Title taken from this song :

Today has not been great.

I was woken up by fairly bad IBS cramping at around 5:30 am. Luckily, I was in sufficient possession of my senses that I was able to stay calm, get myself into the bathroom and onto the toilet, and get don what needed to get done via gentle, measured pressure. After that, I recovered fairly quickly.

From that, at least.

I have a toothache. It’s located in the extreme lower left (from my POV) of my mouth. It isn’t severe, but something is swollen up in there and quite tender to the touch. I am thinking something got embedded in the gum somehow, or perhaps I have a minor infection there. Topically applied cold seems to help somewhat, suggesting it’s a inflammatory issue.

This is bad enough, but the real problem is that it will probably mean a trip to the dentist, and that is never fun. Especially for me, someone who neither brushes nor flosses (I know, that’s terrible, don’t need to made to feel worse about it, thank you ) because he just plain sucks at looking after himself and is so addicted to his distractions that he can’t even take the time to brush his fucking teeth.

And the thing is, people like me, who arguably need the dentist the most, are the ones most reluctant to go to one because we know we will get a lot of shit for not taking care of their teeth. And for a socially fragile person like myself, that is a big hurdle to surmount in order to get that particular form of healthcare.

So I am kind of hoping it will go away on its own, or that I will be able to fix it with just my fingers and some careful probing. I have fixed little dental issues on my own before, so that’s not out of the question. I hope I can do it again this time,.

Then there’s that research paper for my History of Canada Since 1867 course. I am doing it on the Acadian Expulsion, even though originally I had planned to do it on the role of psychology in defining normalcy in society and the problems inherent in that. Last night, I finished the rough draft of the thing, and all I have to do now is polish it up a little and put in the five references required.

But I slept a lot today, and so I haven’t gotten any of that done yet. I am hoping that, after a brief rest once I finish this blog entry, I will finally be in the right mental space to tackle that.

God, I hate doing research.

The assignment isn’t due till midnight Wednesday, AFAIK. But tomorrow is Tuesday and thus I will not have a huge amount of time to work on it. So I would really like to get it done ASAP so that I at least have some time to study for the Linguistics test (worth 10 percent of my mark) I will have Tuesday night.

It all seems simple till she starts applying it.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will hear back from Patrick at VFS, and he will tell me I am go for getting into VFS once I get him the documentation. That would be a huge load off my overloaded mind and I would be able to concentrate better on simply doing my best for the rest of the semester.

After that, I might actually find the time to actually get really stoked that I am finally going to VFS. But no guarantees. That shit takes a lot of energy I can’t spare right now.

I am still getting over my cold. The cold that I sadly have passed on to both of my roomies, and which (big sad frown) kept us from getting together to eat last night. Felicity can’t risk getting germs into the car which she will be using to take her father back from the hospital, hopefully soon.

I am worried about him.

and Joe was certainly in no condition to drive me anywhere, so…. no hanging out last night. That is a bummer. I probably could have used the mood boost, as well as the nutrition. Plus that meant that I did not get to do my usual Sunday shopping, which in this case was no big deal ’cause I have lots of my junk food in the cupboard. But I am totally out of diet soda.

And frankly, I think I am experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the lack of Diet Coke. It would explain all the sleeping.

All of this has left me in a confused, fuzzy, blurry state of mind. Never my preferred mental state, even when I don’t need to do some fairly high cognitive load work like looking at my rough draft for the research paper and finding the bits where an academic reference is needed, then finding those references and putting them in there.

It’s work I neither enjoy nor excel at, but it’s got to be done.

When I start feeling too stressed, I just remind myself that this is all temporary and all I have to do is survive the next three weeks and it will all be behind me, and I will hopefully be going forward to a brighter and more prosperous future with hopefully none of this academic research bullshit and a lot more of writing that I want to do.

If the main thing that makes the VFS Writing for TV and Film course so “intensive” is the amount of writing I have do to, I am relishing the challenge. I would love to write for all sorts of different media, formats, and genres. Like I have said, I will write absolutely anything that is not technical. I would not be worried at all.

If what makes it so “intensive” is its frenetic pace, well, I will learn to live with that too. Honestly, any educational situation which keeps me busy most of the time would probably do wonders for me psychologically, assuming it’s work I can actually do.

So hopefully, I will catch up on sleep, regain my mental acuity, nail this fucking research paper to the wall, and get on with all the rest of the BS I have to do before semester’s end.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.