Tell me where all past years are

The library is gloriously empty on the Saturday after undergrad finals, but so is the coffee stand downstairs. I ventured over to the student deli where the kindly lady with limited English ringing me up asked if I was done. I told her no; I am a grad student (assuming that perhaps she knew the grad school will be open for about another week).

"Oh, you are never done? That is alright. Your time will come, too."

Thanks, coffee lady. <3

I'm distracting myself from semester-end panic and T-related upset by thinking about living in a prettier apartment next year with Lucy. This one is not terrible, just a bit ugly and soul-less. We visited one today across the hall from Christina and her German shepherd - the construction reminds me of Ball Hall; pretty, from the 30s, and crumbling slightly, but with less splintery wood floors.

Also today I distracted myself from the library with eating-with-people, specifically massive quantities of Brazilian meat on swords. Yes. Then with movies - Stephen Fry really is Oscar Wilde and I have a new favorite thing he said, if only for the medievalism / mendicants double word score.

But the end is still one entirely untouched paper and two severe edits away, thanks to my semesters running later than most and to an extension not so much asked for as required, so I'm not counting down just yet.

So Siegfried - I'm seeing the Otto Schenk production at the Met - was intense. It has funny bits, unlike the others, but somehow I don't even know how long we were there - n.b. this was a matinee. The sun was thinking about setting when we left - and am now exhausted. The dragon still looks like a crab. However, I think I want to adopt James Morris / Wotan as an uncle or something. That, or be him, and wander around in the eye patch with the spear for fun.

Also, passed Latin exam! Not glowingly, alas for my ego, but it's enough.

Itunes reset on my new computer obviously, so these are the top 7 most-played songs on it now, which is pretty limited - no time to listen to music gotta read all day! But yes.

1. Hold It All at Bay / Joyful Sign - Girlyman (they are tied and there is so much Girlyman on this list, yes Ellen I know you are the best <3)
2. Caught in the Rain - October Fall
3. St. Peter's Bones - Girlyman (now with more Catholicism!)
4. Academic Festival Overture - Johannes Brahams
5. Anything You Want - Spoon
6. The Night Starts Here - Stars
7. Miss You Bow Wow - Girls Aloud

In other news, there's pretty snow! I might try to go to the Cloisters tomorrow morning in an irresponsible manner, because I have this dream of sipping tea and reading something academic next to the orange trees in a cloister, looking out into a snow-covered medieval walled garden... I mean who doesn't, right?

"Already by the fifth century B.C. the epic poet Choerilus could pen verses complaining, with allusions to Homer, that everything had already been apportioned, the arts had reached their limits, there was nowhere to go and nothing left to say. The classical tradition classicized from the very beginning..."

From Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea: because I just finished rereading Busman's Honeymoon for the nth time and because more Derek Walcott is coming up the queue soon ("the classics can console...")

It's that time of year again: ( the year-in-review kind of time! )
( Books in 2008 )

I am so close to done, but the motivation is lacking. Also it's possible my body is having its sweet revenge for all that not-sleeping I did over the past two weeks. 12 annotations, 3-4 more pages of introduction, and probably some more bibliography because clearly 86 sources is insufficient stand between me and my train ticket home for Tuesday morning. Tragically all I really want to do is run around the city consuming unhealthy amounts of coffee and spending money I don't have, which is what I did for a glorious day and a half earlier this week, after turning in my final papers and having my final class (in a bar.) Anyway, pictures:

( Read more... )

walking with medievalists out of the Christmas Party into falling snow and a spontaneous chorus of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," then crossing campus by myself to the sound of church bells tolling for the Cardinal's funeral mass.

Now, to finish this paper. Motivation, go.

First, Kim visited me in NYC and that was pretty great! Then I went home and ate a whole lot, also hung out with my family. Then I realized I have to write 50-some pages + several other major assignments + PhdD applications in the next three weeks, panicked, and went back to New York, where I promptly slept a whole lot on the theory that if I don't get out of bed the grad school monsters can't get me (this theory has yet to be demonstrated by science).

Have some pictures:
( one pretty )
( and one goofy. )

I miss MWC so much today, after a number of small history moments - I told the story about exploding monk towers, reading for today's class was mostly articles I read once upon a time for an undergrad class, on blurting out a semi-incorrect definition (of charters. The consistent boringness of charters is sort of a comfort to me.) and being told it was a "very English" answer. Oh, the things I don't know, they are vast. One of the professors got me coffee while I was working the department because I'm "still in the intimidated phase." Lots of the non-first-years are being kind. I still kind of feel like a charity case, though, and everything from the city to the people to the contents of my reading are unfamiliar.

