Woke up circa 2:30am, after four hours' sleep; made executive decision as 6am rolled around to try and get another solid hour and a half's sleep and then go into the library 'til 10pm. Since the first chapter of my dissertation is due in next Friday, right after the presentation I have to give next Thursday, and all.

6:30am: sleep

7:00 - 7:30am: kept awake by grandmother's screaming harpy voice getting my sister out of bed for school, because she is too fat to want to make the journey upstairs.

8:00am: achieve sleep once more.

8:30am: woken by grandmother's screaming harpy voice from downstairs trying to get ME out of bed.

9:00am: get call on mobile from mother concerned that I missed my counselling appointment yesterday because I slept right through my alarm. JESUS, I WONDER WHY.

9:30am: relax enough to achieve sleep again.

10:00am: woken up by, SURPRISE, grandmother's screaming harpy voice.

11:00am: nerves too shot to sleep; roll out of bed.

Apply more or less this same pattern retroactively for the last... I don't even know, and it may not be all that hard to see why I am so tired, I am on the verge of hysteria.



Well, off to the library.

I can't conceive of how anyone could fail to like A Good Year, critics be damned. It has Russell Crowe, and wine - and the philosophy of wine - and simple acoustic songs on the soundtrack that feel like a warm and sleepily prolonged Provençal autumn - the lazy Sunday morning of seasons - and enough French, exactly the right amount, for me to follow, with perfect ease and the most comforting sort of familiarity, the second daily-spoken language of my hazy pre-teen years.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.