gossip

People gossip a lot here (it's very tempting when everyone knows, at least to some to degree, each other and you're all stuck in the same small place), but despite all the gossip going around, I don't feel like anything really interesting has been happening. Well, there were some really drunk people at K1 on Saturday night, but that's not the kind of interesting I'm talking about. Today: wake up four times before actually stumbling out of bed, shower in communal bathroom where some disturbed person was singing at quarter of 8 in the am, math, theology, three and a half hour break, latin in 20 minutes. Then I'm done for the day!

a little calmer

I'm feeling a little bit less suicidal tonight than I was when I last posted. In fact, I'm so calm that even though I should be doing my heap of Latin homework right now, I'm in the computer lab typing away! I've settled into my dorm, which is actually pretty fantastic. (Too much furniture, though. Who needs four bookcases at school?) Classes have been going well so far: I like my teachers and the other students aren't so bad. The work load isn't horrible, either. Not yet, anyway. We'll see what I'm saying after we start doing props in Ptolemy... So, yeah, I've even been winning some pool, too. And I have to admit, as much as I love and miss my native state, the weather here has been superlative. Shockingly blue skies without a cloud in sight, cool breezes, warm nights with thousands more stars than are visible at home. And I'm happy to see my friends again, I am. So far, so good. If I keep breathing I might be able to do this.

the start of another school year (aka hell. hell all over again.)

Language class is going to kill me. Math class is going to kill me. Lab class is going to kill me. Or, you know, at least result in my failing out of this program. Why am I here again? Oh yes: for this one-of-a-kind education. One-of-a-kind stress-induced heart failure. So there are new people. Eh. I don't do the mixing and mingling so well--I still don't know about half of my class, and I hang out with a lot less than that. I've enjoyed my reunions with various friends who I was very separated from over the summer (and my reunion with pool)... But I'm jet-lagged, stressed about my classes, and, therefore, just a tad cranky. Good-bye free time. (oh yeah: a lot less posting on this blog will be due to the fact that I'm now living with pretty much all of the people who read this blog. So all of my material is now unfit for, uh, their consumption.)

leaving

I'm bad at leaving, bad at saying goodbye. I hate packing. Despite all of this, I will have plenty of practice at it. What to do?

the Olympics

I think the Olympic Games are too contrived, mawkish, over-hyped (and maybe I'm not the only one--apparently only about half of the tickets have been sold). But. The men's swimming still gets me excited. I find swimming more interesting than other sports to begin with--fun to watch, fun to do--and then there's Michael Phelps: woo and hoo. Go Team USA, go!

sushi

Do you like sushi? I know I'm addicted and if you are you might just find this as cool as I did. Makes me hungry. And how are you decorating your dorm room this year? Maybe this poster is just the accent you've been searching for. I also found this website (featuring bento boxes) which is hysterical and kind of interesting to look at. Yes, I am a teeny bit bored.

remembering Julia Child

epicurious.com remembers the inimitable Julia Child with an interview, recipes, books, and photos. Rest in peace, Julia.

elm

For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, this big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? -

Its snaky acids hiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.

-- Sylvia Plath