orichalcum

On the subject of earworms....

so, I've recently been reading the YA fantasy book "How to Ditch Your Fairy," by Justine Larbalestier. The central conceit is that most people in the city (vaguely modern Australian/American) have a fairy that gives them a special fairy. Our heroine, for instance, has a parking-space fairy, who always finds the perfect parking space - which sounds good, except that she's 14, hates cars, and is constantly getting dragged along on errands by folks who _do_ want a good parking space. It's not the best novel ever, but it does some nice playing around with language, has a world that is richer around the edges than you get to see (which I always like), and has a female heroine who wants to make the basketball team even more than she wants to get the boy.

One of the other girls in the story has a "all-the-boys-like-you" fairy - again, sounds good, but... As a result, I have gotten Kelis's "Milkshake" stuck on repeat in my head. This is slightly annoying. I feel that it has also contributed to my desire to actually drink a milkshake - which may also be influenced by the fact that the frakking cold has turned into sinusitis, gadzooks, and I think this is connected to a sudden massive return in the nausea, combined (because this makes everything better) with the Hobbit diet, in which I get desperately hungry every two hours for small amounts of food. Basically, the last few days have involved coughing until I vomit, then desperately eating and trying to stave off the next episode, while ignoring the massive ball of pain between my eyebrows. Even my birthday Scharffenberger chocolate failed to help.

I wish I could take Sudafed.

Tomorrow, I teach my sections for the first time. I'm going to show them the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" clip from Monty Python's The Life of Brian, because I can't think of anything that sums up the central question of the course - was ancient imperialism a good thing - better in under a minute.

Presuming my head doesn't explode.