Better Than a Stick in the Eye

I went from being in a well-rested post-long-weekend state to a stressed, hot and annoyed state in the course of a few short hours. My co-workers are all sick, on vacation, or just absent, leaving me to do 100% of the workstation / misc. support around the salt mine today. Then two things happened:

1. I spilled raspberry jam on my crotch.
2. I got something sharp and hurty in my eye and I can't get it out.

Neither of these events improved my mood at all.

On the up side, I'm feeling slightly better about the coming year. I have a clearer idea of what I'm really interested in and how I might go about studying it.* I just officially signed up for my readings w/ the Red Terror of Histcon. And I'm starting to get just sick enough of being in IT to want to be back in academia...

Also, my brother in-law sent me this picture:


Thanks, T.

* In one sentence: did the revolutionary imperative within leftist political ideology in modern European history handicap efficacious politics, or did it instead inspire an effective kind of intransigence in the parties of the left and/or force the right to institute the welfare state in order to sap the strength of more overtly threatening forms of leftism?

It's too big, too broad, too ungainly, and impossible to answer. In other words, it's got all the fixins' of a classic academic history thesis topic.