A resolution of sorts

Today was not a great day. For one thing it was far too full of non-enjoyable lectures, including four hours of one lecturer over two different courses (a lecture + 2 hours computer class for one course and one hour lecture for the other), this being a lecturer who, though he's perfectly friendly and willing to help, I've somehow taken something of a dislike to. This is in large part due to the computer class of two weeks ago, where he was almost angry with the class for not having a particular textbook even though he'd never said this was a compulsory book, only that it was highly recommended. He expected us to have it because it had the exercises in and he wasn't going to put them in the public folders like any other lecturer. Bad enough, except that you might say perhaps he couldn't put the exercises in the folders due to copyright issues as the work wasn't his own. But in actual fact, it was his own. He'd made his own book compulsory. Now, I'm sure this wasn't why he'd done it, but it stuck in the throat to a great degree to be asked to fork out £40 in order to get the exercises for the course, of which some (if not much) would go in royalties to the very person who was already being paid to teach us a course for which we were being charged £8,000. It seems to me that you shouldn't have to pay over and above that £8,000 for essential parts of the course and if you do then there certainly shouldn't be any portion of it going to the same person who's teaching the course. But anyway. This was the first computer course since that one (in alternate weeks it's three hours of lectures instead), and I was pleased to note that he had at least taken on board what was said at the Staff Student Liaison Committee and put the exercises in the public folders this time, though he didn't make any guarantee that he would continue to do so. I hadn't bought the book on purpose; I was probably going to eventually before he made it compulsory but then I refused on principle. So this saved me having to photocopy large chunks of it in the library (I came in early and checked the public folders so I was prepared). But the computer class still wasn't great because he always buries the examples of the commands we need in the main lecture notes, without any very clear explaination of what they do, and so I'd often search fruitlessly before finally having to stick up my hand (the help function on STATA is a bit useless) and having him mention between telling me what to do that it was in the notes somewhere (though not in an unpleasant way).

And the day finished off with what should have been two hours' Regression computer class, though mercifully it was only an hour and a half since the lecturer decided there was stuff he couldn't do as we missed having a lecture yesterday because of the blackout. Regression is another rather hopeless computer class; I'm fine with R, which we usually use, but somehow can never work out what we're supposed to do without looking at the answers (which show what we need to type) or more usually copying as the lecturer gets the graduate teaching assistant to do it on the projector. In a way I wish he'd give us a chance to try it for ourselves rather than just telling us what to do- but in the moments when that threatens to happen (it never does, but he often says he'll let us try it for ourselves and waits all of a minute before he starts doing it on the board, which believe me is not enough) I get quite scared because I don't have the faintest idea where to begin and am secretly and ashamedly glad when it goes up on the board (though it's hard to keep up with the typing, having to look at the main screen as well as your own).

It was especially good that Regression finished early today because I was planning to go to the dance show that the Dance Society was doing for RAG Week. The doors opened at 6.45 supposedly, so I was able to get down there in plenty of time. It was quite a short show- just half an hour per act, if that's the right word, with a 15 minute interval between. There was some pretty good stuff in there, including some amazing break dancing, and a send up of flashdance done by a man, but one or two of the acts were so-so and the music quality was very bad for one of the numbers. It was definitely worth seeing though. They had a gimmick whereby when the audience applauded after each dance a girl pointed to one of three sections of a 'dial' to show how the audience had rated it, judging by the applause, but although the applause did vary a reasonable amount the girl always pointed to the best end of the dial, so I'm not sure there was a lot of point to it.

That leaves the middle of the day, 12-3. I'd been planning to finally take AH and D up on the offer to come to the Government Common Room and do some work- I even had the journal articles I needed to read all printed out from when I was in the library checking whether I needed to photocopy that book for the computer class- but then I remembered that AH would be doing the RAG stall, which I'd offered to help with some time during the week when we were talking after the protest (or it may have been before, when we were preparing for it), and about which I'd emailed him to give the times I was free, as asked, only I hadn't heard back. So I went along to see if they still needed help, and ended up staying for most of the three hours, though sadly AH wasn't around that much- he was busy some of the time with stuff for the stall that took him away from the stall, and the rest of the time I think he was doing some work or something. Still, it was fun anyway. Trade was quite slow to begin with but picked up in the second half of my time there- though most of the people who bought shirts I saw later wearing them in the dance show- I think most of what we sold was used for costumes (in many cases inventively cut into new shapes).

It was nice to see AH again, and he was even better than I remembered, but it wasn't unambiguously happy; in fact most of the time I wasn't happy at all. We didn't seem to be getting on like we were last week; I couldn't decide if it was due to me or to him or to both, and whichever, whether it was due to what had happened in between or not, and if the former exactly which part of what had happened and in what way it was affecting things. But whether or not he was there, and not only on the stall but in the lectures, I was still really annoyed with myself for the mistake I made about the hide button, and kept on turning it over and over and concluding afresh every time that it was irremediable. Not that I thought it was necessarily anything more than friendship that I'd scuppered- it probably wasn't. But since things seemed to be cooler, I couldn't help feeling that it was probably either the poke or the mistake or both. And even though had I done nothing I would have blamed myself for not taking a risk and asked how I could ever expect anything to happen if I wouldn't, with the knowledge of what had happened when I had I really wished I had just left things as they were at the end of the protest, and not poked- that way I would still have the friendship and that was really important. And I was pretty sure now that friendship was all that had been intended.
In the end, after the lecturer left Regression and before I went to the dance show I decided to send him a message explaining how hiding the poke had been accidental. It was quite an awkward message to write, especially since neither of us had referred to any of the events when we met in person, but it could have come out worse. I managed to write something that was fairly light-hearted in tone, if that's the right word, and didn't actually make explicit whether the poking had been serious or as a joke between friends. And I did feel better for it. He hasn't written back yet, and to tell the truth I'm rather dreading the idea of a reply- I'm glad to have made sure that the situation as regards the hiding is clear but seeing as how he'll probably be writing in a purely platonic spirit, and how I imagine what I sent would be quite a hard message to think of anything to respond to, I can imagine that on reading a reply I'll just be cringing with the memory of everything up to and including my message. I'd rather know that it's sorted but forget about it, and go back to admiring him in secret for a bit before forcing myself to get over him.

I phoned Ginger this evening, something I don't do much- we usually communicate by text, and meet up most weeks- because I couldn't wait till Thursday to tell her all about the AH situation- it was just going round in circles in my head and I'd have to duck into a cringe every time it came by. I felt a lot better for speaking to her- at least she thought I wasn't being a complete fantasist to imagine there might possibly be something behind the various things I mentioned before that happened last Thursday (indeed she said that she thought he had probably been giving out Signals, as opposed to signals, though it could just have been the way I described it), so I didn't feel like it had been so mad of me to try and see if there was anything there, and the way she put it there were not many possible permutations of how he felt, how/ why he acted, what he had seen of my actions that left me looking like a lunatic so that cheered me up. She made it sound as though the friendship was not definitely forfeited, and all I had to do was act normally (not so easy but I will try) and over time it would all be forgotten. I really felt much better after that, and since my future plans do not involve any further risky/possibly cringeworthy actions in this situation, there's really nothing to fear now, and nothing to stand in the way of forgetting all about it, except his reply to that message (unless he doesn't reply of course). And of course the regret I shall feel for some time that it was not to be...