Update

Okay, so it seems I have managed to freak out pretty much every one I know with that last post, along with one charming Canadian that I don't know. Sorry about that, folks.

I considered deleting the post, but I think I'll keep it up, because it is was accurate description of my mental state. Here, though, is a slightly more reasoned account of my current situation:

I have to give a hour-long (okay, maybe 45-minute) colloquium at Oxford on October 11. I had planned on a getting a draft to MAS on September 26. I have spent, like, the past two months or more in that now all-too-familiar situation during which I manage to convince myself that I'm getting work done, while, in fact, I am getting almost nothing done at all. So after BQ's visit I finally sat down to collate the various parts of the talk that I have finished... and I suddenly realized that I have miles and miles to go before I sleep, as it were.

This is simply getting far, far too routine. when I orginally agreed to do the talk, I speficially told myself: great, a long term project, there is nothing else on my plate. I can for once get a piece of writing done at a liesurely, non-frantic pace. Then, somehow, the summer was over.

One highly-respected correspondent suggested that I cancel the talk. It is the first talk of term after all. The other bad opion is to simply read the paper I read at Cambridege. The big reason I cannot do this is, of course, my CV. My sad, neglected CV. Although the status of certain CV items has changed in the past year, the only actually new entries are, I think, the IHR talk on Garcia, and the Oxford talk. This feels like a big deal.

So, you see, my anxiety about doing a good job on the Oxford talk dovetails very neatly into my anxiety about getting a job.

Oh yeah, and also: I don't want to leave England.

So I'm going to Rome for two days. It will be good to see A—, who is always musicologically stimulating. (He needs a pseudonym: The Prostitute Expert or something? Hmm.) I need to go to Rome, because I put off making an appointment at Croydon for so long that I now can't get an date before the visa expires. And, as one reader of Greg's London Ramblings discovered, it is expensive. And the visa centers are now appointment-only. I could do it by post, but then they would have possession of my passport for a month so I couldn't go the AMS.

So I'm going to Rome for the purpose of flying back INTO the UK, to ask for an extention at passpost control in Gatwick. This really shouldn't be a problem -- I have a printout of the visa rules that state I'm entitled to an extention as long as (1) my project isn't finished, (2) I have money, and (3) I'm not working. (I think this is why I'm not in your position, H—; since you were here on a student visa and I'm here on an academic visitor visa, I have the legal right to stay until the project is finished, not just the course of study...)

Of course proving that I have money is a teensy bit difficult, because my fellowship check (orginally cut on August 20) still hasn't been deposited. Because I wasn't registered for classes then, so the couldn't do direct deposit.

Do you see how all my procrastination is self-reinforcing?

Here's a ray of sunshine: it has become undeniable that since I started running all those weeks ago, I've lost at least an inch from my waist. Go me! Except now none of my trousers fit. And isn't weight loss one of the items on the depression checklist?