extemporanea

If we needed any evidence at all that the Cosmic Wossnames are actually vaguely Cthulhoid entities prone to either nasty mockery or blind indifference, I could demonstrate it from my experience of January every year. Thusly:

1. I'm running orientation and registration simultaneously while fighting off admissions and curriculum queries from new students, returning students, excluded students, late-applying students (hopeless this year, we're well over capacity), random students, plaintive students, and the parents, friends, well-wishers, dogs and aunts of all of the above. (Especially the aunts. Aunts of students are demonstrably even more crazy than the parents). I'm, in effect, doing three people's jobs.
   
2. By inscrutable cosmic wossname, a whole bunch of dearly beloved friends have birthday in January, necessitating participation in shindigs and jamborees of all descriptions.
   
3. January is the month chosen by my Cherished Institution to deploy their own Army of Deconstruction for wide-ranging building tasks. I can't leave my office window open for air at the moment because of the nice man with the jackhammer on the scaffolding just outside it. And,
   
4. We have heatwaves. This week has been infernal, brain-melting, incandescent hell.

In addition to all of above, I arrived at work at 9am yesterday, worked like a frantic thing until 4, dashed off to have my hair cut, went home, worked like a frantic thing until 11pm, and then fell into bed. I don't think my state of health is actually up to this sort of thing, I'm more or less useless this morning.

Meep. However, the subject line is, as usual lately, from Goats. Read Goats. It prevents your ice-cream from melting. (It also drives you crazy when you read the entire archive and arrive at the end to discover that it stops, mid-plot, in 2010. However, I have forgiven it).