Friday, January 16, 2004
From the three-point line...
It's up...
IT'S GOOD!
It is so good. I go in to the Freshman office, nonchalant but polite, and ask if I couldn't change my schedule a wee bit. Not a problem at all, she replies. Conflict? What? Oh! Yeah, you know how it is. Oh, I know. So what would you like to change? Well, I need to go from this group to this group, and then this one here to that one there.
Tap, tap, click on the keyboard. Done. You're grand.
No, you are. I go back to the board to draw up a new schedule for myself and see that there was another Friday class I didn't see. Well that's got to go. So I go back in. Out walks my Old English tutor. Hello, there. See you in a moment. He leaves. Hi, sorry, there was one I missed. Oh, no problem. Let's see it, then. Yes, I need to be in CCT group 3 (meets monday).
Tap tap click. There you go.
Bless you, woman. I'd send you roses if I had your address.
And we have a three-day weekend! Now to use it...
IT'S GOOD!
It is so good. I go in to the Freshman office, nonchalant but polite, and ask if I couldn't change my schedule a wee bit. Not a problem at all, she replies. Conflict? What? Oh! Yeah, you know how it is. Oh, I know. So what would you like to change? Well, I need to go from this group to this group, and then this one here to that one there.
Tap, tap, click on the keyboard. Done. You're grand.
No, you are. I go back to the board to draw up a new schedule for myself and see that there was another Friday class I didn't see. Well that's got to go. So I go back in. Out walks my Old English tutor. Hello, there. See you in a moment. He leaves. Hi, sorry, there was one I missed. Oh, no problem. Let's see it, then. Yes, I need to be in CCT group 3 (meets monday).
Tap tap click. There you go.
Bless you, woman. I'd send you roses if I had your address.
And we have a three-day weekend! Now to use it...
This is ambitious and, if it works, brilliant
So far, my new classes have not been stellar. Not stellar at all. The lectures are dry when not asinine, and two of the tutorials wholly unappealing: my Sin tutor (what a wonderful title. I want to be a sin tutor) who simply doesn't take up space--there's just no there there--would be a total non-entity, were it not for the fact that she takes up my time. And my Old English tutor, whom I have twice a week (yes, the one I said I liked sight unseen), well...if he does in fact possess a sense of humour, he certainly doesn't indicate it by laughing.
What to do? Well, until half an hour ago, after a depressing first foray into Sin (look for rather a welter of halfhearted jokes on this theme for the rest of the year), I come across Roz (my angel, remember?), who is frowning at the bulletin board where they put up all the courses and so forth. She says Did you know that you can change your tutorials? I said I did not know that. She said Yeah, just go into the Freshman Office right there and say you need to switch to this tutorial. She'll ask you for a reason, but that shouldn't be too hard (I wonder if having six Americans in a nine-person class is reason enough?). Just make one up. So I take out my schedule and set to rearranging. I find that with two little switches, I not only rid myself of the bad tutors, but I knock myself down to a FOUR-DAY WEEK. Monday through Thursday. I cut out one Wednesday class and both Friday classes, and now I can, any given weekend, go on a four-night vacation anywhere in Europe, catch a flight back to Dublin mid-morning on Monday, and be in time for my 1pm Theatre tutorial.
So then Roz sallies into the Freshman office and emerges not thirty seconds later, beaming. She just said she needed to change her classes because she got a job (un petit mensonge), the woman--a very nice woman, might I add--says All right, then, what do you need to change? Roz says This that and the other. The woman says Done. Thanks, says Roz.
I did not follow immediately after, because that was such a good excuse (though I feel Too many Americans to be even more worthy) that I decided to use it, and two freshly-minted wage slaves applying for virtually the same thing in two minutes might just look a little suspect. I shall head back over there in an hour or so, and then report back in to HQ here. It's very exciting.
Also Marie arrives on a 17h10 flight this evening, after which point there will probably be no blogging until Monday. But keep checking: I might just drop a little surprise on you.
