Essaches

The title for today's post comes from my sister when she was two years old, and my mother, pregnant with me, would get up at five am to work on her dissertation for her MSc, and my sister would sometimes ask if she had been 'having essaches'; this is a wonderful portmanteau which I am now stealing.

I actually didn't know until yesterday that my mother was pregnant with me when she was doing her MSc in psychology- in fact, if I'm honest, I didn't know until yesterday that my mother had an MSc in psychology! Though, in my defense, and to her credit, she has never once boasted about it or used it to pull rank, which is what I would've done in her position.

I had an essay due in at noon yesterday; despite my propensity for being a perennial last-minuter, until this point in my university career I have never actually had to, in the vernacular of my peers, 'pull an all-nighter on an essay' (it's the use of the preposition 'on' in this phrase that I like so much- in other contexts when you pull something 'on' something it's either a gun or a con). This streak was broken yesterday, when I stayed up for a grand total of thirty hours in order to get this bastard out.
It was strangely easy- I didn't actually feel tired until around eight in the morning, by which time I was already well into the second draft. What was annoying was that, even though I found the subject matter- 'can one acquire language if one isn't exposed to it early in life?'- very interesting, I just couldn't put pen to paper about it. Every time I tried, it was like my fingers and the keyboard were both positively charged magnets- they adamantly refused to meet.
Eventually, though, I managed to spew out a few thousand words and slap a bibliography on it. I will know before the beginning of December, I have been informed. Can't wait.

A couple of days ago, during a rehearsal for Goblin's Story, Laura asked me if I have a pool of anger from which to draw for the purposes of being the nefarious nasty Nurgle.

What a dick.

Immediately, James Beagon burst out laughing because he knew me during first and second year and the thought of anyone questioning my ability to rage back then would have been laughable. After all, I was voted 'Most Likely to Punch an Alpaca'.


Plus, I used to do this.

But it was nice to know that people who have only met me recently don't think of me that way- they don't know me for shouting or apoplexy. Who knows for what they do know me, but it's a boon that I've moved on at least a little from just being angry. It's like when Charlotte and Simon said they had a hard time imagining me as the livid neo-fascist that I described in my accounts of Pre-Melbourne Rory, it makes me feel that I've improved.