Oh god, I am so tired and stressed out and Losing It. And it's only Thursday. It only gets worse from here on in.

It's not like I had a bad day yesterday, mind you. I got out of work to do a new staff orientation, which went most of the day (but hey, I got out before 4), and they did provide you with a ton of food and a great catered Indian food lunch.

The day was broken up into four presentations, which not necessarily an improvement from the Good Old Days, when you only had to go in for two hours to hear about benefits. Or so I've been told, anyway. It amused me no end that the first guy started out by asking us what our expectations for this were. What does it matter what we expect here? You've already got your presentation PowerPointed, it's too late to change it now just because we said so. (Most people said "Benefits" when asked this, the guy was all "Well, we weren't prepared to do that... not until the end today, anyway.") The first part was the history of the school, facts about the school, and how to amuse yourself while working here. Which was nice for the new folks, but as someone who's lived here five years, attended the school and worked here, well, kinda pointless for me. Nice free coupons though.

The thing that annoyed me most was that they insisted on doing group-chat-touchy-feely-bond-with-your-neighbor junk off and on all day. I've never liked that stuff, I don't CARE, I just wanted to hear about the benefits and leave. (Which is why it was last on the agenda, of course.) When will I ever be old enough to NOT be forced into these silly social games? I thought I was through with them once I got through the first few days of freshman dorm orientation.

The worst one was the "diversity" presentation. Now the people doing it were nice, and seemed to really care about what they were doing, but... honestly, I felt like I was sitting through a presentation designed for third graders. The two of them (both white, though I noticed on the evaluation sheets that an Indian woman was supposed to have been doing it instead of one of them) both started out with similar speeches about how they both came from very lily-white Eastern towns where everyone was about the same culture, and then moved to California and Oh My Gosh. Then they broke into the game of "Talk to your neighbor and find out what you have in common! Look, someone who isn't white does have things in common with you!" Maybe I just don't get it because I'm a native Californian, but it was all like one giant duh experience to me.

After lunch was more useful, as we got into discussing ethical dilemmas at work, i.e. what's acceptable etiquette for accepting gifts? If it's to you personally, you don't get to keep it, if it went out to everyone around, you can, if it went to your department it must be shared, if it went to the university the chancellor gets to keep it and give it to wealthy donors. (The last bit isn't a joke, btw.)

And then, finally, the benefits. Which are FAT FAT FAT here. I can get all the kinds of coverage I want and hardly pay diddly for it. Woo hoo! I think I'll milk this gravy train for awhile....

I had my last metalsmithing class yesterday, and was desperately trying to finish my rings (I've given up on the bracelet- apparently bracelets take forever) before the class ended and I'd have to do it all without any help. I did not succeed, though at least I got all the soldering done. But I was seriously thisclose from losing it and screaming through most of the class. I just did not have the inner resources to deal with anything going wrong (i.e. the wheel thing I was trying to use popping off the spinny thing the second I touched it, about twelve times in a row), I was exhausted, and my teacher so had the patience of a saint to put up with me.

I also nearly had a breakdown in costume class trying to "wing it" and put in a giant pocket on one side of the skirt. I sewed that thing in the wrong place so many times.... I do so many stupid things when sewing it is amazing. My fabric is starting to rip from all the times I've had to pry thread out of it.

The ruby ring is about done. It needs to be polished and maybe have the bezel shoved around a little more to secure the stone slightly tighter, but that's it. As for my ring, I need to polish and install the stone and that's it. At least those I can do on my own. I WANTED to at least get Dad's ring done in case I had time this weekend, but I don't think I'll be able to.

As for costume class, I'm doing a lot better there than I'd expect. Was almost done with one of the two skirts, until I realized last night that yes, I'd made yet another stupid mistake. The other skirt only has a few more steps to go, and I can thread the elastic into them in the car tomorrow if I have to. I'm not sure if the bodice will be done though, given the issue with not having boning *sigh*

I am debating whether or not at lunch tomorrow to (a) eat, (b) hit the bank and cash the unemployment check I just got, (c) go to the center and finish the rings, or (d) go to the center and work on my sewing just in case. I really AT LEAST should do d, I guess, but I have the horrible feeling that I'll be starving too badly by noon to do anything useful at all besides (a). I can't really eat and do any of the above in an hour, especially when it takes 15 minutes to check out the supplies at the center. At any rate, lunch will be my only meal of the day (no time to eat before we leave, of course), so I not only should eat, but eat BIG.

Damn.

I was apparently freaking Dave out last night with me being so tense and stressed. He's not used to seeing me like that oh, every few weeks or so the way I usually am. Between NOT BLOODY KNOWING WHAT'S GOING ON AND NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND OUT UNTIL THE DEAD LAST MINUTE (not that I'm cranky about it, mind you) and trying to finish these projects and finding a big bad bug in the database at work that's causing a lot of trouble right now, I am losing it. I don't even have time to pack for this trip that might not even happen!

His eye is a lot better, so we're assuming that unless he can sweet talk the doctor into extending leave a few days, he'll have to work (that is, if he's not fired) and we can't go. It also depends if the redone blood work comes back funky or not on Friday.

UGH. My head is splitting. I cannot deal with all this in the air-ness. I can't stand it. Anything requiring a costume should NOT be something that we just "wing" at the last minute! I know he can't help it and he's not thrilled with the situation either, but this is eroding my sanity this week, and I NEED my sanity to get things done!

Too bad I have to waste 8 hours of the day tomorrow on work, I really could use it to be doing other things.

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