How shall I contain my enthusiasm

[torquill]

The safety people are still working on making the computer labs at school safe for me... but in the meantime, the situation is really getting to me.

Since I'm avoiding all CRC-staffed labs, I have use of about four sets of computers up there:

• the library, where one row is 15 minutes only and allows school email access, the others are unlimited time but don't alow school email, and none let me log in to foogod for IM/email
• the ARC, which is web-only
• the career center, which is 15-minute school/career research only and makes me self-conscious about using LJ while the staff guy is staring over my shoulder
• and the Reentry center, which is unlimited time, allows school email and foogod access, and has a free printer... but they only have four dumb terminals, with questionable hardware, run by an ancient tottery Win2000 Server machine.

I'm doing without one of my support systems now -- I used to log in to unwind and kill time, or get something off my chest, or simply feel a little less isolated by logging on to IM. Now, if I can't make it to South Hall during the day, or if it's really busy there (as it was today), I have almost nothing. Talk about scrounging and scraping.

I suspect it'll be like this for the rest of the quarter (whee). My mp3 player (billed as stress relief, which it really is, and I need it) won't be here until Friday at the earliest. I'm starting to go nuts. I already munch lots of batteries playing solitaire during class just to stay awake and alert, as knitting isn't stimulating enough to battle the brain drag... after today, when the high points of my day were eating my snack between classes and winning a tough game of solitaire, I'm seriously contemplating taking my laptop with me tomorrow just to stay sane. I normally don't do that -- it's too valuable, too fragile (if I accidentally dump my bag off the bike) and pretty heavy. I'll have the added weight of my lunch to carry too, which I suppose I could carry separately and stash in a bookstore locker...

I'm just killing time these days, running out the calendar. This weekend looks to be entertaining, with lots of gardening (the soil is ready to dig!) and making soda, but the rest of the school week promises to be dull dull dull. Bits of plant biotech are fun -- I now know exactly why ricin is so deadly, and it's a hair-raising mechanism -- but all the rest of what I'm doing up there is just deadly boring. Not much to look forward to.

I was holding off on starting a fiction book because I still have to catch up on my history reading, but that book is getting less and less readable (either that or my tolerance for it is diminishing). It reads like the first draft of a thesis paper.

So now I've dipped into my library for some fluff (Alanna to the rescue) so that I'm not stuck at lunch with a choice between reading Mr. Get That Man An Editor and the plant biotech journal article I'm supposed to review. Talk about a reason to dread lunch. (I spent it today staring off into space and picking onions out of the salsa. Thrilling.)

"Michael, get me out of here."

Comments

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I approve of the fluff.