What to do? Well, until half an hour ago, after a depressing first foray into Sin (look for rather a welter of halfhearted jokes on this theme for the rest of the year), I come across Roz (my angel, remember?), who is frowning at the bulletin board where they put up all the courses and so forth. She says Did you know that you can change your tutorials? I said I did not know that. She said Yeah, just go into the Freshman Office right there and say you need to switch to this tutorial. She'll ask you for a reason, but that shouldn't be too hard (I wonder if having six Americans in a nine-person class is reason enough?). Just make one up. So I take out my schedule and set to rearranging. I find that with two little switches, I not only rid myself of the bad tutors, but I knock myself down to a FOUR-DAY WEEK. Monday through Thursday. I cut out one Wednesday class and both Friday classes, and now I can, any given weekend, go on a four-night vacation anywhere in Europe, catch a flight back to Dublin mid-morning on Monday, and be in time for my 1pm Theatre tutorial.
So then Roz sallies into the Freshman office and emerges not thirty seconds later, beaming. She just said she needed to change her classes because she got a job (un petit mensonge), the woman--a very nice woman, might I add--says All right, then, what do you need to change? Roz says This that and the other. The woman says Done. Thanks, says Roz.
I did not follow immediately after, because that was such a good excuse (though I feel Too many Americans to be even more worthy) that I decided to use it, and two freshly-minted wage slaves applying for virtually the same thing in two minutes might just look a little suspect. I shall head back over there in an hour or so, and then report back in to HQ here. It's very exciting.
Also Marie arrives on a 17h10 flight this evening, after which point there will probably be no blogging until Monday. But keep checking: I might just drop a little surprise on you.
Woops
I had a little fight with Blogger yesterday over "My Bloody Foot Is Freezing," having published it twice, first without a title (accidentally), and then with a title, then trying to delete the former. Unfortunately, it didn't actually come off the page until this morning, which mean that all those lovely, much-appreciated comments Anna and Sam and Momma made have been deleted. So:
Anna: we do, mercifully, read Shamela. But truth to tell, I'd rather its reading not have been necessitated in the first place.
And Sam: I never imagined I'd hear you voicing such an absurd dilemma. I should have thought your riotous and bacchic adventures with Citigroup this summer would have more than slaked your thirst for Nietzche.
That made sense to everyone, right?
Anna: we do, mercifully, read Shamela. But truth to tell, I'd rather its reading not have been necessitated in the first place.
And Sam: I never imagined I'd hear you voicing such an absurd dilemma. I should have thought your riotous and bacchic adventures with Citigroup this summer would have more than slaked your thirst for Nietzche.
That made sense to everyone, right?
Because this is of absolutely vital importance
In September, the night before I left, I went out for a final drink with Nick at Mama's. I had these new shoes we'd bought in Kansas City a few weeks hitherto, but had never used them. They're good shoes, and they have these funky bumps on the insole that sort of aerate and massage the feet as you walk. So I decided to break them in by walking the mile to Mama's in them. This turned out to be a disaster: I had huge painful blisters on my ankles for weeks. The shoes chafed the back of the ankle with every step, and it hurt like hell. But I brought them to Dublin anyway, using them for short distances from time to time. I took to folding my sock back down over my heel to cushion the chafing, which turned out to work fairly well. But I still wasn't about to wear them all the way to college.
But after yesterday's wet-shoe debacle, I have taken them out of the stable, effectively retiring the black Merrills with the big gray M, which are past their racing days forever. And no hurt! Very happy.
But after yesterday's wet-shoe debacle, I have taken them out of the stable, effectively retiring the black Merrills with the big gray M, which are past their racing days forever. And no hurt! Very happy.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
My bloody foot is freezing.
There is definitely a hole in my right shoe. It has been raining all day and the wet is seeping in and soaking my sock. One cold moist shoe squishes, and I have just spent the most delightful morning.
Traffic this morning was a mess, as ever, and I ended up half an hour late for my 9am Critical and Cultural Theory lecture. Incidentally it just occured to me that the class should really be called Critical Theory, and that the Culture part of the title is just pretentious, since it in no way constitutes an element of the curriculum. Economy of verbiage, people! Superogatory prolixity and logorrhea are naughty naughty.
Again with the queer sarcasm. I really have to stop that. Maybe I'm just lazy.
So anyway, my morning. The CritCult lecture was a particularly dreadful one, even for that class. My heavenly androgyne is long gone, replaced by a woman considerably less inspiring. I walked in at half nine, heard the words "liberal humanism" and nearly turned around. In retrospect, I probably should have. What a waste of twenty minutes. I believe it's the first lecture since October where I haven't taken a single note. Even yesterday, during the horrendous lecture on The Hero (or, more accurately, the Heroine), I put pen to paper. Of course, I was writing the following:
"Well, this is all pretty solid bullshit so far.
