fatigue

I'm wearing the thick grey pyjamas I got for christmas, the ones with sheep on them, and drinking cupasoup with my electric heater on the highest setting. The last few days have been grey and misty with rain, the kind that just hangs in the air waiting for you to walk into it, and my mood has sunk to match. It's not so much that anything's gone wrong recently - just a cumulative effect, I imagine. Work wears a bit thin these days. I love the course and I still find the topics fascinating, but I'm endlessly frustrated with not being able to do a single piece of work justice (terrible when you're a perfectionist) due to time constraints; rather than thoughtfully crafting an essay and making the conclusion actually mean something, I have to squeeze it in late at night around all my language work and rush it off at the last minute. I'm not working for myself, but for the supervisions: and when I get to them the work itself is so inconsequential I often wonder why I bothered.

On top of that, I'm pre-menstrual and I want to see green again. Cambridge is miserable in the rain. I deliberately took an afternoon off work yesterday, but instead of using it constructively to lift my mood I ended up drifting aimlessly around college. I'm uninspired; I want to live, not just struggle along never quite keeping up with anything. My to-do list is really rather daunting. I was actually in tears earlier through sheer frustration and tiredness and nameless emotional dissatisfaction, trying desperately to pin this down to something but knowing it's mainly in my head.

There's no way I'm going to do work tonight. This week will have to be another last-minute essay. Instead I spent the evening reading Terry Pratchett in bed with my electric blanket on; it's been too long since I read something I didn't have to critically examine. I finished it about fifteen minutes ago, and am still basking in the wistful, warm, satisfied feeling you get after a good dose of escapism, that makes you half want to cry and half to punch the air and shout "yes!" but leaves you glowing, just the same.

dancing princesses

I tried on ballgowns yesterday. There was one on sale in Monsoon which I could even afford, but unfortunately was entirely the wrong shape for me. We haven't decided which May Ball to go to yet - we need to soon, the tickets will be more expensive after February. We've decided we can't spend more than £70, which rules out most of the bigger colleges but means (hopefully) we should get a real ball with a degree of elegance. Magdelene apparently is white tie, and they aren't having a dj at all but ballroom dancing. Girls in floor-sweeping hoop-skirted gowns and string orchestras; it'll be like walking into a fairy tale. It sounds glorious, but I don't know how to dance.

I found my mother's copy of Grimm in the attic last time I went home, and brought it back with me. It has The Twelve Dancing Princesses, which I love, but not Foundling-Bird (my absolute favourite). In the cover she's written her address, and underneath bought at "Oobidoo", Otley, 1/9/70 (eyther then or t'day befoor). My mother grew up in the west riding of Yorkshire and used to write her diaries in dialect. She was obsessed with the Brontës, especially Charlotte. I always wondered if that sort of thing could be genetic.


today I would like:

black polkadot tights
lace-up leather boots with a cute heel
Woodhouse's English-Greek Lexicon
inspiration
a piano in my room
to be able to paint again
to get this damn essay written
to eliminate in myself all tendencies towards procrastination and self-indulgence (!)