A Day In My Life, March 17.

(Firstly, my apologies for posting this a day late. This is the last week before spring break, so it's rather hectic. And now on with the show!)

After waking up at 6:20 in the morning, I was surprised--when I was alert to register any sort of emotion at all--to discover that I felt much more tired than usual. Is my 'I sleep only four hours a night and still ace my exams' study routine finally wearing me down? Or perhaps my subconscious realizes that Spring Break is only a few short days away and has decided to go on holiday early. Whatever the reason, it made getting ready for school a bit harder than it usually is. Considering I'm naturally scatterbrained even at the best of times, it's remarkable I was able to remember all my books and my ID card. Less remarkable perhaps is the fact that I remembered to wear green and blue. As an Irish Dancer, St. Patrick's Day is like a second Christmas, so I flung on my dark green blouse with the green ruffles at sleeve and throat, and my green knit cardigan. I also wore dark blue jeans, because my dance teacher always insists that the true color of St. Patrick is blue (and I recently found historical proof for that, too!), and then green shoes.

Once at school I did a little half-hearted Russian studying and then some much more enthusiastic poetry reading before my English class began. I spoke to the professor about the possibility of me joining the English Honors program on campus, and he seemed enthusiastic about the prospect, so that's exciting. I'm already in the Honors program, but to be in the special English division would be like icing on the cake. Russian class was unremarkable, and then I managed to stay awake for the entirety of Nutrition class, which is a feat worth mentioning. Not that the class is boring--far from it, it's the first science class that I have heartily enjoyed, and I mean really enjoyed. To my own surprise I find learning about human nutrition fascinating. But for some reason I don't really understand I find it hard to stay awake for the last ten minutes of class. It's frustrating. Lecture halls, no matter how interesting the subject being lectured upon, just do that to me.

Once out of Nutrition class, I had to dash across campus to make it to work on time. I worked for forty-five minutes, then dashed across campus again to get to my art class on time. Art is going well for me, and I discovered that I got an A on my second portfolio, which is gratifying--although apparently I could have been an A+. The instructor docked me a couple points on minor things I could have easily corrected and weren't related directly to the merit of the art itself. Frustrating? Yes, but I didn't feel the need to complain, because I understand her point, and now I can fix the problem. I like constructive criticism, but the just-out-of-reach A+ is still a bit maddening!

Once art class was over (an excruciating 3 hours of perspective line drawings, ugh!) I finally had a little bit of time to myself. I therefore managed to finish "The Caves of Steel", which marks a long overdue return to the writings of Isaac Asimov for me, and was pleased though not surprised to find that the book was very good. After finishing the book, I was just in time to attend the Honors Program St. Patrick's Day Root Beer Float Social at my school, which was very enjoyable as I was surprised by a goodly amount of my friends also attending *waves at them* And root beer floats are always good things in my book anyway.

After staying at the social half an hour longer than was scheduled, I left for the apartment, and upon getting there I finished knitting the second wall of my TARDIS, watched this season finale for Psych on Hulu (fun stuff!), and then read the first few chapters of "Frontier Wolf", by Rosemary Sutcliff. Then, exhausted, I finally went to sleep at about midnight, knowing that in six hours I'd have to wake up all over again.

All in all, a typical school day, but with more reading than usual. I've been making conscious effort to read as many new books as I can this year without causing my grades to suffer; fortunately I seem to be keeping in a good balance so far and it's working out great.

So that's my seventeenth of March in a nutshell; I'll catch up again on the seventeenth of April!!!

. . . Unless I forget. Or get lazy. It could happen.

A Day in My Life, Dec. 17

I originally thought this would be a boring day to talk about. Finals week is winding down, and all I had planned for today was studying and work.

Luckily for you all, however, I am extremely bad at sticking to plans, especially when I'm the one who made 'em. So--here's my second installment of 'A Day in My Life'!

This morning I had to get up at six-thirty to go to the university with my grandmother. Some days this week I've had exams late in the day, and so have been able to sleep in and ride the bus to school, but today my Hawaiian Studies exam was scheduled for 7:30 in the morning. Luckily it was a take-home, group exam, and since my group and I work well together I'm pretty confident we got an A. I was out of there by eight-thirty.

