Refraction

(Happy New Year!)

Do these two sentences mean the same thing?

1) I wonder if X isn’t better than Y.
2) I wonder if X is better than Y.

On the surface, it’s a basic kind of statement (“I am comparing X and Y; X may be better, but I’m still thinking about it”) and they seem identical. At least superficially.

I think the sentences imply different things, though. 1) is something I would say after having already chosen Y, and then re-evaluating X. 2) can be said either before or after a choice is made, but seems slightly more natural to say before.

Then again, maybe sentence 1) is not quite Standard English and I’m just making all this up.

(As an aside: I do not like titles for my weblog posts. If I wrote a blog on a topic as opposed to using my blog as an online diary, then they would be useful; as it is, the title is just kind of a formality. Do you title entries in handwritten journals? I don’t. [Yes, I keep one of those, too.])

I feel lately that life has become perfunctory. It’s especially bad around Christmas/New Year’s, as I always seem to be doing the same kinds of things:

• Clean … somewhat
• Consumerist buying spree
• Have coffee/tea with friends
• Listen to wintery songs
• Eat chocolate
• Worry about school
• Avoid the MJ at family gatherings

I suppose the argument could be made that these are traditions, but–when you’ve been doing this for the last week, it’s nothing but routine. Boring routine, at that.

it’s never.

Never even brought it up. Afraid and muddied and worried and just not wanting to blow it more than I already had…

And yet at the same time just wanting to enjoy what was there, no expectations, no promises; just to live for the moment and not look ahead to the anguish of suddenly being strangers again…

I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.

And yet it’s now or never (as D—- so helpfully pointed out).

I have a feeling it’ll probably be never.

I got something to say you know
But nothing comes
— “Silent All These Years”, Tori Amos

Oh, let me be fooled

avant que je ne tombe….

Oh wait, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?

(Is “crypticness” even a word?)

it’s so beautiful here, she says, this moment now. and this moment, now.
….
there’s a reason not to want this but I forgot.
….
oh words like rain, how sweet the sound.

On the edge of the bell curve? Yes, perhaps. Keep telling yourself that.

Things I am annoyed with right now, in no particular order:

• A certain associate director at work. My supervisor is on vacation at the moment and so I was told yesterday to compile the work I’ve done over the last three weeks for a meeting tomorrow. I do so, send him the files, and then sit down to a meeting where we go over said data and come up with slides (!!) for this meeting. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “WTF slides? I hope you’re presenting this.” I re-send him the slides for editing, he hacks and slashes them, and then sends me off with “So, you’re going to do this, right Catherine?” AGGGGGH.

  Let me emphatically state ONE THING: I DO NOT LIKE HAVING PRESENTATIONS ON SCIENTIFIC MATTERS SPRUNG ON ME. Especially scientific matters I don’t know an awful lot about. (I could rant about this, but then well we might step into confidentiality issues…)

  Suffice to say I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after that meeting (why does this sound so familiar?) and um, the same lady who found me in nervous breakdown state last time found me again this time. As my surrogate supervisor, she offered to present for me. “But Catherine, it just doesn’t feel right taking credit for work I didn’t do.” It was seriously all I could do at that point to stop myself from saying, “That’s funny, that never stopped [my supervisor on vacation] from presenting my data.”

  I really should not be taking this so hard. However, I have several issues with my whackload of slides, the foremost being that the director has NO BLOODY CLUE what I’m talking about. The work I’m presenting tomorrow is a month old. I need time to refresh my memory of things.

  I also have new, perhaps more pertinent data to discuss. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to process it because I’ve been working on these damn slides all day.

  I don’t like the way the director has instructed me to structure the presentation. As it stands, it really has absolutely no flow. Things jump from one thing to another without really being connected (and now you kind of see why I’ve hated the last eight months of work.)

• Myself, really, for breaking down and letting the idiot win.
• My supervisor on vacation, S—-, for several things: 1) calling this meeting (apparently it was his idea, or maybe I heard this wrong–after all, who calls a meeting while they’re on vacation?); 2) being on vacation and leaving me to flounder; 3) not telling me that this meeting was going to happen and that I was going to need to prepare for it; 4) leaving me to clean up a whackload of his stuff; 5) never having brought me to ANY of these meetings and therefore leaving me COMPLETELY IN THE DARK ABOUT WHAT TO EXPECT. S—-, sorry, you are seriously NOT COOL and that parting gift you gave me? Also not cool. Am I the only one who thinks that you should give gifts for your giftee and not really for yourself?
• The group at work, for PILING WORK ON ME in my last two weeks. HELLO PEOPLE! I AM GOING TO BE GONE IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO START NEW EXPERIMENTS!
• Myself again, for taking work home with me. I work enough overtime as it is.
• My mother. I really need to move out. Unfortunately, I need money to do that.
• S—- at work, who seems to have absolutely nothing to do and therefore spends her time distracting other people. It’s not easy to tune her out when she sits next to you.
• G— at work, for–I don’t know. This one’s more complicated than the others, and I’m not really annoyed with him. In fact–