"Hmm...yup, still bullshit.
"More bullshit? Yes please.
"This is absolutely fascinating. Wait, did I say fascinating? I meant bullshit.
"It smells like shit in here. I wonder why.
"No, no, see, actually, you need to stop talking now. Like that, yes. Thank you."
That one actually ranks as the worst lecture this year. We are supposed to be discussing the fucking Aeneid and she's bitching about James Bond. I thought there was a law against making an ass out of yourself by discussing Bond girls. At least there should be.
But for some reason, crap lectures tend to put me in good moods. This morning, after suffering through Matthew Arnold and his librul humanism, I went walking. I spent a good hour at the National Gallery (all museums in Dublin are free), which is a wonderful museum. There weren't many visitors, so it was all very quiet and peaceful. They have a whole room devoted to the Yeats family, whose artistic accomplishment does certainly not begin and end with William Butler. John Butler Yeats, the patriarch, was a brilliant portraitist, probably my favorite, and he did this one portrait of son William which I stood in front of for about ten minutes. It's really quite stunning when you see it face to face. Brother Jack B. was the dominant Irish painter for a good half-century. Daughter and granddaughter Lily and Anne were also reknowned artists in their own right. Basically it's a dynasty no one outside of Ireland has ever heard of. I think I may go back every week.
So I wandered through the museum, very happy, finally leaving to go in search of the National Library. My shoe is squishing the whole time. Wet feet. It's just a slow amble down Merrion Square street, past the Dail and the Office of the Taoiseach, a brief stop into the very cute National Museum of Natural History, which is small and just a lot of taxidermied furry animals crammed into one floor. You do it in five minutes. So I make it to the National library by half eleven. It's quite small. I wanted to see it mostly because episode nine of Ulysses takes place there, with Steven and Buck Mulligan and AE and John Eglinton having a talk. It's where Steven lays out his theory on Hamlet. It turns out to be a research library, and for me to use it I have to have a letter from a tutor saying that I need a particular book. Same goes for the Old Library at college (though some of us are plotting to concoct a valid-sounding excuse to take out some ancient manuscript and we are feeling very devious and cunning). But I'm allowed to pop my head into the reading room briefly, and it turns out that it's a very attractive, classical, green-ceilinged rotunda with great oak tables and a ring of books all round the upper level. It's considerably more pleasant than the reading room at college, I'm sure, and I shall have to make use of it sometime in the future. The thing is that I really can't see four men, four animated, passionate men, being allowed to have a conversation in there and not be thrown out on their arses for disturbing the peace.
I apologize for the lack of wit in the past few paragraphs. This morning's not been a subject that particulary begs it. It's just that since Nick's visit reminded of the pleasures of exploring, I'm feeling considerably more romantic. But I know I'm not being read for my romantic tendencies. If anything, I'm being read for my habitual lack of them. I suppose that's one of the problems with the medium. I said once that a blog was superior to a personal diary because when you write in a diary, you're never altogether sure who you're writing for, whereas with a blog, you know you're being read. You're not writing for yourself at all. Furthermore you're being constantly criticized. As with any medium, you have to keep the audience's attention, which does put a certain strain on you. It keeps you from getting lazy--or at the very least, it makes you paranoid. But frankly laziness is a much more powerful force than paranoia. So I must think of something to be acerbic about.
There have been interesting things since the last post, really. For one, I've realized exactly what I want out of this college. It's not education. It's not connections. It's not experience. It's prestige. That's the one thing I can't get for myself. I want wood paneling and robes and cobblestones and documents Latin and young scholars confidently striding four abreast across Parliament square to a lecture delivered by some fierce-haired old don. I got two of those things yesterday: first, I discovered another place to eat. The main dining hall, which, for some reason, no one ever uses, is a massive hall with thick wood tables and a fifty-foot ceiling, with gigantic paintings of former chancellors, dating back to the 1600's, all around the room. It's all wood paneling, and it's nearly empty. Very peaceful and prestigious. It was delightful in the extreme. And secondly, apparently the provost wears a cape. Yes, a cape. No, not like Superman. Like a scholar. He does the robes and everything. How cool is that?
Oh yes, and one more thing: this evening, in the high-ceilinged Rococo exam hall, which I would guess dates from the 1700's, there is a Trinity vs. Cambridge boxing match on. I think I shall have to go. Caesar's Palace is one thing, the Exam Hall is quite another.
