So there.

The best solutions are often the simplest, n'est-ce pas?

Mardi Mitrailleuse #711, or: space considerations, physical and mental

• OK my new toy has yet to arrive but I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I'm about to enter Apple-dom for more than just iTunes. I was saving to get a MacBook Pro at Christmas but found out the problem with my old Dell laptop is the hard drive was fried. Granted not much $ to replace but I had 3/4 of the $ set aside for the Mac so went ahead... with the added benefit that I'm going to use it as my school pooter, too, thereby freeing fully 50% of the top of my office desk that used to be taken up with a scary bohemoth monitor. (I have before and after shots for you - so you've got another post to look forward to one day before too long...)
• Besides that just hugely busy. These 5 sections this year feel like way more than last year - good thing really that it isn't the reverse or I _really_ would have lost it my first semester. So I'm just as crazy and scary busy as last year but without the Newbie Unknowns (who to go for for [the most accurate] info, how long various things will take or how many steps are necessary compared to how it was at Aub*rn, etc...) So I've got that going for me, current insanity notwithstanding :)
• 3 great sections, 1 undynamic but at least not hostile, 1 beurck. Not a bad ratio.
• As usual 400 things to do pretty much constantly. Officemate asked the other day -rather gently- "Um... What if you made a list?" Um... well I didn't show her but my list is currently two full computer screens long (with zoom-out engaged on my Mozilla settings) and thanks to the prioritizing capabilities on Remember The Milk, it is easy to see where the stress and lack of being able to figure out what to do next comes from: everything is red since everything is priority 1.
• So yes I do have trouble prioritizing accurately but even when I look at things objectively, they really do seem all equally important.
• Again the need for an office flask... at least short of the possibility of a clear-headed assistant.
• Again, too, the thought that in some ways it really is a miracle I've made it this far and have accomplished as much as I have.
• And the hope that more things will reach fruition, however incredibly, maybe even some of the things on the current To Do list!

sanity: priceless

En bref...
pondering Mac-dom for myself for Christmas several weeks now
+ saved up 3/4 of the $
+ official word on 5-yr-old Dell laptop problems last night: fried hard drive
+ more and more problems with school pooter, including only two working USB ports (so my mouse is now plugged into the front creating lots of cord fun in the leg well) and side panel that has to be propped closed with my extra plastic file drawer beneath the desk (but as usual the Bastion of Theoretical Tech Education and Progress otherwise known as Clems*n, or at least our college's IT budget, cannot afford to put money into the practical on-site side of technology - I am supposedly on a waiting list for a new-er hand-me-down CPU)
+ impossible work load this semester and physical quantity of materials fighting for desk/cubicle space with my leviathan 10 year old (I'm guessing) old-style 2.5'² monitor (I'm also on the hand-me-down flat monitor waiting list) making me literally lost as to what task is what
+ executive decision for Susanchristmas to be moved up 3 mos.
+ remaining Mac money transfer from checking to savings
____________________________________

= MacBook on its way as of last night


MacBook arrival
+ calling IT to 86 my school desktop
_________________________________
= potential upgrade in sanity and ergonomic happiness

Particularly Babbly Mitrailleuse #779

In no particular order, as usual, and not particularly interesting, so you've got that to look forward to...

