(no subject)

wow, i really wasn't functioning well at the beginning of term, was i? my timetable is a state; double-booked tutorials, no idea when my exams are (help me out here, stronglight?), forgotten philosophy lectures...

and i'm beginning to think that the couple of days in-bed-with-sore-throat-unable-to-work-or-indeed-move over christmas might have been the first installment of this shiny thing called glandular fever. it sure would explain a lot of things.

(yes, i am now officially diagnosed. it's simpler, in a way; it's a label i can wave at people to explain things away, like how i need 11 hours sleep to feel like a human being, or why the walk up to the department exhausts me some days, or why some days i feel fine and recovered but still mustn't be reckless.)

(no subject)

to those of you more academically-minded than me:

"is the vocabulary spurt a significant event in lexical development?"

why is it "a gross mis-reading of the question" to discuss lexical development in its entirety and then evaluate whether or not the vocabulary spurt is a significant event within it? why should i have taken the question to mean "discuss the vocabulary spurt, and different theories for its etiology" ? she actually said to me, "what you seem to have done is discuss whether or not the vocabulary spurt is particularly noteworthy". am i making some elementary error in my understanding of the english language, here?

5th week. FIFTH WEEK. my first language and cognition tutorial, and my essay is pointless and off-topic, a 2.2-. my tute partners give presentations i do not understand. it feels like i'm being pointedly misunderstood when i try to explain things - have i lost the ability to communicate? i wonder, typing here now, do these words say what i mean them to?

this is the first tute i've had since getting back to oxford, although it's the third i've turned up to (one was postponed a week, and nobody told me, the other is because i can't tell the difference between "5" and "7")... something isn't right, and i'm starting to think it's inside my own head.

ETA: clouds, sivler linings, and so on: i just got to use the vaguely wildean phrase, "no, i'm not in college. i'm in the department, and tears" (cf "she left in floods of tears and a sedan chair." was that wilde? i cannot think why he'd be talking about sedan chairs, but my head is telling me it was - oh god i can't even adequately place wilde any more, there is something wrong in my head)