Now that I'm finally done with the pictures I can finally write about them! ( This one time, I went to Italy. )

goes to the lady who said we were "nice, I'm sure, but I don't think you know what you're doing" because we couldn't ring her up using a coupon we had never seen nor heard of, which she claimed she got in an email, but didn't bother printing out and bringing along. This was after we'd already given her her free thing anyway; we just didn't not charge her for it in the way she imagined was correct.

It was a good next-to-last day overall, though, mostly because of good coworkers.

I am writing this on a Mac, which I have, in place of my 5-year-old Dell, which my brother has now inherited (for what it's worth). It's a more or less normal MacBook but 1. it is adorable, and 2. it is about 1000 times less clunky and more stable than my previous computing device. Things are taking a bit of getting used to, but Kim and my dad so far have been very patient about my "Help! How do I [do something really obvious]?" messages, possibly with that barely-restrained glee of one converting someone else to the cult that is this brand of machine. But hey, it's a pretty cult.

I just finished rereading Fire and Hemlock as my being-sick comfort book. I swear she has taken the garden from Four Quartets and put it in the yard of the fairy queen. For your consideration, ( several long quotes. )

ETA: It seems someone else on the internet thinks so too! As I was in an everything-reminds-me-of-Eliot phase when I first read it, I'd just thought I was crazy for the past seven years or so.

This photo from Radiohead last night (which I emphatically did not take) amazes me. It kind of reminds me of the Cowboy Bebop opening, although also of cold rain - worth it, but still several hours in a freezing wet mud-pit, soaking through five layers. Some of my things are still not dry.

I've been looking at pictures from Greece to make myself feel better about cold rain, annoying students, and how unprepared I am to leave the country in a week. I've also been thinking a lot of, "In a week, I'll be in Rome!"

Last night some kind of burning inspiration came to me as I was almost asleep so of course I forgot it, BUT THEN Mina's note to herself under similar circumstances reminded me. Does anyone know if it's a thing to have a simile in which something is compared to what it actually is? Examples forthcoming when I'm home with books.

It's beautiful outside, reminding me of some Horace I read last year around this time--I translated it then, too. But today I found a super-cute English version, the last stanza of which is, with appropriate substitutions for Teucer:

"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake
For promised lands of gold!
Brave lads, whatever storms may break,
We've weathered worse of old!
To-night the loving-cup we'll drain,
To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"

Hee. <3

This gets the brevity of the Latin better than a more literal translation, I think. Coming someday: thoughts about why I like meter so much, omg. The rest is here.

1. The kids actually did bring me cake. Aw. <3

2. Erudition Demolition: Round 2 tonight! The opener (unsurprisingly?) reminds me of nothing so much as Destroyer, but had an 'all roads lead to Rome' and a collective memory joke in the first song, so.

3. In a timely fashion, after Sneha talking about ladies in dresses yesterday, today an old man complimented my skirt and said how nice it was to see a young lady in a skirt rather than trousers. So ... yes. XD I was charmed! Despite the slight sketchiness!

4. Finished The Blind Assassin last night - after certain plot points fell into place I started enjoying it much more. It started pretty slow and (I mean, despite the suicide in the first chapter) somehow there wasn't much sense of urgency at first. But then it turned into one of those inexorable tragedies where the details, which were there all along, all end up mattering. I like those.

1. ERUDITION DEMOLITION. Kim and I are going to see Dan Bejar's band in the next couple weeks.

2. A couple pictures from last night. I'll put up the sakura matsuri ones soon.

Reasons my dad is the best, no. 2405: A friend asked him to "teach him about classical music." So of course he's gotten really into it, finding a sort of music appreciation 101 textbook and and sending the friend things to listen to for whatever that week's subject is.

I got in on the music-sending, and now I have a copy of the Agincourt hymn, which is exciting. Second only to the St. Crispin's Day speech for riling up that anti-French sentiment!

This is the camera I'm thinking of getting, a Canon Powershot A270. Actually what I *wanted* to do was get a G9--almost as expensive as a DSLR--and failing that, one of the cute tiny ones. This is tiny but not that tiny or that cute, but it's a *lot* cheaper for better features, somehow, than most of the ELPH cameras. I want something tinier, faster, and higher-quality than my current ancient (G2... XD) point-and-shoot, which really is most things. Buuuut. XD

Now the federal government just needs to send me the money to do this. Virginia already has; what are we waiting for?