August Recap: The Biggest Mistake

As I mentioned in my last recap, I didn't think I was going to have a lot of time to blog in August. Well, it turned out even worse than I expected because I ended up having no time at ALL to blog this month. And unfortunately, I'm only going be busier in the month of September (more on that later).


A major factor keeping me down this month was due to a most unfortunate incident and what may be THE biggest and most expensive mistake of my life... I spilled coffee all over my laptop in which all my thesis files are stored (and which I haven't backed up in some time)! F.M.L.

My set-up for drying out my laptop

So yeah. My laptop is currently in the hands of a skilled repairman and I have been without it for over three weeks now. What I consider even more important than my laptop is all of my thesis files, however, and after being scared sh*tless that I had potentially lost all the progress I had made on my thesis these past few months, I am happy to report that the repair guy was recently able to retrieve all the files stored on my laptop's hard-drive.

Unfortunately, this good news comes too late for me and I will no longer be able to defend my thesis and complete my master's degree in the next month as I had hoped. As a result, I will now have to pay another full semester's tuition, in addition to having to buy another laptop, thus making this incident possibly the biggest and most expensive mistake of my life... Life sucks sometimes.

So if you'll excuse me, I'd like to take this moment to preach at all of you: BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER. DO IT NOW. I literally thought about doing it just the day prior to the incident and then I got distracted. Don't let this happen! Think about the consequences of my own stupidity and do it NOW and do it regularly. Because you just never know...


Anyways, I did have some brief periods of fun this month between all this stress. Starting on the 1st of August, it was my birthday! My mum made the last minute decision to fly out east to visit me so I wouldn't be alone on my birthday and we ended up making the best of the long weekend. For my birthday we went to see a production of Kinky Boots in the theatre district and it should go without saying that it was a hella entertaining show:

Kinky Boots!

Also in August, my friend Ambur of Burning Impossibly Bright moved to Toronto to pursue her publishing dreams and I was thrilled to get to hang out with her a few times this month:

Freezie excitement

Happiness! Ambur is so lovely and so easy to talk to. I loved showing her around downtown Toronto and shopping for "grownup" clothes for my new job, and I look forward to more fun times with her in Toronto!


I did have some time to read in August (honestly I needed to read to escape from the stress so I made time for it), but I can't think of one book that stood out as the BEST of the month for me. So here are a few books that I equally enjoyed from August, all solid 4 Star reads, and that I will hopefully be able to review sometime... eventually:

So yes, as I said I don't expect to be super active on the blog for September as I will be trying to make up the time lost not working on my thesis due to my computer issues. And then there's my new job...

I haven't shared much about it because it's still so surreal to me that I've been given this opportunity: this fall I will be a course instructor at the university, lecturing 3 hours a week to 150 students. I'm obviously hugely under-qualified for this job (they wanted someone with a PhD and a teaching degree and instead they're getting some schlub who hasn't even finished her master's degree), so I was clearly the only one who applied for the job. It's going to be a lot of work for very little pay (the university doesn't have to pay grad students very much - see my post about the grad student strike from earlier on this year), but I am prepared to put my everything into this position. So in addition to completing my thesis and working on a conference talk, I have been preparing lectures, exams, and assignments for the semester. I am both extremely excited and extremely terrified by the responsibility I have been given for this job! But it will likely result in less blog posting for the remainder of the year. I will be doing my best to catch up with all my blog friends in the months to come though! Miss you guys, lots and lots!!

Previously, my July Recap: The Long Overdue Harry Potter Reread