Now, I would have liked to have just gone back to the apartment then, but I couldn't, because I was scheduled to work at my library job from 4-6. So instead, I had almost eight hours to kill. Planning to use that time by studying for my Physics final tomorrow, I walked to the school library and found a nice and quiet alcove to study in. Or, well, to sleep in. I was really tired.

Yeah, I ended up sleeping for a little over an hour, and had really strange dreams. I know that I dreamt that I was watching "The End of Time", and that it was entirely about people asleep in an enormous library, which shows you how exhausted my imagination was! 

Erm, once I woke up I realized this was no good, so I left the library and found a bench under an enormous tree. I don't know what type of tree it was, but it's really big and beautiful, with a bright green, feathery canopy that looks like lace with chips of blue sky peering through the openings. I studied there for a few hours, broke for lunch, and then studied some more. My steely resolve to study non-stop did crack at one point and I then spent over half-an-hour playing solitaire on my iPod (Terpsi) while listening to the soundtrack of "Devdas", but all-in-all it was a productive day. I didn't even watch any episodes of "Primeval", can you believe it? Although really it wasn't as hard to avoid as it might have been; the show lost a little bit of its grip on my heart after *spoiler* and *spoiler*. I still love it for the most part, but feel that some elements of the story could have been executed much better.

I also went back to the library to see if they had the actual novel version of "Devdas" (they do) and "The Witch in the Wood" by TH White (they do), and after finding the books and getting all excited about them I left them on the shelves despite the protests of my bookworm heart, because after all I'm heading home on Saturday and don't trust bringing library books with me on a trans-ocean flight. Something to look forward to in the Spring, I guess. I also found a book on the book sale rack that I thought might be interesting. It's called "The Enchanted Cup", I think, and is a retelling of the story of Tristam and Isolde. I didn't buy it though, because I had no money with me. And besides, I don't know if it's any good.

I did find a children's anthology of poetry that Sir Walter de la Mare put together, though! And I read it all, too--it was a nice break from studying and stress. De la Mare is one of my favorite poets, have you ever read his "The Listeners"? If you haven't, you must go read it now. I've got it memorized. Anyway, the poems he chose were fun to read, and he wrote notes to go with them explaining them to his young readers and encouraging children to really engross themselves in the poetry and giving tips on how to enjoy poetry (read each poem aloud slowly; savor each word; envision what the poet is describing and compare it to the reality, if you've seen the reality, etc.). It was really interesting. I particularly liked this line of his that I copied out in my journal right there in the library so that I would remember it:

"Whatever you admire you look at with all yourself in your eyes; and your love for it adds to its beauty."

Isn't that in itself a beautiful saying? He was explaining the merits of poetry, and I certainly agree with him on this. That's why it's possible to read so many poems about the same subject--the sea, for example, or a songbird, or rain--without getting sick of them, because each poet loves the subject in a different way, providing a different lens for the reader to look at the subject with and appreciate the subject through. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

And this quote was just thought-provoking:

"When I was seven I loved rhymes and jingles. When I was fourteen I thought I hated poetry, partly perhaps because I had been made to learn it for a punishment. When I was about fifteen I suddenly realized that when the poet Homer said that his great hero, Achilles, in his rage went out 'black as night' he meant black as night. It was like a flash of summer lightning over a lovely country of hills and forests."

I puzzled over this. What exactly does de la Mare mean, do you think? What is the discovery inherent in the line? I thought perhaps he meant that he suddenly understood the power of the words, that Homer could have said 'black as pitch' or 'black as coal' but instead chose 'black as night' for a purpose. That led me into an interesting musing on the meanings of words and word choices when describing things--do we really think about the words we choose, or do we just write 'black as night' without considering the implications and beauties of the word 'night'--all its airy coldness and sparkling dark--, and not stopping to think if we want to evoke the earthy coarseness of 'coal' or the shining thickness of 'pitch' instead? Perhaps I even got the entirely wrong impression from what de la Mare was saying! I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Anyway, musings aside, I did finally go to work, and did my job (which today was mostly sitting behind a desk and being bored and studying to fight the down-time). Today was only the second time that I've been the one to close up the place, but I enjoy shutting everything down, I've always liked cleaning things and putting things in order and putting things away. It's somewhat meditative. Tomorrow's my last day of work this semester, but I'll be back next semester, thank goodness, because the people I work with are awesome!

