Week Nineteen

Saturday 17th May

Receive a text message from Lurk Eile saying "one month from today" and go about yet another day of intense studying with a happy heart, knowing that this torture will be over shortly and I'll be cycling on my bicycle in the lovely French sunshine in just a few short weeks.


Sunday 18th May

I'm on FIRE today! Get up and scrub the bathroom, the kitchen and all the floors, have a shower and luxuriate over applying body lotion to my creamy white bod, before finally sitting down at my computer to tackle the small matter of the ten page essay (in italian, mind) that has to be written before tomorrow. And all this by 9am. I am so on top of my shit. Except the ten page essay like. Usually when I have to do literary commentaries I simply read ten other commentaries on the same work which I plucked from the internet and then proceed to write my one. In English. But this time I don't have the internet. Just my brain, a giant dictionary, and a bag of yoghurt chupa chups.

Spend most of the morning and early afternoon preparing the structure of the commentary with my hand permanently flicking through my dictionary (best sixty euro I ever spent, by the way. If you're reading this, dictionary - I love you!) before finally giving in to the fact that I was going to have to go downtown and buy another edition of the book I was analyzing. Steal into the kitchen with the stealth of a ninja, rob a battery out of the DVD remote control (I know like, I'm 23 years old) and grin gleefully at my own cunningness as I slip it into my mp3 player and hit the road. Hotfoot it into town, really enjoying the head-clearing effect the walk is having on me, and bag a new copy of Il Principe for a bargainous 5 euro and 35 cent. I could feel the warmth of Eddie's pride upon me! Head home triumphant, as it starts to piss down rain; big fat hot droplets bucketing down, it was lovely.

Get in the front door, dripping wet and swiftly slip into my home casual look. Sit down with my new book, all giddy and sit down at my desk. Engrossed in my work, but in the back of my head I could hear something, like when youre in a dream and there is someone calling you in the real world, and I come out of The Zone and open the window to look across the courtyard to the neighbours balcony, on which are standing a large number of drunken Indians with a karaoke machine. I return to my desk and am treated to such karaoke classics as Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer", Hotel California and, how could I forget to mention? - the international hit song "Words" (the Boyzone version, natch). Laugh my head off in between bouts of serious translation, and I am so absorbed in it that I don't notice that it is suddenly midnight and Roommate wants to go to bed so I relocate myself into the kitchen, where I hit a proverbial wall and can't seem to focus my thoughts. Luckily though, I found the answer in the bottom of a bowl of Coco Pops and by 1.30am I was finished. At this point I reflect with wonder on the unbelievable feat I have just accomplished. In the past, when I let things pile up on me, I have totally freaked out and spent feverish all-nighters trying to climb out of the yawning chasm of a hole I have dug for myself, but this time I was completely calm and collected and I just blitzed it. With sexy results.

Monday 19th May

Get ready to go to Fran's and just as I am putting on my boots Roommate says something about the shit depressing weather. "Why?" I said, "Is it raining?" and just as she is about to answer a huge clap of thunder sounds and rolls on for about 5 seconds. Still had to head out though, and battled on into town through the shit weather and torrential rain. Got to Fran's in one piece where I fixed up my essay on her laptop. Then had to run into uni and register myself for the exam for the following day. It'd be handy, like, to register. My emotionally exhausted mindset simply couldnt possibly handle a task like this all on it's own so I take Captain America as a wingman. Walking up the stairs in uni he starts digging for dirt on myself and Husband, asking me what our deal is. Cunningliy avoid the question (I am so devious) and nearly jump out of my skin when he puts his hand on my back. Nyyyyyyeaaaaargh! What to do in this situation? Ignore the problem and it will go away! Nope, it's not going away. Speed up to ninety but he speeds up too. Shit! Then - a stroke of genius! I bend down to tie my shoelace - and find I am wearing leather boots. He cops on, I am mortified, the rest of the mission is carried out in silence. Head back to Fran's, where I pull an all-nighter before the exam.

The hours in which one pulls an all-nighter are the loneliest hours in the world. Everyone else in the house was a-haboo babby bunty and I was sitting up reading Petrarch and Pirandello. Some laugh. The only thing keeping me going was the sound of Captain America's little blonde american man-breaths. Studied up a storm though, got loads done and felt pretty good about it. About 5.30 I stopped and numbed my brain with a few games of online Mahjong Master. About 6.30am head home to my own place to have a shower and get changed.

Tuesday 20th May

Got in the door at 7am, had a speed shower, and was running back out by 8am. Got to the exam for 9 am, so basically just had to wait my turn outside the door, DREADING IT. Not because I was nervous in case I didn't do well, but because of the sheer hideousness that is contained within the face of the professor, specifically in the mouth region. His mouth is a yawning chasm of nausea-inducing disgustingness. And there is no ignoring it, either. You're talking to him and you're like "ok I will NOT look at his mouth, I will NOT look at his mouth", but then his mouth seems to have a beacon-like draw on your atttention. That, and the fact that the stench if his breath is most likely melting your septum. And it's not just his mouth that stinks, lord no! He hasn't changed his clothes in eons and has most likely slept in them since 1972. Now here's a fun fact about me - bad personal hygiene is one of my top hates in life. I ABHOR it. With a side-serving of detestation. I am completely DISGUSTED by people who don't wash themselves/their teeth/their clothes/their (most likely rooted out of Michael Guiney's) bedlinen. I mean how hard is it to take a bit of pride in yourself? Have a wash like. And change your (crusty) scunders. Please. Anyway his mouth is the most disgusting entity I have ever encountered in my life. It looks like something that crawled out of his arse and settled in his face. His lips are ringed with white crust, with copious saliva gathered at both sides, which flies at you when he speaks. His teeth are as brown as the quay river, and 72 times more likely to give you tetanus. His tongue is a yellow coated nightmare. And his breath. HIS BREATH. You can almost SEE the stench. I can't even go on. I can't like. Let's skip to Wednesday.

Wednesday 21st May

Kicked back after yesterday's ordeal and bought myself a Marie Claire for being such a brave girl. Couldn't eat my cereal though, cos halfway through the image of his crusty mouth entered my mind and I felt like I was eating a bowl of mouth crust and that was the end of that.

Thursday 22nd May
Even more kick-backage today. I totally deserve it after the copious amount of study I've been doing and need to rejuvenate for the copious amount of study that is yet to come.

Friday 23rd May

Take my laptop down to Sala Borsa today and sit on the floor for three hours mooching off their internet, taking care of some important business. Such as the last series of scrubs, for example. It's a hard life.