Christ, it was five years ago that I was twenty!

...but it doesn't always feel like it...

I have had more or less two weeks to write an article for publishing online tomorrow - an unusually generous span. I have lots of material, it's about something really interesting, and I really wanted to do my best to make it a good article. Which, of course, is why I only really started writing it yesterday. I didn't know where to begin, and got sidetracked faffing around making extensive notes and doing other things.

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel EXACTLY like I did at university, racing the clock to complete assessed essays and theses. I stayed up all through the night, typing; I frantically procrastinated; I wrote twice the maximum number of words; I struggled through today in a state of hallucinogenic tiredness; I giggled at people like a maniac; I cried like a baby (only more discreetly I hope) when my colleague had to excise all the interesting bits.

I would say "you'd think I'd learn", only you wouldn't, really, if you've ever met me.

But it's quite odd though, I feel so much like I did then, it's like being in a kind of physical déjà vu, and memories float back clearly. And I do feel a distinct lack of mutual encouragement through the night via msn, and caramel-slice missions, and tea and winegums (well, I have the tea), and the general sense of being in it together.

Oh, time! (Or - O, time!)

Now I am going to make a cake for a goodbye party tomorrow, because I have gone mad, which is what happens with sleep deprivation after all. And then I am going to sleep, perchance to dream. Zzzzzzzzz

in time of roses (who amaze our now and here with praise)

So... do I want to be a person who has a blog, or do I want to be a person who had a blog at one point, but gave up and drifted off?

I have given up on and drifted away from a lot of things, through laziness, or the passing of enthusiasm, or lack of time or determination or organisation or bravery. However I don't think I want to have given up on this.


So, in the last *ahem* nearly-three months I have:
- been visited by my very dear and lovely friend Josie, and by my amazing little sister. Both of these visits were wonderful, both felt too short.
- been back to the UK for a week, attended a very beautiful and romantic wedding, caught up with friends and family - but not as many as I would've wished, and been traumatised by the last Harry Potter book.
- made new friends and lost old ones - one of the perils of living and working in a research center with a high turnover of students, visitors, interns and consultants.
- been sent on assignment to attend a maize festival, interview farmers and other relevant personages, and take photos in another part of Mexico. Been terrified.
- been poorly; been stressed-out with too much work; been busy and sociable; been weird and antisocial; had lovely times with friends; driven myself solitarily almost-crazy as only I know how. As usual.


Although I've had some great weeks, but this is not shaping up as one of the good ones (so arguably not a good time to finally start this blogging baby up again... mmph). Because:
- my sleep patterns get more and more screwed with every passing day, as early nights turn into late ones as I don't (can't, won't) sleep until 1 or 2 am, and every day I have to get up, and every day I feel worse.
- my friend The Amazing Nathan (who has been working here for a couple of months) has gone, and will be leaving Mexico for good soon. He is amazing. I am sad.
- I am also crazy.
- of a boy. Life is easier if he doesn't get in touch. But I sort of wish he would.
- I really need to be having a work crisis and I'm not. I have SO much to do this week. But somehow I can't seem to get down to it. An impending crunch is much worse than the crunch itself.


But, thank goodness for small saviours in small things.

On Sunday, I decided to redecorate my unChristmas tree. I have a large pot plant in my apartment. At Christmas I tastefully decorated it with a string of pink cloth-and-plastic roses and various multicoloured paper decorations bought from the Christmas market. It is so cheering that I decided to keep it all-year-round, and I've been adding bits and pieces of unwanted ribbon and things ever since. At some point, the lady who cleans my apartment decided, for unknown reasons, to undecorate it and put all the things in a plastic bag. On Sunday, casting around for 'productive' things to do that weren't work, I decided it was time to restore it.

So I did, which in itself was lovely - vaguely evoking calm Christmas feelings of decorating the tree, listening to Carols from Kings and for now not having anything else I should be doing. And then I noticed this:

I love, absolutely love, that at some point someone was faced with a tricky bit of multiplication and long division, and reached for a rose petal. I can't really imagine the circumstances in which a petal of a rose of a string of roses of a whole batch of brand new strings of flowers would be the only thing available to write on. Were they absent minded? Hurried? Reaching out with a phone hooked under one ear?

Anyway, it just makes me oddly happy.


By the way, I was going to quote this piece of e.e. cummings instead of the lines in the title, but it (and the rest of the poem) are too sad:

in a middle of a room
stands a suicide
sniffing a Paper rose
smiling to a self

Tonight it is good just to be reminded of how brilliant, how powerful his poems are. To remember what words can do. And what life can be.