So remember how a couple of months ago, I had this eye infection? Well, I've woken up with the same thing --- in the same eye. It's totally my fault. I remember vaguely rubbing my eye last night before I turned over to go to sleep, and if I'm not wrong, even in his sleep, drugged daze (Terz has been home sick for two days and heavily medicated in that time), my husband growled at me for it. No use, man. I'm incorrigible once I pick up a bad habit. Just ask my mom. To this day, if my nails aren't polished or at least covered with varnish, I'll be chewing on them till thre's quite literally nothing left to chew on. I'm not sure when I picked up the eye-rubbing thing, but I know that it was conscious and it was some time before I went off to college. And now Terz is trying to break me of both habits.

Anyways.

So instead of hopping into the shower, as I usually do once I get up, I started doing the warm-cloth-over-the-eye thing, so that hopefully I don't look too much like a hideous ogre when I go down to the doctor's at 8:30. I don't think the warm cloth is helping much this morning, which means my hopes that I'll look normal enough to make it to work by ten-ish are likely over-optimistic.

As it is, I'm going to have to call a colleague to have him fill in for me. I'm supposed to be coordinating a small briefing this morning for two visitors from the Hong Kong Education Department --- someone else is going to have to pour tea and make with the small talk for me, 'cause it's scheduled to start at 9:30 and I'll be lucky if the swelling's gone down by then. I also have a Very Important Meeting at 10:15 (it's for everyone in Public Affairs) and then a lunchtime media dialogue that involves our Ministry bigwigs, members of the press, and (again) everyone in Public Affairs. This, on top of the your regularly scheduled public outcry over this and that. I can't go into the details, alas, but if you read the local papers, you'll know what I'm talking about and yes, I'm working on that case.

The not-fun part about being in Public Affairs, truly, is that I can't tell stories anymore. Bah.

Terz's going to the doctor with me. He needs more medical leave. He's got a very peculiar flu, and the doctor did say on Monday morning that she thought it was going to be a really pernicious bug, and last night he was suspecting tonsillitis. I'm trying not to catch his flu because I really can't afford to be out that long.

While I'm here, I might as well catch up on the last two days. Work has been horrendously busy because of the case I can't talk about (see three paragraphs above). Monday night, however, was a happy evening for me because I finally sat down and watched the pilot and second episode of The West Wing. I missed them when they were broadcast here because I was trying not to pick up a new TV series at the time and so I adamantly refused to watch it even though I'd heard all the good things about it from the US. How foolish I was, I know. Now I can say I've seen Bartlet do the First Commandment (and then some), and even Mandy's not as irritating as I thought she would be. Her presence is jarring more because I know her character inexplicably vanishes in season two than for any other reason; watching season one with her is like watching what you know is the ensemble cast and then wondering, hey, what's this extra appendage they've got? (Does that make Mandy the appendix of the season one cast?)

It was also refreshing to get a dose of TWW when the third season hasn't hit our TV screens yet. I can't wait. My cousin's got the season finale of season two on tape and those are the other episodes I'm going to re-watch next. They should show TWW all year round, not to mention release it on DVD and everything. Oh, and they should make it a point to end the show while it's on a high, thankyouverymuch, not slipping into an unstoppable, misguided free-fall like the chronicles of a certain vampire slayer.

Speaking of said vampire slayer, last night's episode was not bad only because I remembered (at the start) that it was the ep where Buffy tells off the entire Council of Watchers at the end, so I lingered to watch it. The knights were pretty bad, though. I like the idea that there are two 'bad' guys going after Dawn, so what's the deal with that, and are the knights bad or misguided or is there a third category besides good and bad --- but knights? Come on!

Fortunately, the good central episodes of the season are coming out. I don't think I can take much more of this paltry plotless stuff. And have I mentioned how much Glory irritates me?

Public Service Announcement: If you didn't know already, MightyBigTV.com has become TelevisionWithoutPity.com. However, the old domain name will link to the new one, so you don't have to remember the new one much. In fact, the old Dawnson's Wrap domain is still there, now linked to TWoP instead of MBTV.

I'm done. Gotta start calling colleagues to let them know what's up with me for today.