I would blather on, but I have Sin in five minutes.
Okay, it's called Sin and Redemption, but I highly doubt anyone's all that interested in the latter half. But then again, given that the books are Piers Plowman and the ghastly Pamela (the bane of every English major; it seems that the English major's purpose in life is to read these books so that no one else has to), it doesn't look like the sinning's going to be as juicy as it should be. Bah. I'll have to go find my own.
Traffic this morning was a mess, as ever, and I ended up half an hour late for my 9am Critical and Cultural Theory lecture. Incidentally it just occured to me that the class should really be called Critical Theory, and that the Culture part of the title is just pretentious, since it in no way constitutes an element of the curriculum. Economy of verbiage, people! Superogatory prolixity and logorrhea are naughty naughty.
Again with the queer sarcasm. I really have to stop that. Maybe I'm just lazy.
So anyway, my morning. The CritCult lecture was a particularly dreadful one, even for that class. My heavenly androgyne is long gone, replaced by a woman considerably less inspiring. I walked in at half nine, heard the words "liberal humanism" and nearly turned around. In retrospect, I probably should have. What a waste of twenty minutes. I believe it's the first lecture since October where I haven't taken a single note. Even yesterday, during the horrendous lecture on The Hero (or, more accurately, the Heroine), I put pen to paper. Of course, I was writing the following:
"Well, this is all pretty solid bullshit so far.
"Hmm...yup, still bullshit.
"More bullshit? Yes please.
"This is absolutely fascinating. Wait, did I say fascinating? I meant bullshit.
"It smells like shit in here. I wonder why.
"No, no, see, actually, you need to stop talking now. Like that, yes. Thank you."
That one actually ranks as the worst lecture this year. We are supposed to be discussing the fucking Aeneid and she's bitching about James Bond. I thought there was a law against making an ass out of yourself by discussing Bond girls. At least there should be.
But for some reason, crap lectures tend to put me in good moods. This morning, after suffering through Matthew Arnold and his librul humanism, I went walking. I spent a good hour at the National Gallery (all museums in Dublin are free), which is a wonderful museum. There weren't many visitors, so it was all very quiet and peaceful. They have a whole room devoted to the Yeats family, whose artistic accomplishment does certainly not begin and end with William Butler. John Butler Yeats, the patriarch, was a brilliant portraitist, probably my favorite, and he did this one portrait of son William which I stood in front of for about ten minutes. It's really quite stunning when you see it face to face. Brother Jack B. was the dominant Irish painter for a good half-century. Daughter and granddaughter Lily and Anne were also reknowned artists in their own right. Basically it's a dynasty no one outside of Ireland has ever heard of. I think I may go back every week.
So I wandered through the museum, very happy, finally leaving to go in search of the National Library. My shoe is squishing the whole time. Wet feet. It's just a slow amble down Merrion Square street, past the Dail and the Office of the Taoiseach, a brief stop into the very cute National Museum of Natural History, which is small and just a lot of taxidermied furry animals crammed into one floor. You do it in five minutes. So I make it to the National library by half eleven. It's quite small. I wanted to see it mostly because episode nine of Ulysses takes place there, with Steven and Buck Mulligan and AE and John Eglinton having a talk. It's where Steven lays out his theory on Hamlet. It turns out to be a research library, and for me to use it I have to have a letter from a tutor saying that I need a particular book. Same goes for the Old Library at college (though some of us are plotting to concoct a valid-sounding excuse to take out some ancient manuscript and we are feeling very devious and cunning). But I'm allowed to pop my head into the reading room briefly, and it turns out that it's a very attractive, classical, green-ceilinged rotunda with great oak tables and a ring of books all round the upper level. It's considerably more pleasant than the reading room at college, I'm sure, and I shall have to make use of it sometime in the future. The thing is that I really can't see four men, four animated, passionate men, being allowed to have a conversation in there and not be thrown out on their arses for disturbing the peace.
