my best friend

tonight, i was crawling into bed hours earlier than normal at 9:30pm. feeling grey. down. just plain bad.

i got an AB in my south african oral and written literature class. the first literature class i have ever gotten anything with an "b" in it. it was exactly the grade i deserved. my paper was sloppy and disorganized. i was expecting it. the grade doesn't upset me as much as the thought that i disappointed a professor in that way. a professor who laughed at me when i apologized for turning in a mediocre paper (after he asked me how it went?), because he seemed to think i was incapable of turning in bad work. (showed him...) i've actually been feeling grey since i handed the paper in last week. i've had a tough semester. i was sick at the beginning. i had three out of town trips. two conferences, four classes, a thesis in limbo. i tried to do too many things at once. that paper just never quite happened in the way that it should have. i just couldn't quite make myself write it. i will go see my professor and apologize so that he doesn't think i've turned into a slacker, but i won't make excuses and i won't ask for any favours. i don't do that.

just as i was tucking myself in, the phone rings and it is R. As if she knows that i need her at this very moment. i blab it all out. she makes sympathetic sounds and sings to me. i cry. i say i'm getting burnt out and need to get out of school. she agrees. that she noticed i seemed tired over thanksgiving. but yet, the end is in sight. the possibility of finishing coursework next semester and taking prelims by the end of summer is there. we talk for another two and a half hours. and it all feels so much better now. i love R. so much. if it weren't for her, i would have been lost years ago.