dry, and learn to live with the results.

Part III : Class was great, as always. I got to impress my prof with my thoughtful and articulate analysis of the Cold War practice of persecuting homosexuals in government because they were thought to have a “weak character” and be a “security risk”. That bullshit was just a way of encoding people’s prejudices, I said, which impressed him.

I also dubbed it the Pink Scare, which also impressed him. I am so gosh darn smart.

But then I had to get my sorry ass back home, and that meant going out in the rain again. Rain that was falling just as hard as before, but was colder because it was dark. And still no toque, so it was still falling directly upon my benighted noggin.

I missed the first bus, or maybe I didn’t but I was not included to hang around to see if the 6:41 bus was going to arrive late. So I went back inside and played my game (Crashlands!) for like, 20 minutes or so, then headed back out to try to catch the 7:16.

And because I am paranoid, I went out at 7:10, which meant six or so minutes of being rained upon in the dark and the cold.

So when I got home, I decided tonight was the night to order in and eat fun food. I honestly need the reward to offset today’s crappy aspects. So I ordered from Pizza Hut (my go-to place recently) and I’m going to eat pizza, drink Diet Coke, and relax.

Not for too long, though. I also wanted to get going on my Linguistics homework. I am not going to wait to the last minute on this one. Phonetics is not as bad as syntax, but there’s a lot to learn and it is not the kind of thing I can just absorb passively.

Food’s here. Ya know, the nice thing about cash is that you don’t have to swipe or sign anything. Anyhow, I shall continue.

And I am determined to master the phonetic alphabet (north american version). I find it inherently interesting enough that I want to learn it just to know it, and next Tuesday I am going to be tested on it anyhow, so I better damned well learn it.

I also have to learn a bunch of stuff about how the various English phonemes are formed in the human mouth. Both vowels and consonants have their own (separate) sets of parameters depending on where in the mouth the air is stopped, how it’s stopped, is it nasal or not, is the tongue tense or loose, and so forth and so on. And each phoneme occupies a unique spot on its chart.

Which is all wonderfully taxonomically efficient, but boring as well. I honestly don’t give a shit how it’s formed. I’m into language, not the physical machinery of speech.

But I have to learn it anyhow, which is why it’s good that there’s homework and exercises to get me through.

Oh, and I got my mark for the story I did for Creative Writing class. You know, the one with the Ancient Caterpillar and friends?

I got 19/20, which is basically arts class for 100 percent.

Because I am just that fucking good at writing.

I will write to you people again tomorrow.