Requiescat in pace, coffe maker.
Sometime over the weekend I managed an incredible feat of physics, the likes of which only seems to happen to me. Like the time I broke my toe by barely knocking it on the side of the desk chair at my Traditions apartment. Or the time, while lightly dusting a bookshelf, I managed to wedge my finger against the shelf in such a way that a big chunk of it got sliced off.
Pretty awesome.
Anyway, while rinsing out the coffee pot, it sort of barely touched the side of the sink, and grew one perfect round hole about the size of a pin-head, from which was a pretty impressive halo of radiating spider-webby cracks. Yeah, I just mixed my angel and arachnid metaphors. Deal with it.
Anyway, today I got home from class and decided it was not okay not to have a coffeemaker. I went and bought one, and then spent the next chunk of too-much-time cleaning the apartment. I find that when I procrastinate, one of the first things I do is spend copious amounts of time on the Internet. Next, I clean the house kind of obsessively. I guess there could be worse things to do. After all, it is productive -- just not in the right way.
My research has not been yielding the best results. The main university library's computer told me that the one book that seemed to have anything to do with my subject (and whose title actually WAS my subject -- very promising!) was checked out, and that the only other copy was in the graduate library. So I headed over there, where the lady at the desk looked at me like I was an idiot when I told her I was looking for a history of art book. "You mean you're looking for the history of art library?" No. I'm looking for a book about the history of art that I know for a fact is in this room. "This is a research library. You're not allowed in here unless you're at least at masters level. How did you even find out about the book?" And then I explained about how it was in the computer. She said that we must have "our own copy" in our, by her tone, clearly inferior library. I explained that it was checked out, and she -- to my great surprise -- said she'd make an exception and went to get the book for me, provided I spent less than 45 minutes looking at it, since they were closing. Which brings me to: how do French kids EVER get their homework done, if the library is only open 9 to 5 weekdays, with a big lunch break in the middle? I mean, undergrads, maybe, but grad students?
I found about ten pages that seemed useful and asked to make copies. She said there was a minimum of 5 euros (5 euros seems like it would make a BUNCH of copies). I was willing to pay 5 euros for 10 pages of the only pertinent information I'd so far found, but apparently they only took five euro bills or credit cards. So I pulled out my card, at which point she told me that I could scan them for free. It seemed she was just trying to get me to give up and go away, I guess?
The catch about scanning for free was that I should have a USB drive. Since I didn't, she relucantly said that they could e-mail them to me using the copier. Great. Okay. Fine.
But not really, because the copier didn't want to remember my e-mail address.
Eventually, we ended up scanning the pages and e-mailing them to the librarian, who then e-mailed them to me.
In the end, the score was Jessie 1, snooty graduate library 0.
Hopefully these pages actually contain something useful...
See how I'm procrastinating my project again? Sigh.
Pretty awesome.
Anyway, while rinsing out the coffee pot, it sort of barely touched the side of the sink, and grew one perfect round hole about the size of a pin-head, from which was a pretty impressive halo of radiating spider-webby cracks. Yeah, I just mixed my angel and arachnid metaphors. Deal with it.
Anyway, today I got home from class and decided it was not okay not to have a coffeemaker. I went and bought one, and then spent the next chunk of too-much-time cleaning the apartment. I find that when I procrastinate, one of the first things I do is spend copious amounts of time on the Internet. Next, I clean the house kind of obsessively. I guess there could be worse things to do. After all, it is productive -- just not in the right way.
My research has not been yielding the best results. The main university library's computer told me that the one book that seemed to have anything to do with my subject (and whose title actually WAS my subject -- very promising!) was checked out, and that the only other copy was in the graduate library. So I headed over there, where the lady at the desk looked at me like I was an idiot when I told her I was looking for a history of art book. "You mean you're looking for the history of art library?" No. I'm looking for a book about the history of art that I know for a fact is in this room. "This is a research library. You're not allowed in here unless you're at least at masters level. How did you even find out about the book?" And then I explained about how it was in the computer. She said that we must have "our own copy" in our, by her tone, clearly inferior library. I explained that it was checked out, and she -- to my great surprise -- said she'd make an exception and went to get the book for me, provided I spent less than 45 minutes looking at it, since they were closing. Which brings me to: how do French kids EVER get their homework done, if the library is only open 9 to 5 weekdays, with a big lunch break in the middle? I mean, undergrads, maybe, but grad students?
I found about ten pages that seemed useful and asked to make copies. She said there was a minimum of 5 euros (5 euros seems like it would make a BUNCH of copies). I was willing to pay 5 euros for 10 pages of the only pertinent information I'd so far found, but apparently they only took five euro bills or credit cards. So I pulled out my card, at which point she told me that I could scan them for free. It seemed she was just trying to get me to give up and go away, I guess?
The catch about scanning for free was that I should have a USB drive. Since I didn't, she relucantly said that they could e-mail them to me using the copier. Great. Okay. Fine.
But not really, because the copier didn't want to remember my e-mail address.
Eventually, we ended up scanning the pages and e-mailing them to the librarian, who then e-mailed them to me.
In the end, the score was Jessie 1, snooty graduate library 0.
Hopefully these pages actually contain something useful...
See how I'm procrastinating my project again? Sigh.
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