Unbirthday blues

My birthday has been and gone, fairly unremarked by most. I did get one present, from a friend who didn't even know that it was my birthday.
I am trying to go quickly but thoroughly through all my revision and realise that it can't be done. The week-long hiatus in our 'Spring break' where I had to do a field-trip with a bunch of new work attached, has put me behind and I could never make it up after the break, with further lectures and fresh work piling on top.
So I am going to have to plan strategically, which doesn't suit my 'anal' (according to daughter #1) way of working and try to figure out which topics are bound to appear in some form and which can be skimmed.
Fortunately, this year's exam papers are laid out in such a way that large chunks of the course could be ignored, IF you are a good poker player and are willing to take chances.......
Trouble is, I am neither, see above. So it is nerve-racking, even more than usual.
Oh, and the spectre of Christmas exams has raised its ugly little head again. Just when we thought we were safe, it seems the authorities have gone behind our backs and have in fact, modularised everthing that isn't nailed down - and there is doubt over even the exam issue. They are not supposed to force exams on us, but no democratic vote has taken place and I hear one school at least is planning to impose exams at Christmas.
Just wait until my exams are over-----until then, life as I know it is on hold.

Bangalore calling

Today was one of those difficult days. I spent hours on the phone, at lo-call rates on a Saturday. The reason: my Broadband connection seems to have gone bananas and refuses to recognise me. It will probably cost me a fortune, but I am happy to be back online tonight.

With difficulty, I contacted the support services and got through to a polite man in a call centre. After we had been through all the troubleshooting operations, I asked him if he was speaking from India. Well - he had an Indian accent and I could hear other people in the background also speaking Indian-accented English.

No, he assured me, he was in Dublin. After an hour, we had done everything we could do except say a prayer together. He told me to disconnect the filter and check it, by plugging in directly to the phone line. Well it wasn't the filter that was broken this time; since I taped it to the wall, it doesn't get trodden on anymore. Then suddenly the computer connected - brilliant, except it disconnected shortly thereafter.

Call #2. Another Indian accent, this time in a tiny voice I could hardly hear. He claimed my browser was at fault and I had to give up on him, because I simply could not hear his instructions and I grew embarrassed asking him repeatedly to speak up. I was beginning to feel like a tetchy memsahib.

Call #3. Furious at having tried all the permutations of my name and password and still nothing doing. Yet another Indian gentleman. While we ran through his bag of tricks - and he did have some new ideas and a good loud voice to go with them, I asked whether he was in Bangalore. No, no - Dublin,-- Dublin 3, he insisted. I tried to think of a way to catch him out but failed.

He stripped out all the silly passwords and usernames and now my computer goes straight online as soon as I log on. Bliss - if only it lasts. According to Indian #2, the ISP set-up here is to blame for the local problem we are experiencing, especially in the morning. In other words, our mainframe system is buckling under the strain of the number of users on it.

When I was in Bangalore, many years ago, it was a quiet market town, but I met a man who described how it was about to become the centre of Indian, or even international, commerce. I didn't believe him for a minute.

Cheap chocolate

Call me weak, but I just forced myself to hand over twenty euro for the sake of peace. I vant to be alone with my medieval art n'arch today, so yesterday I laid out good money for crap-all. One dependent insisted on the classic, over-packaged, foil wrapped cheap chocolate "egg" we have come to regard as the normal way to celebrate this holy day in the Christian calendar. As a non-Christian I can only wonder what Jesus would make of people guzzling chocs to celebrate his agonised death.
The other one opted for a bottle of wine, so now I am coerced into encouraging her drinking habit, not a pretty thought. It's a dreary kind of day, so one can be a glutton and one can recover from the night before. I will soon go upstairs to work, like any other day.
How long will it be seen necessary for me to waste my money on these insane purchases? I hate to spend money on such a blatant rip-off, knowing that confectionery manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank, but for this year and probably the next one too, it's a small price to pay for a bit of peace and a lack of hurt feelings.
By that time, with both offspring in their twenties, maybe I can retire from the crazy world of cheap and nasty chocolate purchases.

Weather or whatnot

I had a fun weather day today. While I struggled with Culture-Historical theory, it was sunny. While I suffered through Processual Archaeology, it rained, but when I reached Post-Processualism, it hailed and thundered and bolts of lightning issued in a distinctly Biblical manner.
As hail rained, or thundered, or simply pelted down from the sky, the dulcet tones of the ice-cream truck continued to tinkle out, as he menaced the local neighbourhoods with his barely frozen, germ-laden fat globules. Not too many takers; his speedy getaway coincided with my turning, a little wearily I admit, to gender Archaeology studies.
It isn't that I dislike the subject, but I find it hard not to wear myself out with indignation and I haven't reached Archaeology and Colonisation yet, so I have to leave something in the tank......
One month to go, and counting....