Where The Sun Refuse To Shine

This is pretty accurately describes how my week is going.

It started out pretty well.  Bailey, my friend from Beloit who's studying in Dublin, came to visit me on Tuesday with two friends.  The stay was short but sweet, and Sarah and I proved that it is indeed possible to fit three other people on the floor of our room.  It was a little tight, but I think generally we worked it out.

Yesterday, I found out from ResLife that based on the numbers they had for the amount of current RAs that were going to remain on campus in the spring, they would not have any spaces for me as an RA next semester.  I dunno, man.  I knew I would be going abroad a year before it actually happened, as in, I had actually been accepted by Beloit to study abroad and was planning to go to Scotland a year before it actually happened, so I find it hard to believe that it took ResLife this long to get a solid estimate of who would be working in spring 2009, unless they thought all the current RAs would flunk out or take a vacation term at the last minute.

This news came as a huge disappointment, mostly because I have been looking forward to working as an RA since I was accepted last spring.  It seems impossible to get your foot in the door with these people unless you're accepted your sophomore year.  I smell corruption.

Today was really just the cherry on top of my shitcake of a week.  I had a presentation on Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, which is probably one of my favorite books, so I really wasn't too worried about it, at least, not until I realized that my professor wanted my handout printed and ready for him to copy at the beginning of class as opposed to printing it out himself from the email I sent him with the handout attached.  Ran to the library in the apocalyptic wind and rain, where I found out that I had not, in fact, sent myself a copy, and of course my school email here doesn't have a "Sent" folder to retrieve the email I "sent" my professor.  Once again, sweaty and frustrated, I dashed out the door and then ran to my apartment to send it again.  And you know when you're in a rush to get something done that usually involves a lot of sending and printing and internet mumbo jumbo, you usually run into little bumps along the way that probably amalgamate into a stress tumor in your brain?  Each time I tried to leave the library, I had to walk behind the people who like to stop and smell the roses, and when I tried to exit the building, the metal detectors went off, clearly from the guy in front of me with the plastic bag probably full of knives, but, of course, I had to stop, turn around, and get screened again.  Eventually got to my apartment, wheezing up four flights of stairs, emailed the handout to myself, ran back to the library, printed the handout with minimal difficulty, and ran out of the building into the wind, which was picking up speed at this point, and while I was running down the asphalt hill towards my class, my paper soaked and plastered against my chest, I just laughed to myself, thinking "Wow, I hate it here."  It's like the day couldn't have been more of an exaggeration at that point, between my hair, soaked with sweat and rain, my paper flapping about in the wind, and me feeling like a total failure.

I suppose all's well that ends well because I think my presentation went better than I thought it would.  I was a little worried, just because my handout was really just a bunch of typed up notes that I thought were relevant.  I didn't do extra research or anything like the rest of the people presenting did, I guess because I trusted my own analysis of the book.  Generally, I like talking to people about books as if we're just sitting on couches in a warm library and feeling particularly cerebral, so I guess my "presentation" was more a talk or something without a whole lot of structure.  I hope my professor saw it as an attempt to connect with the class and get people pumped for Hogg's cynical commentary on Calvinism as opposed to something I threw together at the last minute (or during the twenty minutes in which I was having a heart attack trying to print it out).  Being in small classes has taught me to be so blase about oral presentations.  I don't think of them as lectures, but rather, a chance to get real with students. Not that I'm riding the "straighttalk express" or whatever absurd vernacular we're using these days.  I just try to avoid using the very high diction that professors sometimes throw at you and that overwhelming literary scrutiny: I just sort of talk about the things that strike me while I'm reading and the probing questions that led me to certain criticisms and conclusions.  If Beloit excels at anything, it's teaching its students how to connect.  I've noticed I haven't been able to practice this fundamental lesson until today.  

I miss my English classes at Beloit.  I miss John Rosenwald, randomly.  He was my first English professor at Beloit and really pushed me that first semester.  In retrospect, I was such a hubristic freshman full of amorphous musings that I always thought were worth sharing, but John never treated me as such.  I would always stop by his office after Voodoo Barbie rehearsal and we would just sit there and talk about books and China and his wife and kids for almost an hour.  I doubt I could ever connect like that with a professor here.

Well, hopefully things will start getting better, starting with Hallie's visit on Saturday.  Hallie is a friend from high school with one of the most buoyant personalities I know, so I'm thinking she will be able to lift my spirits.  Then on Tuesday I'm headed out to London.  I'm going to ride the ferris wheel and take pictures.  Wish me luck.