Working on a presentation for tomorrow’s class. Being holed up here in my room with the draft tickling my toes blue (yes mom and dad I am wearing slippers it’s ok) it makes me wish I had a games-capable computer. I’d love to while away a few hours on a good adventure game or revisit old play-them-in-my-sleep classics like Doom or Quake.
I guess I could visit a post-apocalyptic wasteland or shoot some space sheep.
I’m woozily standing at the counter at my local chip shop, ordering a veggie burger and chips. A man comes up on my left, shaking the hand of the proprietor, greeting him with a Salaam Aleikum. The two girls sitting down waiting for their order come up as the proprietor stacks them up into two bags. It makes me slightly ill to watch the bloated one pay for 4 chicken burgers, two beef burgers and 4 hot wings. Who knows, maybe she’s feeding a family. Ugh, I don’t want to know.
The guy behind the counter takes a big bit of battered chicken and hands it directly to the guy who’s just come up. “Do me a favour,” he says, gesturing to the man. He takes the chicken and walks out to the door where his giant bulldog waits patiently, scaring the two girls who are on their way out. I turn away, the combined thought of the girls’ order and the dog’s chicken meal hardening my arteries to the point where my relatively tame meal (though still suitably deep fried) just feels pointless.
I end up eating it, though, sat at the kitchen table. Now, sleep. Glorious sleep.
Seems when working for the LSE, you have to be prepared to wait a long time for your money if you’re new or getting it due to unconventional circumstances. In this case, I’m still waiting (and apparently will be, for another month) for the extra cash the School was supposed to pay me for extra shifts this past summer. Yeah, it’s nearly 3 months now. I am so not impressed.
Everyone concerned is blaming each other, and in the midst of all this us lowly workers are left wanting. And it’s not a little bit of money I’m owed, either - if I remember my claim form right it adds up to some £400! I was hoping to have some extra cash in November to maybe buy something cool (like new clothes, or a new sleeping bag because who knows when you’ll need one) or even stash something away on the off-chance that I’ll actually get into Oxbridge.
Supposedly, there is some back-office wrangling going on to get us paid. Eh, maybe I’ll just end up getting extra money for Christmas presents.
(Though that means a smaller-than-expected paycheck this month. Damn.)
It’s been a ride, the start of term. I’ve been all over the place, with work, with reading, with classes, with lectures… I was getting really stressed out, feeling that the difficulty and expectations had really been ramped up from last year until a friend of mine told me that no, it was still the same. I just didn’t allow myself to feel that last year. Truth be told, despite already being swamped with stuff, I’ve done more reading than in the first two weeks last October. I have to keep telling myself things are probably ok.
Certainly I need to do more independent reading than last year. For some reason, the LSE in all its wisdom has decided to allocate two Fellows (that’s non-academics, basically people researching their PhD, to all you non-LSE people) as the lecturers for my two core courses. While the other is pretty good, the other… isn’t. I hate to compare education to a market, but I’m really not getting my money’s worth at the moment from my own department.
But it’s not just about the reading. Applying myself to apply to the postgrad courses is a whole other hassle, requiring final decisions (course? college?), writing (letters of motivation/research aims, funding applications), as well as finding and pestering people to write me references. It’s all quite a bit of stuff to be had on a plate.
It’ll get better, I’m sure. There’s fun stuff planned for the near future, including a trip to Cambridge this weekend and to Paris (Eurostar, wow!). If I can just make the cash last long enough things will be just fine… I hope.