I apologize for the lack of wit in the past few paragraphs. This morning's not been a subject that particulary begs it. It's just that since Nick's visit reminded of the pleasures of exploring, I'm feeling considerably more romantic. But I know I'm not being read for my romantic tendencies. If anything, I'm being read for my habitual lack of them. I suppose that's one of the problems with the medium. I said once that a blog was superior to a personal diary because when you write in a diary, you're never altogether sure who you're writing for, whereas with a blog, you know you're being read. You're not writing for yourself at all. Furthermore you're being constantly criticized. As with any medium, you have to keep the audience's attention, which does put a certain strain on you. It keeps you from getting lazy--or at the very least, it makes you paranoid. But frankly laziness is a much more powerful force than paranoia. So I must think of something to be acerbic about.
There have been interesting things since the last post, really. For one, I've realized exactly what I want out of this college. It's not education. It's not connections. It's not experience. It's prestige. That's the one thing I can't get for myself. I want wood paneling and robes and cobblestones and documents Latin and young scholars confidently striding four abreast across Parliament square to a lecture delivered by some fierce-haired old don. I got two of those things yesterday: first, I discovered another place to eat. The main dining hall, which, for some reason, no one ever uses, is a massive hall with thick wood tables and a fifty-foot ceiling, with gigantic paintings of former chancellors, dating back to the 1600's, all around the room. It's all wood paneling, and it's nearly empty. Very peaceful and prestigious. It was delightful in the extreme. And secondly, apparently the provost wears a cape. Yes, a cape. No, not like Superman. Like a scholar. He does the robes and everything. How cool is that?
Oh yes, and one more thing: this evening, in the high-ceilinged Rococo exam hall, which I would guess dates from the 1700's, there is a Trinity vs. Cambridge boxing match on. I think I shall have to go. Caesar's Palace is one thing, the Exam Hall is quite another.
I would blather on, but I have Sin in five minutes.
Okay, it's called Sin and Redemption, but I highly doubt anyone's all that interested in the latter half. But then again, given that the books are Piers Plowman and the ghastly Pamela (the bane of every English major; it seems that the English major's purpose in life is to read these books so that no one else has to), it doesn't look like the sinning's going to be as juicy as it should be. Bah. I'll have to go find my own.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
A quiet thing
"When it all comes true
Just the way you planned
It's funny, but the bells don't ring
It's a quiet thing..."
--Kander & Ebb
So I go to Aras an Phearsaigh (yes, that's the name for tech services) to ask about how I access this mythical wireless network just hooked up in the classics section of Ussher library, and as the guy explains to me the rather absurdly complicated steps one must take in order to set up an account on a PC (first a two-hour "clinic" for the wired, in which one's machine is packed with patches and proxies and whatever else they can think of, and then another half-hour thing for the wireless), it somehow comes up that I live at Halls, and this jovial man bounds out of the office, wishing to know whether he heard me right. Yes, he did. Well, he says, take a look at this. See those boxes (he gestures to an office crammed floor-to-ceiling with boxes)? Those are switches for Trinity Hall. You'll all have the internet in your bedrooms come February.
"There are no exploding fireworks
Where's the roaring of the crowd
Maybe it's this strange new atmosphere
Way up here among the clouds..."
As I left, walking on air, I nearly reached the very height of exuberance and sent out a mass text to everyone I knew, telling the good news. Then sobriety reared up and I realized that would cost me more credit than I had left and resolved just to tell everyone in person. But even so. That's great fucking news. I hardly need to say any more about what a spectacular pain in the arse it's been not having access to any information. It's just that for someone who considers himself somewhat culturally attuned (or at least aspires to be), being cut off from the data stream is purgatorial. The newest wrinkle in the story is that for The Hero, we're required to use the John Dryden translation of the Aeneid, published in the mid-1600's, which is completely introuvable in any bookstore. It's only found on the internet. That means we have to read it at college, which, given the size of the epic, is a little much to ask, nu?
Some of us, mostly your infalliably humble Bloggeur, had been talking seriously about relocating before our next rent was due (I was very interested in this well-appointed 3/4 bedroom apartment on Leeson st. for €2200 per month). The good news on that front is that there is an increasing willingness on the part of the concerned parties to discuss the question of where we'll be living next year. Plans are slowly forming, which is encouraging.
Nick leaves this evening. It has been, as said before, an absolute delight. Marie arrives Friday night for a little weekend romp, but she doesn't yet know that I'm going to have to split my time between her and my Fite-Wassilaks (name of the TCD ultimate squad): there's a major tournament at UCD this weekend, with teams from Ireland and Scotland coming in. It's a beginner's tournament, and we're sending two teams (where we're going to find two teams' worth of beginner's is beyond me), and I'm expecting them to give me captainship of one of them (at least, I'm hoping they do. No way to tell). All this to be recounted in excruciating detail come Monday. Also I might as well say now that there will likely be light to no blogging this weekend.
