Working Late

Yesterday Pocket of Bolts got up at a quarter to five for an early morning departure. I got up to have tea and breakfast with him, then fell asleep over my desk. I spent the morning doing various small tasks, then headed down to U of C. It was stormy and wet, a drizzle rather than a proper rain, not really cold, just windy. I went to Professor Blue Eyes' seminar, which went well enough. I'm pretty behind with the reading, but I'm doing my best.

After class there was a talk (in Chinese) by a graduate student I don't see very often because he's spending the year abroad. It must be very hard to work on this early writing stuff. He presented a somewhat plausible idea, only to be decisively shot down by several senior scholars who were present. I'm pretty sure they were only so candid with him because he was ethnically Chinese, but ouch, how awkward it was. It reminded me of certain prospectus defenses at my grad school, though of course there was different cultural stuff going on.

After that, I went over to the library. I hadn't been able to log in to the computers there, even though technically I should be able to. Finally, I approached a guy at the circulation desk. He was clearly an undergraduate. He suggested I try computers on the second floor and "if that doesn't work there might be something I can try but I don't want to get your hopes up." I went upstairs and tried but it didn't work so I went back. "It probably won't work," he said defensively, and I reassured him that it was okay, I appreciated whatever he might be able to try. Then I was able to go back to him with the news that it HAD worked. We were both disproportionately happy!

Then I stayed in the library scanning articles until after nine. It's nice because scanning is free, while 12 cents a copy can really add up.

When I got finally out, I was so hungry that I indulged in a Subway sandwich. (I hadn't eaten dinner yet.) They're pretty good if you don't have them very often. I took the slow way home because it just felt too late at night to take the sketchy fast way. Not that I had anything of value on my person, but why take chances.

I still had preparation to do for my reading group in the morning, so I took my computer to bed. It's not a good substitute for Pocket of Bolts. I tried to do work until I simply dozed off, around midnight. A pretty typical day.