--Yours Truly

The day began with Yours Truly staggering out of bed and making his way to the ocular plastic surgeon for his appointment.

The appointment was for 1:15, which is exactly when I got there. I wish I could attribute this to punctuality, but I'd actually meant to get there with plenty of time to spare, but ran late. Still, it's the results that count, I guess. Not that it mattered much, 'cause I proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes in the waiting room.

The guy-before-the-plastic-surgeon (I'm really going to have to find out his name and official title some time) plucked out one more eyelash, which I think was one of the ones I'd noticed a couple of weeks ago, although I'm not 100% certain.

I asked him whether I was going to be looking forward to having eyelashes yanked out for the rest of my life. He replied in the affirmative, but pointed out that at least I still had my vision. Granted.

(Have I mentioned that getting an eyelash plucked out hurts? I know, I have the world's lowest tolerance for pain...)

The story's like this: The eyelid is healing nicely. The game plan is to let it keep healing nicely before we even think about doing any further work on it. So I'm supposed to come back in another three months, and we'll see what happens from there.

There's one bit of the eyelid that's sort of puckered at this point, and it does seem likely that he'll be smoothing it out once the lid heals. Eyelash transplants are also a possibility, although that has its risks. Apparently, the procedure involves taking some of the hair from the eyebrows and moving it to the eyelash area. That could result in the lashes growing in too thickly, though, perhaps irritating the eye.

Did I have any more questions? Just one; the same one I had for the other guy. Could anything be done about the eyelashes currently causing me trouble, short of my going to get them yanked out every few weeks?

Well, yes. Freezing them and electrolysis are both possibilities, but, again, it's too soon for that. (It's also bloody ironic, I think, that while I want my eyelashes back, the short-term problem is with the ones I still have.)

Anyway, the whole thing's moot for at least three months. We'll see how we're doing in February.

I haven't seen this much ink on one of my papers... well, ever. He simply shredded the thing. And I don't agree with any of it, with the exception of one doozy of an error I committed, and figured out not very long after I handed the paper in. (I kept referring to Woolf's thesis as being "essentialist," when I'd meant to say it was "reductionist." Oops.) In fact, I wrote up a page of counter-comments during class, which I plan to use when I go see him tomorrow.

(At least, that's what I hope to do. I accidentally left the actual essay in Professor J's office, so I'm going to have to get it back first. He should be in, though, so that shouldn't be a problem.)

With that having been said, I got an A.

So I somehow ended up with 29 points, out of a possible 35. Which, by my calculations, is roughly equivalent to a B-.

All I'm going to say is that she was being extremely generous in grading this thing. Extremely, extremely, extremely.

Now, those 35 points are literally 35% of the final grade, meaning that I'm six points down overall. Now, another 40% will be the final, which is going to be a take-home exam, consisting of two essays. If it's going to be graded anything like the midterm was, I'll be okay.

The last 25% will be class participation. I have yet to utter a single syllable in this class. I remain doomed. <wry smile>

May I remind you that this wasn't even visible on the horizon a couple of weeks ago?

In the meantime, the brother who got married this summer is trying to find a way to buy the house the family's moving out of. The catch is that my father needs the money from the old house in order to buy the new house, so he's trying to raise enough cash to pull it off. I'm not incredibly optimistic about his chances, but I'm certainly rooting for him.

'Course, this comes just when I was going to turn to him for a one-month loan, so I could pay my rent this month, to be paid back once I finally get that student loan. (Speaking of which, my uncle the accountant is now finally doing my father's taxes, and says he will have them done this week, after which I can get this show on the road.) But a friend just offered to help out with that, if necessary, so I won't be evicted, if it comes to that.