i find it considerably ironic that one of the few things i can do from a lab computer, besides checking my email, is to update my journal. for those who haven't heard from von my laptop has given up the ghost and various technical people are trying to resuscitate it but in the meantime my lost thesis AND the pressing deadline has just been a bigger blow than i can describe. i'm very calm about all this now because, as poach counselled, don't look back, just try to get an extension and write afresh. i suppose - even the practical inconveniences and the pressing deadline and the importance of a thesis is not so much to me as the loss of words. not merely of the written parts of the thesis but the work of a year - of every idea and quote that generated a stream of thoughts, all that - the words you can't write a second time - not the same way - and letters too - and such. i wish i were more distressed outwardly and can go throw myself on the mercy of the english department. but there's a switch in me that has flipped over to extreme calmness think-not-cry mode so i'm alright. except for knocking over a boiling kettle and scalding my thigh in my frazzlement. and to say that the perfidy of machines ought to be good justification for investing in a chisel and some stone tablets.