Today's word is FUCK.

[baratron]

Oh, ffs. If I wasn't stressed enough already, I just managed to hit CTRL-D and completely lose my last entry.

Am stressed out of my tiny little mind. Remember how my unconditional offer turned into a conditional offer? Well, that part wasn't a mistake. Birkbeck Registry want me to have either officially finished or withdrawn from the outstanding-since-2004 MPhil before I can start the new course. (This is different from Birkbeck's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, who don't care either way.) Which would've been fine if I'd known that a couple of months ago when I still had enough time to get the thesis done without KILLING MYSELF.

Basically... I have to reformat and reprint my thesis from 2004. It's ~130 pages and severely mangled by Microsoft Word - get it printed out, hard bound, and submitted to the University of London, otherwise I can't start my new university course ON MONDAY. Problem is, my old computer had a feebly small memory, and even splitting the thesis into four files, I couldn't paste the diagrams into the thesis in ye olde days because it took 15 minutes to print out each page that had a graph on. (And most pages have a graph on.) So I originally formatted it by pasting in the diagrams with glue - but I can't find that copy of the thesis. God knows where it is, we've moved house since I produced it. So to print another copy now, I have to open up the graphing program on the screen, take screenshots as the program is too old and too converted-from-Mac to output standard formats like .jpegs or .gifs, paste them into Photoshop Elements, cut out the crap on the screen, re-save as .wmf files, and import into my Word document. And I have literally megabytes of data and I'm not sure in all cases which files I want to use.

And my gall bladder hurts, and this level of stress DEMANDS CHOCOLATE, which I can't eat due to the PAIN. And I have work-for-money all this week, and argh argh argh.

Comments

[baratron.livejournal.com]

And I'm going to get rid of the web browser now because it's too distracting, but if you want to cheerlead, I'm on irc now:

irc.freenode.net - username astra
irc.afternet.org - username baratron

Talking to me on irc isn't really distracting like web is, but lets me feel that there are people around.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I don't irc, but that would also distract you anyway.

[ETA Oops. Wasn't intending to contradict you--I just didn't read past the first line. I trust that it wouldn't distract you (at least not in the same way), but nevertheless I don't irc. But hope you'll see this comment when you take a break.]

But, would it be horrible to cancel the work-for-money this week in order to focus on the thesis project?

That's something I'd seriously consider doing were I in your shoes (and in fact it is something I've done in similar circumstances.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Plain text which sits in a small window until I have time to read it isn't distracting for me. Shiny graphical web which sits in a large window tempting me with the sum of mankind's knowledge is.

Yeah, I'd normally go with the cancelling of work-for-money option, but I've only just started with some of these students and I don't like to look flaky this early on. (It was bad enough that I had to miss the first week due to an annoying cold/virus-thing without cancelling due to disorganisation as well.) Anyway, the problem seems to have been alleviated with a classic all-nighter, even if I am ridiculously tired now.

[judiff]

LOTS of bunnys

[firecat]

Fuck.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

i have no idea if any of this helps but i have a g4 mac spare and a scanner, and needed we can get you pc as well

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer, but it wouldn't have helped. My current laptop and printer will print the entire thesis in minutes now :) It was just the EFFORT REQUIRED to get the images into Microsoft Word.

[lovingboth]

I can't spot you on irc but there must surely be a program that will convert the output of the graphing program to something usable directly.

What formats will it output?