In fifteen minutes I have to go meet some classmates at Front Arch. We're going in search of our classroom, located somewhere in Dublin city centre. See, our Old English teacher, clearly an enlightened individual, so loathes the Arts Block that he has moved all of his classes off campus and into this building TCD has on Dame st, which is apparently more pleasant. I like him already.
Just the way you planned
It's funny, but the bells don't ring
It's a quiet thing..."
--Kander & Ebb
So I go to Aras an Phearsaigh (yes, that's the name for tech services) to ask about how I access this mythical wireless network just hooked up in the classics section of Ussher library, and as the guy explains to me the rather absurdly complicated steps one must take in order to set up an account on a PC (first a two-hour "clinic" for the wired, in which one's machine is packed with patches and proxies and whatever else they can think of, and then another half-hour thing for the wireless), it somehow comes up that I live at Halls, and this jovial man bounds out of the office, wishing to know whether he heard me right. Yes, he did. Well, he says, take a look at this. See those boxes (he gestures to an office crammed floor-to-ceiling with boxes)? Those are switches for Trinity Hall. You'll all have the internet in your bedrooms come February.
"There are no exploding fireworks
Where's the roaring of the crowd
Maybe it's this strange new atmosphere
Way up here among the clouds..."
As I left, walking on air, I nearly reached the very height of exuberance and sent out a mass text to everyone I knew, telling the good news. Then sobriety reared up and I realized that would cost me more credit than I had left and resolved just to tell everyone in person. But even so. That's great fucking news. I hardly need to say any more about what a spectacular pain in the arse it's been not having access to any information. It's just that for someone who considers himself somewhat culturally attuned (or at least aspires to be), being cut off from the data stream is purgatorial. The newest wrinkle in the story is that for The Hero, we're required to use the John Dryden translation of the Aeneid, published in the mid-1600's, which is completely introuvable in any bookstore. It's only found on the internet. That means we have to read it at college, which, given the size of the epic, is a little much to ask, nu?
Some of us, mostly your infalliably humble Bloggeur, had been talking seriously about relocating before our next rent was due (I was very interested in this well-appointed 3/4 bedroom apartment on Leeson st. for €2200 per month). The good news on that front is that there is an increasing willingness on the part of the concerned parties to discuss the question of where we'll be living next year. Plans are slowly forming, which is encouraging.
Nick leaves this evening. It has been, as said before, an absolute delight. Marie arrives Friday night for a little weekend romp, but she doesn't yet know that I'm going to have to split my time between her and my Fite-Wassilaks (name of the TCD ultimate squad): there's a major tournament at UCD this weekend, with teams from Ireland and Scotland coming in. It's a beginner's tournament, and we're sending two teams (where we're going to find two teams' worth of beginner's is beyond me), and I'm expecting them to give me captainship of one of them (at least, I'm hoping they do. No way to tell). All this to be recounted in excruciating detail come Monday. Also I might as well say now that there will likely be light to no blogging this weekend.
In fifteen minutes I have to go meet some classmates at Front Arch. We're going in search of our classroom, located somewhere in Dublin city centre. See, our Old English teacher, clearly an enlightened individual, so loathes the Arts Block that he has moved all of his classes off campus and into this building TCD has on Dame st, which is apparently more pleasant. I like him already.
Monday, January 12, 2004
Okay okay I'm back already
I get twitchy if I go too long without seeing a computer. I haven't really had a chance to do anything cyberous (I should send that one to the OED) since I got back, what with resettlement and Nick being here and all. So I suppose a brief synopsis of the past few days is in order, as I have a good hour fifty before my first class.
The flight over was perfectly nice; I got one of those seats at the front with a lot of legroom but nowhere to stash a carryon. I spent the five-hour flight reading all of Blake's Selected and writing a terrifically bad essay on them. I started it on the plane, finished it at Halls a few hours later, and handed it in to the freshman office right before the zero hour of 4pm. And it's a disaster. The title alone is going to fuck me: GOD WANTS YOUR PENIS (And Mr. Blake Does Not Suggest You Give it to Him).
