PhD Problems

Last week I got sick. Killer cold that literally came out of nowhere (went to bed fine one night, woke up congested, ear ache, fever, the next morning). It knocked me flat. And because I am who I am, the nasal congestion was accompanied by frequent, heavy nosebleeds. It’s something else when you’re afraid of the nose on your face. Brett told me I should face my fears and confront them head on. A week later I was still just barely getting over it. I’d even given it to Brett and he’s been miserable as well. It’s nice of him to try to take it off my hands like that.

Through  the fog of congestion I realized that my level of cognitive functioning had a direct negative relationship to the amount of cranial mucus I was experiencing, ie., the more mucus the harder it was to have a deep thought. And since in my decreased cognitive state I was still able to come up with a statistical explanation for said cognitive state, I decided maybe I’ve been spending too much time with research.

While I was dealing with all of that, five of the books I have checked out for my research came due, so I renewed them till January.

Two days later I was working on one of my revisions, and one article I was reading mentioned a book chapter that seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I looked up the book at the university library and was a little upset to realize some idiot had it checked out till January. I need that book now! I had a few options.

I could recall the book, in which case the idiot would have a week to return it so I could pick it up. But the idiot probably needs the book as much as I do, I hate it when people recall books I’ve checked out, and I could really use the book before that week is up.

My second option was to request the library find a photocopy of the chapter I want (and they could get it from another library that has the book on the shelf) and have them email it to me. I’ve done that in the past, it only takes a day or two and works great.

In order to make the document request the instructions told me to go to my account and find the link to make requests there. I went to my account, but couldn’t find a place to make document requests. While I was looking at that page though, one of the entries for books I had checked out caught my eye.

Turns out I’m the idiot who’s got the book checked out till January, it’s sitting in my stack by the TV, and it’s one of the ones I renewed just two days prior.

We’re going to blame that one on the decreased cognitive functioning due to increased cranial mucus too.