After that there's not much to tell. I returned to the apartment about six-thirty in the evening, studied some more, chatted with my family via video Skype (I love Skype!!), and stressed just a teeny bit. I also ate a couple squares of Cadbury Caramello, mmmmm!

Now I'm lying on the floor of my room, which is where I sleep, and am trying to: A) Not think about my exam tomorrow, and B) Not think about all the packing I'm going to have to do tomorrow! I'm such a procrastinator, alas.

It's really hot and humid right now, my ceiling fan's going, and I'm exhausted. I am also excited about finally going home for Christmas.

And . . . yeah, that's my day! I'll try to write up another post tomorrow, but probably will fail because I'm going to be BUSY! Merry Almost-Christmas to you all!

A Day In My Life (Finally!), Nov. 17

(It's about time I finally got started, no?)

Okay, so I'm going to say that my day on Nov. 17 started at midnight, since I was awake for midnight, and so the day started with me frantically working on a memorial I had to finish writing for my Honors class. We're currently doing a China game, Ming dynasty, and I was one of the first people who had to present a memorial to the Wanli Emperor. Confusing, I know, but anyway. I was probably finishing off my black peach tea about this time too, which had gone cold a while ago. And perhaps listening to music. I had been listening to my Playlist earlier, but I think I might have switched it off around midnight, for fear that it'd lull me to sleep.

Thanks in part to the tea, I managed to stay up long enough to type out and print a respectable essay, but I only finished at four-thirty in the morning. I then snatched two hours of sleep before I had to get up and get to campus for my first class of the morning, Hawaiian Studies at 7:30. I got to the classroom early, but since I was feeling rather ill due to not getting enough sleep, I fell asleep at my desk and napped until class started about a half-hour later.

During Hawaiian class we watched a film about the Bayonet Constitution, and it was very interesting and rather sad, even though I knew the story already. I worked while I watched the film, editing the printed-out version of my speech for Honors, so by the time Hawaiian class finished, the speech was a lot better and quite scribbly and untidy looking.

Then a quick dash across campus--a fifteen-minute speed-walk--to get to Honors class. It was the first day of our China game, so we were still getting used to the new format of things, such as everyone bowing when the 'Emperor' enters the room, and such. I was second to give my speech, in which I had to criticize the Emperor for corruption, and it went pretty well, though my professor told me later that she thought I should have been more aggressive in my condemnation. And there I was thinking I was being too aggressive! I guess I'm just too nice, haha.

After Honors class I went to the Honors Lounge at the library, where I polished up the copy of my memorial that I had on my laptop, Gareth, before emailing it to my professor by the noon deadline. Then I was free for the rest of the day, huzzah, and after grabbing a quick lunch (a turkey wrap, in case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't.) I stood at the bus stop for a broiling fifteen minutes or so before the bus finally showed up.

On the bus, I fell asleep. Told you I was tired. When the bus had reached downtown I woke up a little to discover that there was this guy sitting next to me who hadn't been there when I fell asleep, but I didn't care enough to stay awake, so I napped again. I was awake to get off at my stop, however, and so got back to the apartment at about twelve-thirty.

Once there, things got a little boring, because I just slept for another four hours. Oh, no, wait, I listened to the first few chapters of 'The Lost World' on Librivox first, which was enjoyable. I love that book, and the guy reading did a decent job, even though he didn't have a British accent, heh. I tried to find that 1950's film adaptation online, but failed. Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up it was already dark, which was disorienting because at first I thought I had to get up and go to school and that it was next morning. Ugh.

Spaghetti for dinner, Video-Skyped my family who are on their way to Colorado right now for the Oireachtas, and did Russian homework. Then I hammered out a couple-hundred more words of 'Quinn', which means I'm in double-digit territory at last, but still am miserably far behind from where I need to be. Was a bit too tired for any serious creative work, though, which is why I only got a couple hundred words written. So I finally switched off the brain cells, spent a happy forty-five minutes or so watching 'Midnight' (I had forgotten how good that episode actually was, creeepy and clever), wrote in my journal, and then went back to sleep at about eleven at night.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day, although I always hate staying up all night. My only real regret is that due to my being exhausted I didn't go down to the shopping center to pick up 'Star Trek' on dvd! And after anxiously counting down the days all this time, too! Still, I'll get it soon.