God only knows what I was thinking. I'm fucked, utterly, utterly fucked. It's a terrible essay, like one of those hopeless random jobs I used to hand in in 10th grade, only without the chutzpah that comes from the conviction that your ideas are earthshatteringly brilliant. No, this is just dumb. But it's two thousand words, and there is a nice image of Mr. Blake being burned as a heretic in the 1500's and going off like a Roman candle.
As for the HM essay, which obviously took precedence in my heart, severe cutting was in order. I posted it, then I went after it. I was editing as I stood in the queue at JFK. 1200 of the projected 2000 words were shorn off with jarring cruelty. The entire section on Theory and Practice was cut, as were massive portions pertaining to geography and Mr. DeVito. Also you'll be relieved to hear that I caught the bit where I repeat an entire paragraph. I don't know how that happened. Liz, I'm sorry, but I had to throw out the allusion to the midnight marauding. It was literary genocide, but I culled it down to a less-than-unpardonable 3800 words. I titled it Microcosmos, and I suppose I'm as happy with it as I could have been, given the circumstances. Which were highly inconvenient.
So Nick Frisch is here, and I dare say we are having a lovely time. We have done much walking, despite my nearly having shattered the big toe on my left foot in the course of an extremely ill-advised attempt to leap a hedge on Saturday. It hurts like hell still. Though I must stress that it was not a miscalculation of my leaping abilities that caused the accident (I had nearly made it the first time), but the slippery flagstones that formed the run-up. I came running, slipped, my toe went crashing into a little stone rise on the ground and I went crashing through and over the hedge, flopping (not flipping; flipping is intentional) like a fish onto the grass and rolling to a stop. It was very graceful.
Anyway, we've ambled all about, been places I never would have otherwise gone, and generally had a lovely time. It is the first time I have been visited by an english-speaking person of legal age (though that is of course not to say that the two prior visits were anything less than delightful), and it's been very encouraging. I hope to repeat the practice with many, many more of you.
Also we have gone to many, many pubs.
The flight over was perfectly nice; I got one of those seats at the front with a lot of legroom but nowhere to stash a carryon. I spent the five-hour flight reading all of Blake's Selected and writing a terrifically bad essay on them. I started it on the plane, finished it at Halls a few hours later, and handed it in to the freshman office right before the zero hour of 4pm. And it's a disaster. The title alone is going to fuck me: GOD WANTS YOUR PENIS (And Mr. Blake Does Not Suggest You Give it to Him).
God only knows what I was thinking. I'm fucked, utterly, utterly fucked. It's a terrible essay, like one of those hopeless random jobs I used to hand in in 10th grade, only without the chutzpah that comes from the conviction that your ideas are earthshatteringly brilliant. No, this is just dumb. But it's two thousand words, and there is a nice image of Mr. Blake being burned as a heretic in the 1500's and going off like a Roman candle.
As for the HM essay, which obviously took precedence in my heart, severe cutting was in order. I posted it, then I went after it. I was editing as I stood in the queue at JFK. 1200 of the projected 2000 words were shorn off with jarring cruelty. The entire section on Theory and Practice was cut, as were massive portions pertaining to geography and Mr. DeVito. Also you'll be relieved to hear that I caught the bit where I repeat an entire paragraph. I don't know how that happened. Liz, I'm sorry, but I had to throw out the allusion to the midnight marauding. It was literary genocide, but I culled it down to a less-than-unpardonable 3800 words. I titled it Microcosmos, and I suppose I'm as happy with it as I could have been, given the circumstances. Which were highly inconvenient.
So Nick Frisch is here, and I dare say we are having a lovely time. We have done much walking, despite my nearly having shattered the big toe on my left foot in the course of an extremely ill-advised attempt to leap a hedge on Saturday. It hurts like hell still. Though I must stress that it was not a miscalculation of my leaping abilities that caused the accident (I had nearly made it the first time), but the slippery flagstones that formed the run-up. I came running, slipped, my toe went crashing into a little stone rise on the ground and I went crashing through and over the hedge, flopping (not flipping; flipping is intentional) like a fish onto the grass and rolling to a stop. It was very graceful.
Anyway, we've ambled all about, been places I never would have otherwise gone, and generally had a lovely time. It is the first time I have been visited by an english-speaking person of legal age (though that is of course not to say that the two prior visits were anything less than delightful), and it's been very encouraging. I hope to repeat the practice with many, many more of you.
Also we have gone to many, many pubs.
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