• I have been craving raisin toast lately - thank goodness for Pepperidge Farms! Yum! It is helping with my new resolve to eat better. This week I had a banana and a slice of raisin toast with margarine and a 1/2 glass of tomato juice and my habitual coffee for breakfast each morning (plus my vitamin and calcium which I am so bad at remembering). I'm trying to jumpstart my metabolism by actually having breakfast (which I blew off most of this month er summer er most of my life except for times in France - because, let's face it, baguette and café au lait is enough to get the most breakfast-skippy of us to eat breakfast every single day, if not four or five times a day) - plus it helps with the new fitness strategy (I finally am back at the gym almost daily, too) since I've been taking lunch as well (which I also was blowing off all of July and August and caused me to binge eat upon getting home each eve, after which I was anything but wanting to go to the gym).
• I do find it frustrating that at my age I still have to reteach myself self-care every year or so. I'm running out of time for it to help in the long run if I am not able to make it a permanent trend one of these years soon.
• I wish Chris Noth hadn't gotten eye surgery. I know it's been years but I only just noticed since I'm watching old episodes of Criminal Intent online. Let's hope he stops there at least; it's not too noticeable probably to most people but I find him a good chunk less charming (which is fun to say really fast) that way. Actually I remember now I noticed it first when I saw him in the Sex & The City movie last year, but I had probably blocked it out as too painful to dwell on.
• Random inexplicable thought of this one tabac close to my apt in Paris where I went a couple of times the first few days in May. I got my phone recharge there one of the times; it was by one of my less-frequented cafés (due to their extremely slow waitstaff, which is why I normally went to Café Notre Dame where the guys were not only faster but more courteous). I made a mental note to keep going to that tabac because the Franco-Chinese guy who ran it was kind of goodnaturedly jokey with you as you paid. Anyway the third or fourth time I dropped by I found them not only boarded up but the victim of an apparent fire - smoky windows and a few melty bits of ware just visible through the stains. Plywood over the door and smoke streaks coming out above the door. Freaky. And sad since the owner was particularly nice.
• Two out of my three surface-mail book boxes arrived within two weeks of my return to SC (read: first couple weeks of July) and in pristine condition even tho surface mail can take anywhere from 4-16 or so weeks and usually looks like it's been through Armageddon by the time of arrival. Third one took 8 weeks and arrived having been repair-taped pretty extensively by some very very nice postal worker somewhere in the world, although not, apparently, before a few key items had fallen out. I admit it was my fault - I was worried about all of them in fact because I meant to double tape everything like usual but was so freaked out getting to the post office on time that day that I completely forgot. (I've always covered every single inch of surface France >> US pkgs with at least two swipes of packing tape in the past but this time I had just done the initial hold-the-box-closed swipes.) In my defense, it was almost time to come home and I had lots of fin-de-programme stuff in my head. Probably I had used up all remaining un-spoken-for brain cells that afternoon in my bright idea of using my rolly suitcase for the trip to La 14-minute-walk-away-from-my-flat Poste - particularly good call given that I mailed 3 book boxes each weighing just under 7 kilos (a little less than 40 lbs total).
• Saddest thing missing from third box: fun 1963 (i.e. same age as moi - kee) mini Larousse French-French dictionary, hardcover with cool orange and black glossy cover; best part - I had found it in the 1€ bin at Gibert Joseph, except it was only €0.80. :)
• Most inconvenient thing missing from third box: notes from my meetings with Study Abroad person last spring so I would know how to do the transfer credit forms for the Paris students when we got back; luckily I remembered I had email-scanned all but one page of them to myself just before leaving for France. Far more luckily, the part I hadn't scanned, the part that explained the conversion from European contact hours to Clems*n credit hours, I had explained to a colleague via email a few days after my meeting at Study Abroad. So I was able to look back in my mailbox and get those details, too.
• Finally have a new/second crêpe pan. It was on my Paris purchase list but I never got around to looking for one until the last week and by then I didn't feel like schlepping it home... so yay for Bed, Bath and Beyond, which had a very nice one 3 weeks ago on sale. Now when we do crêpes for French Club or just for the heck of it we can have more than one pan going at a time. Plus it's the slightly smaller one so if you ladle in the correct amount of batter it forms your perfectly circular and just-the-right-diameter crêpe with no pan-swishing to spread the batter around, or at least no crêpe spiders. Those of you who've had my crêpes know what I mean. Admittedly crêpe spiders are just as yummy as the standard form but still one likes not to have too many of them happen.
• So much to do I can't hardly see straight. As usual. :) So I'm blogging. Hmmm. Not even blogging anything necessarily interesting... Much more justifiable if I had something earth-shattering to talk about like French tractor-pulls or something. har.
• Or maybe my motivational energy just can't be aimed at two areas at once - it's all being used up with healthy eating habits and fitness trends right now so it can't be focused on work? It's a theory.
• The house is a Big Mess and I bet you a dollar Sam & Lucy didn't clean a single thing today.
• Yeah, watching DVDs on the laptop now. Susan the Somnambulist unplugged all the TV/VCR/DVD player connector cords and Susan the Conscious cannot figure out how to get them plugged back in to any functional success. It is pissing me off quite a bit actually. I go play with the cords occasionally for a few minutes until I get frustrated (it takes less time each time now of course to reach that point) and then I clench my fists and jaw as I physically remove myself from that part of the room or stomp outside to run an errand or something, fearful of succombing to the tingling urge in my fingers to launch a piece of A/V equipment out the window. It's utterly ridiculous; the moreso, undoubtedly, since I really very rarely come up against something I can't get the better of.
• Still no sign of that stupid Blockbuster DVD by the way. It was a virtual unknown (of course) Brit (of course again) flick called French Film. Yeah, I had never heard of it either. Plus it was one of those "featured Blockbuster exclusive rentals" or whatever, which are usually dreadful (two other such rentals come to mind: I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, and I Really Hate My Job, both abysmal - granted I should have figured as much by the crap titles but...) But the actors intrigued me so (I mean, come on! What self-respecting anglophile can resist Victoria Hamilton and Hugh Bonneville in something that is kind of Frenchified to boot!? Not me, at any rate)... Anyway I cannot of course tell you how it was since STS hid it before I had had a chance to watch it. I have searched in every drawer, cupboard, laundry basket, shelf, etc., and there is no sign of it. I looked in the trashcans as well... Just dawned on me I have yet to check the oven, the washer, the dryer or the piano bench... hmmm. It's due tomorrow so if no sign I guess I'll stop and pay for it Sunday. gah!
• Off to munch, canoe, and gab with a bunch of the UHOA gang tomorrow over at Bill & Marianna's on the Tugaloo. Yay on all counts.
• Three million things to grade and read and respond to and rework on the Paris budget excel and post on BB and otherwise Do! and it's already 4. I might actually have to break my non-work weekends resolve and come in on Sunday for a while. Especially as I am obviously NOT in the mood to be productive today.
• Chinese food night I think. I am SO craving fried rice. And I finally might dig into Harry Potter et le prince de sang-mêlé...
• And you know, it just dawned on me... the lack of excitement in my own life, or this post at least, aside - anyone still reading by now must need distraction even more than I!