in which I have a plan

I have now drawn up a plan for all the days until the end of exams. There are ten. Quite a lot of them are devoted to doing The Mid-Victorian Timeline, which is my quixotic attempt to learn the dates of every published text and important event in England between 1847 and 1872. This is actually useful, because it's a period paper and the examiners do not take kindly to being told that some of "Little Dorrit" seems like a parody of Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies" (because "Little Dorrit" was serialised between 1855 and 1857 and the Ruskin lectures were given in 1865, obv), but mostly I like doing it because it reminds me nostalgically of studying for tests in high school. It is playing havoc with my social skills though, particularly with Vicky's college son, whom I constantly find myself lecturing on mid-Victorian social life. Last week I told him about Chartism, and yesterday it was the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864. I don't know why I feel he needs to know these things; he has his own exams to worry about, none of which have anything to do with 19th-century government initiatives against STDs.

Vicky herself has become superstitious of learning things that are unrelated to her exams, and will tell people to "stop saying information". This didn't stop her from telling us about the black hole generator that Scientists have hidden somewhere in Oxfordshire, and which they're planning to turn on in a year's time, potentially destroying the known universe. I cannot find this anywhere on the internet (searching for "black hole generator oxfordshire") and thus believe she's gotten mixed up somewhere. Hopefully, anyway. Any information on the black hole generator gratefully received.

I've ended up having seven cups of tea today (one for breakfast, two watching Peep Show with a gently hungover Sam, a three-cup pot at First Class Teas while reading Sophocles' Electra, and one with Vicky, vets, Tom and Iona just now) and am now going for a run to work off the caffeine. Then we're going to go to Nando's and have giant basketfuls of chicken, as no one can be bothered to cook. Exam term is, weirdly, so much nicer this year.