Final Countdown

Fourteen Days.

Twenty-One Days.

Twenty-Four Days. 

And it feels so good. 

Mostly. 

First and third images via weheartit. 

Words

Stephen Fry on why I will never love my usage class:

Missing the Days...

When I slept more than six hours at night. 

And I woke up in time to apply eyeshadow instead of just a barely noticeable trace of mascara.

And I changed out of the shirt I slept in.

And I did all of my poli. sci. reading.

And I stayed awake during tutorials.

Or at least thought of something insightful to say in my rhetorical-analysis-induced sleep?

Ohhh midtermsresearchpaperspaperspaperspapers you kill me.

BUT the best part of Valentine's Day is gummy cinnamon hearts. 

By far.

Tuesday Tedium

Tuesdays are the worst.

8 am staff meetings followed by class and work till 6:45.

(With several short breaks that are usually spent skimming far-too-long readings. Sometimes a 20 minute nap.)

Now I have two papers to write along with plenty more reading to catch up on. But I just want to make cookies and watch Portlandia videos. Or both, preferably. 

*The following is mostly just prewriting for an essay. Feel free to ignore.*

We just finished Fugitive Pieces in my Women's Lit. class. Everyone seemed to love it, but I didn't so much.  Well, I can certainly appreciate it on a sentence level.  The prose is remarkably lyrical and could certainly be classified as prose-poetry.  Michael's metaphors and imagery are truly evocative––surprising yet precise.  Although, they do become somewhat...distracting at times.  I tend to agree with one critic who labeled her writing "over-accessorized."  But what Michaels seriously lacks, in my opinion, is character development.  Maybe this seems insensitive, but Jakob is far too maudlin and well...pathetic for my liking. No not my liking. My understanding.  While I think it is an interesting idea to explore the effects of the Holocaust on the second generation that never experienced the ghettoes or concentration camps, it's just not believable for me. Yes, Jakob lost his family at a very young age, but Athos becomes his family.  I don't understand his habit of comparing every woman he meets to the sister he hardly knew? For fifty years? And his claim that the most important events in his life are the ones he never even witnessed? I don't buy it.  Not because it isn't possible. Michaels just doesn't make it believable.  She's too tied up in describing the exact shade of the Mediterranean or the whisper-weight of white linen on olive skin.  But most troubling, or at least incomprehensible, is Jakob's sudden healing.  After decades of self pity, a few pages of sexual exploration with a woman half his age rectifies that? Really? I suppose he calls it love. But Michaels doesn't prove it.  What the novel lacks is Eliot's objective correlative––a concrete representation of and explanation for Jakob's extreme melancholy. (Which is somewhat ironic because Michaels references this concept several times.)

That's all I suppose. I don't think I'll actually end up using any of this though. It certainly doesn't answer any of the far too leading (in my opinion) "discussion" questions.

January Highlights:

clementines. 

AND this video:

It's been a long month. Here's to a healthier, more productive and warmer (?) February.

Maybe some more blog action too.

No promises.

print via 

It's Christmas So We'll Stop

In two days. TWO DAYS.

I wish I had the motivation to study for my Bio 100 and Elang finals, but I really don't right now. Two consecutive 7 am finals sucked that out of me.

But I am currently very much looking forward to:
-Sleeping for more than five hours at a time
-Finally compiling my London scrapbook
-Running again

-Making homemade marshmallows (pumpkin? egg-nog flavored?)
-DRIVING
-Reading for fun
-Visiting Tacoma's brand new H&M

And that's all for now. That should get me through two more finals. This song also helps:

Home Stretch

Thanksgiving really is such a tease. A five-day taste of freedom followed by a prompt return to three weeks of papers, finals and sleepless nights in the library. Kind of a freezing hell. Is it bad that I've come to associate the Christmas season with finals? "Last Christmas" now brings memories of test anxiety, sore throats and rushing to the airport with a massive sleep debt.

However, my end-of-semester to-do list isn't looking too bad. It's considerably shorter than others I have seen. All I really have to do over the next few weeks is:

-Write and polish Shakespeare research paper
-Complete Shakespeare "essence" final project
-Shakespeare midterm
-Attend two bio lectures and write two responses
-Edit and turn-in creative writing final masterwork
-Class class class
-Read read read
-Plan Writing Center Christmas party
-ELANG Final
-Marriage & Family Final
-Bio Final

And that's really all I can think of at the moment.  If I wasn't working this semester, I think it would have been my easiest one yet. Including Freshman "honors" classes that are basically high school in disguise.  Though I'm sure many other little things will come up. The only real problem is that the majority of the items on this list must be completed in the next three or four days.

At least I can sit back and watch this in my Elang class at the moment. (Did you know a "small language" becomes extinct every two weeks?) And eat chocolate provided by the instructor. And fine-tune my Christmas list.

I really want to go to India. And take Chinese again. And walk to class without risking falling flat on my face.

Procrastination Sensation.

Welllp. I've done just about everything one can do to avoid writing my bio paper on the relationship between water temperature and algae (algal?) growth in Provo River. Including:

-3 hour nap

-Shower

-Blow dry and style hair

-Clean room

-Make dinner (wheat penne with roasted vegetables and grated parmesan)

-Clean kitchen

-Compile Christmas playlist

-Check Facebook, Gmail and all the blogs I routinely stalk

-Check blogs I rarely even visit

-Double-check Facebook, Gmail and blogs

-Clean kitchen

And I'm running out of ideas. This would be a whole lot easier if I wasn't making quite literally all of my data up. And if I could figure out how to make charts in Pages. And if I could actually find some relevant, peer-reviewed sources. Maybe I'll make those up too? That seems too obvious. Oh well. I'll just restart Sufjan's Christmas album and try again. Last assignment before Thanksgiving!

p.s. This is quite nice.

Mincing up the morning, slightly bored

I hate when people steal my favorite napping couches.

(She's not even sleeping.)

And vending machine dinners.

(Processed strawberry danish?)

And 12 hour days on campus.

But work is fun.

And I'll be 21 in two days.

Also, if anyone knows how to embed song links in blogger with yahoo media player will they pleaseeee enlighten me? I've wasted far too many homework-hours trying to figure this out.

That's all. I'll just be attempting a Bon Iver-induced nap in very noisy hallway.

The dog days are over.

So midterms are finally catching up with me. Just in time for General Conference weekend. I have a bio test this afternoon and a few more next week. But it seems like the weather is finally turning! I woke up to a brisk 45 degree morning. And weather.com promises a high of 65 in the near future. Tights, boots and blazers here I come.

Tonight: Thai Ruby and a free Lower Lights (see previous post) rooftop concert perhaps?

Additonally, I need suggestions for my next creative writing project. I have to do something completely out of my comfort zone and then write about it. The only suggestions I've received so far would probably get me arrested... What can I do that I would never do?

Of Note

I know it's been awhile, but I think I haven't failed at blogging yet. Remember, I'm a casual blogger. Not quite a real blogger. Anyways.

I'm so sick of this pseudo-fall weather. September in Provo is filled with mealy apples and sweaty treks up to campus. I could do with a crisp Pacific NW fall day anytime soon.

Three things I found interesting/inspiring this past week:

First, a poem that stood out to me after seemingly endless hours of poetry reading for my creative writing class.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/15/081215po_poem_aaron

I love the bizzare imagery.

Additionally, perhaps the most interesting and unique lecture I have ever attended on BYU campus:

http://mormonstories.org/?p=1158

And finally, an LDS artist I would actually enjoy listening to. Nowhere near the bubblegum pop vocals or emphasis on performance I find in EFY music.

http:/thelowerlights.com

fin.