I went to the Getty yesterday. It was sunny and warm, we packed a fabulous picnic lunch (chicken on french rolls with sprouts, avocado, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, onion, cheese, mayonnaise, and mustard), stopped for donuts, and then I slept the rest of the way there, which resulted in the two-hour ride feeling like half an hour. I'm not crazy about modern architecture in general, but the museum is big and airy and blindingly white in the sunlight and there are fountains and pools everywhere that are a cool blue against all the white. The six of us (including jack and the buddhist) wandered around and soaked up art and culture inside the museum, and then, shortly before we had to drive back to campus (yes, it's true: Don Rags is not a break and we still have seminar) we went outside and lay on the grass around the garden. I took my sandals off and the sun was warm on the soles of my feet. I fell asleep and woke up a little while later to my feet being tickled... Back in the car (back asleep), back to campus, seminar on the first half of the Paradiso (which didn't suck as much as I thought it was going to). Then I hung out and played music until curfew and collapsed shortly afterward, because I had gotten three hours of sleep the night before (that'll teach me to watch sappy chick-flicks such as While You Were Sleeping and then stay up talking for several hours afterward). Today: Well, it's not sunny anymore (Mother Nature has got to stop toying with my emotions), but I did go out to breakfast with the girls and had piping hot chamomile tea with a lot of sugar and cranked up Jagged Little Pill on the way back to campus for my Don Rags. Which are now, happily, over. They didn't suck (in fact, much to my delight, it was reported that I have "a real sense for literature"--damn straight... & no sense at all for math. c'est la vie), but I need to talk more/more consistently. I know, I know. That's going to be so hard for me to do. Right?

Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard and cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would offer all the goods of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned and despised.
-- The Song of Solomon

Lab class is only good when we're actually in the lab. When we have to sit around and discuss, oh, say chemical affinities for an hour and a half I begin to feel like at any second I won't be able to take it any more and I'm going to start climbing the walls. But when we get to burn things, or at least heat them until they start emitting a gas (or reacting significantly in any other way), then I'm interested. And the goggles are hot.

Dr. M (from this morning's Theology class) on eulogies and how we're all going to heaven these days: So, I was sitting in the pew and the priest was going on about how nice it was that he (the deceased) was in a duck club, and I was sitting there thinking, "Being in a duck club is not gonna do it!"

who loves the sun/who cares that it makes plants grow...

So, it hasn't been sunny here in quite a while. Probably a week or so, and, though I hate to say it because it makes me sound really wimpy, I can't stand it any more. I'm beginning to wonder how I ever survived the long winters at home (think snow from November to March) and if I ever could again. (I never really thought about it when I was living back East, long cold gray winters just came with the territory and we all sucked it up and went on about our business.) Gosh. The nice thing is that all the rain is keeping the plants, the greenery really green. (But I am keeping my fingers crossed that there'll be sun and heat this weekend, because it's a three-day weekend and I'd like to celebrate finishing my dreaded--if I never read any Bertrand Russell again it will be too soon--philosophy paper by relaxing at the beach.)

Weirdest thing I've seen today: went to the little hippie new age town nearby tonight to listen to Roomsound (one of the student bands here) play for open mic night at the brew pub and there was a woman there dressed from head to toe in hot pink. A long, hot pink raincoat, hot pink pumps, a big churchy hot pink hat... You get the idea. Oh, and her face was decorated with swirls of hotpink paint. It was an overwhelming outfit.

Best title for a lab report this year (so far): Dropping Acid and Seeing Pink. Courtesy of the Buddhist.

Happy St. Valentine's Day! (every day the fourteenth! -- Outkast) Or, if love don't love you, Happy Quirky-Alone-Day! I could go on and on about what a crap day this is if you're single, but I won't because no good ever comes of feeling sorry for yourself. So, instead I'm just going to be thankful for all the fabulous people in my life, that the jasmine is almost in bloom, that I got more candy today than I can possibly finish this week, that the Latin quiz for this week is over (and that we only have one more chapter left in Wheelock), and that there are only 13 weeks of school left.

I'd also like to request prayers to help sort out a somewhat troublesome issue.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler! Happy FAT TUESDAY, y'all! You know what this means, right? Tomorrow is the time for sackcloth-n-ashes, but tonight is the time for being a fatty fat fat. Eat. Drink. Be merry!

If you haven't looked at this blog yet, then you should definitely go there right now. Especially if you need a laugh or two.

And, while you're at it, go here for whimsy and joy.

Dante is beautiful to read and we had an unusually good seminar tonight on the first seventeen cantos of The Inferno. In honor of class going abnormally well, I wrote a haiku:

Seminar is usually slow,
but tonight all went smoothly
and I stayed awake.


(Yes, Max, I'm copying you.)

I wish I could hop on a plane and fly somewhere warm (I'm thinking tropical islands--Hawaii would probably do, but somewhere more exotic would be nice), where I could spend the next two and a half years sleeping on a beach. Doesn't that sound nice?