The Highs and Lows of the 5th, 6th and 7th
Friday, the 7th of January, 2005 - 18 past 11pm
Current Song ~ "Cracked Actor" by David Bowie.
One week and two entries into 2005, and somewhat predictably, I've already made one (hastily corrected) mistake regarding a date.
Rather less predictably, I got the year right and screwed up on the day of the month. Why I was under the impression that last Tuesday was the 3rd, I shall never know.
Sometimes, I am glad that I don't ever cite the Diary as an example of my copy-editing skills...
These past three days have been.. interesting.
Wednesday was in many ways very positive and, dare I say it outside a negative context, productive.
As, apparently, was last October, for my timed Humanities assignment arrived back complete with the score that I hadn't been told previously: 91/100.
Ninety-one! Good grief! Not quite what I was expecting from a piece written in an hour and forty-five minutes including the time taken up by eating a bag of cheese and ham nibbles and obsessively checking my email. (Okay, so writing a timed assignment in front of the iMac during lunch and right before a singing lesson was perhaps not my finest hour of planning...)
According to the tutor's summary, my sonnet analysis was very good (yay!), and my philosophical argument overly practical.
Not a criticism that I hear terribly often, that one, but I can't argue with it.
The last of this year's set books were delivered (three cheers for Eddington Hook, supplier of OU books including the scores that nobody else had!), which given the imminence of my course start dates - and the difficulty in finding those bless�d scores - was a great weight off my mind.
I also received an Associated Board applicant password, and can now (theoretically at least) register myself for music exams online and up to a full week after the postal closing date. Rah!
Later in the day I went to the first rehearsal of the Prestigious London Choir this year, where I managed to acquire a copy of the section of Handel's Messiah that is, helpfully, not in the edition that I have.
Then, satisfied that the day had been far from wasted, I settled down at eleven o'clock with The Dream of Gerontius and Graham Robb's Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century.
I finished said book the next morning - and ordered one of the detective stories discussed in the final chapter, which I shall come back to when it arrives - and heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject (and, indeed, anyone with an appreciation for the regular use of the word 'cheerful', for Mr. Robb will not disappoint).
Thursday was not quite so exceptional a day, and did cut 'ordered boots' out of the above list of positive and productive things, for the company emailed me to say that they'd sold out.
So, I ended up spending a fair chunk of the rest of the day attempting to hunt down other wide-fitting shoes and convincing myself that I never could have lived with pewter leather inlays anyhow.
On the bright side, though, I did receive an OU Alumni card and a congratulatory letter saying that I have indeed got my Certificate in the Humanities, should be getting the actual certificate soon, and am entitled to stick 'CertHum(Open)' after my name. An important step in the direction of having more letters after my name than in it, I feel...
Now we come to today, when I woke to find myself in one of those situations where one hopes that one is in fact still asleep and will wake up any time now...
I reckon it'll be one to tell other people's grandchildren:
'Coo, Elderly Eccentric Lady, what did you do in 2005?'
'Well, Hypothetical Small Person, I mainly wiled away the hours jabbing pins into Vodafone effigies and cackling hysterically...'
A package arrived for me, as I had hoped, for I was waiting for a number of items. Imagine my horror to tear away the packaging and discover... The Mobile.
The very same mobile that had been sent back via courier after a very long and frustrating fiasco involving no less than three different customer service numbers and a regrettable incident involving an incorrect address.
It came back with a note from a different company entirely saying that they couldn't repair that model. Clearly, there had been a screw-up somewhere along the line.
So, Vodafone were duly contacted again, whereupon they informed us that the fourteen-day returns period had been and gone and they were washing their hands of the whole affair. Yep, it's the old 'make returning anything within a fortnight impossible, never have to refund anyone' con.
From now onward, I am resolving to deal as much as possible with small companies, for they have more incentive to provide genuine service than these huge corporations with nothing to lose.
Thankfully, the day did perk up from there, for my Lennox Berkeley choral music CD arrived complete with the unison work that features in the grade seven setlists, Salve Regina.
To my great joy, it turned out to be a lovely work that sounds promising from a possible-setlist-piece point of view. So promising, indeed, that I ordered the score within ten minutes of hearing it.
Fingers metaphorically crossed that it proves workable!
Now I must away, for I have a concert tomorrow that it might be an idea to be conscious for.
Bon nuit!
Lily
