Rain and Cicero

Today, it rained.

Quite a lot, as it happens. Almost all day, in fact. But not *proper* rain.. just spittings and smatterings (or spitterings and smattings, if you prefer..), enough to make the ground (and the bottoms of trousers) wet and the sky grey and the inside muggy and a bit whiffy.

It was also my dad's birthday, and the birthday of my friend Lucy, who is now 18. A thought which is not a little alarming, given just how long I have known her (for as long as I can remember, and then some).

But apart from the presents and the card giving and such like (and the hilarity over the pornographic playing cards she was given at lunch, which I sort of missed because I was on a mission to finish the Monopoly cards in Classics Society), not much happened apart from the rain.

And then the usual deal ensued, whereby I get home and immediately (or there abouts) get drawn into making tea etc and don't get to actually do anything I need to do, or indeed, even go upstairs, until the process is all sorted.

I watched 15 minutes of Jules et Jim before having to serve tea, my brother and father being their usual highly unhelpful selves.

Then I went back to Jules et Jim, along with some ironing so I didn't feel like I wasn't doing anything.

I didn't finish the film, though, because once I finished the ironing I felt like I was stealing the lounge away from my mum.

Which is ridiculous, because it's not like I am watching the film for fun.. I am watching it because in three weeks, I have to be able to write an essay on it. In French. But I still felt guilty.

So I went upstairs to revise Cicero.

Panic followed when I couldn't find my carefully printed-out sheets of the whole text which I had been annotating as I translated so that I can learn the bits I don't know better.

Sadly, there is no happy ending to this tale as I still haven't found the bastards.

I don't know whats been up the past few days. I just haven't felt like I've been doing any worthwhile work, that I'm going to fail my exams even. It feels like this term has been all wrong and that I haven't done nearly enough revision, nor am I going to get it done now.

Basically, I feel like I am going to fail the most important exams of my life.

And saying that does not fill me with joy.