Welcome to Stress City. Population: me

That's not really fair. Myself, H, and M are all up to our eyeballs in work, and poor H is also up to her eyeballs in tissues too - she seems to have picked up an awful cold. The rest of my colleagues, however, have no more classes to teach and don't want to do any work - so they're bothering me. Normally this would be amazing, but right now, my to-do list looks like this:

And quite frankly I do not have time for tomfoolery.

Still, I got a lot of work done, I'm forcibly animating the film for the Alumni by getting rid of most of the video and inserting plenty of images. A rough draft is finally ready and I should get feedback on that before long if I'm very lucky, which is exciting. Once everything's correct, I get to stamp the logo on the whole film, a process that will put my name on a thing produced for an international graduate school. Forever.

Gulp.

In addition to that, I've also dedicated a lot of time to an invite to the annual dinner. Before you see this, note that I'm nowhere near a graphics expert. I am using +GIMP and struggling like an elephant in treacle. But after encouragement from my colleague, I had a crack at it, going for a (very) basic art-deco style, using a font called Glover, which you can download here. It looks very Roaring Twenties and it's free.

Can I point out at this point that I'm continually stunned by the output of actual artists working for free? It's mad.

This font is the awesomest.

Glove by ~matiasromero on deviantART

 So anyhow, this is what I'm using. As you can see, it's got a really nice style, and I'm hoping it looks good on the background which is essentially monochrome. Bear in mind that this is a draft and, in addition, probably pants. It's the front of a two-sided invite, and the back will have a very similar style, though I'm working on a couple of different ideas, while keeping with the monochrome theme.

This afternoon I stayed an extra hour to finish off the translation of the source code (see above) for the website. I've got to input it tomorrow and find out if it works. My gut says yes.

Speaking of guts - mine has been getting just a little too big and, since in Chicago I'll be in shorts and pools a lot, I've decided I need to trim just a little off. I don't know how much it's going to help, but I've started the +7 Minute Workout twice a day.

It is not a good sign that I did it for the first time last night and less than 8 minutes later I looked redder than I have ever been and had managed to work up a very impressive sweat.

"Do you want to go again?" it asked, cheerfully.

I slipped on a patch of sweat and collapsed. That'll be a no, thanks. With any luck by the end of the week I won't be quite so ready to die afterwards, and by the end of the month I might even be able to do the whole routine twice.

Yea, okay. I'm not holding my breath either.

Rules for happy cohabitation

That's the title of the French homework I'm writing at the moment, and I feel like it's got a little out of hand. So far we have:

1. When you leave the apartment, remember that you are representing the apartment and everyone in it. So suit up.
2. We salute all officer ranks. Anyone who does not salute pays a forfeit. 
3. If we want to go out and your girlfriend makes you stay in, you will be mocked.
4. On April 1st all bets are off. Seriously. Watch your back. 
5. If there's a tie on the door, come back in half an hour.
6. If there's still a tie on the door, go back to 5.

In the original there were things like no pets and no children, and silence after 10. These are boring. In fact, in my rules you get extra points for short-term baby-napping and any exotic pets.

Spiders, by the way, are not pets. Things that people normally try to avoid living with are not pets. This bracket includes spiders, ants, and Piers Morgan - although, America, you're looking after him so well that you can keep him.

If you have any other ideas for rules, please let me know.

I've also just discovered this and, best of all, it's almost silent - just an amazing score. No speech, so this is brilliant for anyone with any level of English. Share this with your foreign family, friends, anyone.



Honestly. If you don't love this I strongly suspect you're not even human, and I so hope you are. Proving David Icke right would be the low point of anyone's career.

My day today has been pretty good; I'm in charge of the website for the next week so here's hoping nothing goes so wrong that I can't fix it. My old office is in the final stages of being packed up and, much like the books I've been backing, looks very odd with nothing inside. It's also meant I've had to check over DVDs that have have come back with complaints, and strangely I've found no problems - which means either they're wrong, or I've got a magic laptop.

I hate to assume anyone else is wrong, so looks like I've got a magic laptop.

Arthur C. Clarke, you were right!

(Arthur C. Clarke was a science-fiction writer who used his powers for good, unlike Mr Hubbard. He coined the phrase "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and, at a time when I can speak to a friend in Australia instantaneously, I think he's right.)

So my afternoon consisted of watching films at high speed, checking to see if there were any issues. I went straight out and bought trainers after that, as my former ones have given up the ghost. I will take care of these ones. Maybe. I did a two-mile gentle jog tonight; hardly marathon winning but the area in which I live is gorgeous, so when I fall to the ground feeling like my legs are solid and rubbery I can stare at a gorgeous panorama of stars with my rapidly tunneling vision.

This keeping fit is going to kill me.