Now with a hefty does of guilt

I don't know how to start this post. I don't know how to start any post, actually, and that's why I have not been writing. I didn't mean for you to worry, I didn't realise people would think this was a February spill, it hasn't been. About a month ago I had a highly bloggable day, a highly how-fun-to-live-in-a-3rd-world-country bloggable day, but by the time I got home I was just knackered and couldn't be bothered. See, I'm not an insomniac anymore [fu tfu tfu] and, as it turns out, I wrote more when I had the mental. I don't miss the mental, my friends certainly don't miss the mental, but bloody hell, was the mental prolific. But guess what - GUILT WORKS, so cheers!

Disjointedly, then: I finished my internishp, and after taking a few days off to re-organise my life (e.g. doctor appointments, finances, everything that had become non-essential for survival) I started trying to write my thesis. Under the lovely Bologne convention, which I believe I have healthily cursed every day since its inception and am now cursing even more, what bollocks it is, I am forced to write a Masters' thesis. I do not wish to write a stupid Masters' thesis. In fact, I very much resent having to write a stupid Masters' thesis, because then I'll be forced to defend said stupid thesis before a jury and - really, you expect me to talk in front of people and not stutter and faint? Nightmares pullullating, I cannot cope with it. And yet, Europe says I must so I am buggered, is what I am.

Despite that, I'd always thought it would finally be a relief after the gruesome years of vet school to have to write, simply write [everyone laughing yet?], and I was shocked to realise that I wasn't able to. The writing thingy wasn't working AT ALL. I couldn't get organised in my mind and it all starts there, I need to find a thread and what I found instead was intellectual illiteracy. After many days of metaphorically ramming my head repeatedly against a very solid wall I had a revelation: vet school robbed me of the will to live took up 7 years of my life [SE-VEN.], and when that was finished I had exactly one weekend off and then started my internship. In 7.5 years I had a few exam-free times but a holiday, a proper go away somewhere and leave it all behind holiday? That happened exactly once, those 10 days I spent at the beach with my Dr. friend, in 2006. If I hadn't been so burnt out I'd have realised sooner that the problem was exactly that, but being too burnt out to realise it - I don't even know how to finish this sentence, use your muscled little grey cells ad lib.

So I decided (amidst loads of guilt, mind, GO WRITE THE THESIS ALREADY!!), to take a wholesome number of days off, around my birthday, and to deliberately NOT do anything remotely academia-related. Lo, serendipity loves me and around this time I stumbled upon a site lauding a video game called Deus Ex, which I promtply acquired and this is where words fail me again, because this game, THIS GAME?, is fucking brilliant, I was in geek heaven, I was in love, I had so much fun I cannot even describe it, and even as I killed my formerly nourishing ocular cells I could feel the knot in my brain dissolving, dissolving, gone. Deus Ex was bliss, and my little heart is still soaring with gratitude.

And now I have a thread. Amazingly, and this will show you how brilliantly the bright can turn daft and not even know it, I had a revelation: I should start with - the bibliography! Isn't that a revolutionary idea? I know, I'm so proud! Over three decades of education and academic work have really sharpened my mind. I am now past the stage where references beget references, and at the stage where I am both already reading and emailing authors directly to beg ask for papers because I don't have access to Elsevier (have a care now and DO NOT even mention my university), and who can afford $31.50 an article? It is hard to write theses in the Magreb.

On an unrelated note, to the person who found me through this search:


I actually found them to be very generous with their bodies.

Hi! You lot still breathing?