Busy, busy, busy

I haven't blogged for a while because I have been (and continue to be) squished under the weight of assignments, exams and other academic pursuits that I need to deal with before I can be FREE!

But I had to have a whinge today, as I was up late last night working on an assignment that was due in today, and after dragging myself out of bed, still sleep-deprived, to put the finishing touches on said assignment, and then print it out to submit, disaster struck.

What is it about computers and photocopiers that they seem to have a sixth sense, and can tell when you are stressed, and working to a deadline, and so pick the most awkward moment to spit the dummy? Today as I was printing out the numerous and varied components of this particular assignment, trying to be very systematic and not forget to print any of the parts ... about 2/3 of the way through, the printer apparently ran out of ink.

No problemo, as I whipped out my trusty cartridge refill kit, and proceeded to top up the black cartridge...

Yes problemo, as the wretched thing still wouldn't print... I tried every trick in the book to get it to work: realigned the cartridges, did a maintenance cleaning cycle, even administered mouth to mouth on the cartridge (to blow the ink down, to get it flowing again)... all to no avail!

So, about to lose it, I decided to take desperate measures, and ran out to the car, drove to Officeworks and BOUGHT a new cartridge. Thankfully, this fixed the whole printer issue, so the printer was able to resume printing where I left off... until...

One particular document just wouldn't open to be printed, and of course, this was the main overview of the whole project, so I couldn't get away without it. Somehow in the process of transferring it from my laptop (which is a better, faster computer that I use downstairs to do all the work on) via USB drive to the desktop computer (which is slower, clunkier, but attached to the internet and printer, upstairs), something weird happened, and it wouldn't open. And as if that wasn't enough, for some reason I had lost a significant chunk from the document on the laptop, which I then had to quickly try to recreate (grrrr), and then after a few unsuccessful attempts, had to find another USB drive and transfer it on that, which thankfully worked...

But all this mucking around meant that I wasted a good hour or more that I really can't afford (and heaven knows how my blood pressure fared in the process)... oh well, at least that assignment is now all printed out and submitted... One down... 4 more to go (including two essays, a written exam and an oral assessment) ... all by Friday.

So Friday, being the day of our College Valedictory celebrations, is definitely going to be a royal Stuff the Diet Day*, and I think I really will need to drink a lot of alcohol at the Valedictory dinner, to celebrate the almost-end of all this study, and surviving to the end of this week!

*and for anyone wanting an update on the diet, I've now lost about 14kg... which is a bit over 2 stone in Imperial