The time? 2:30 am. The situation? I'd just been woken up by the usual crowd of interchangable bellowing idiots who feel they can't hold their asinine conversations anywhere but in the middle of my hall. You see, the genius who designed my dorm didn't just make the halls riot-proof. Oh, no. He or she also crafted the walls to amplify sound. So there was absolutely no way I was going to fall asleep again unless these people shut up or went away.
To make things even more fun, the reason I'd gone to bed early in the first place was a delightful stomachache, which reminded me of nothing more than the gastrointestinal virus I got during finals last year. I was in pain, I was tired, and I really wasn't in the mood to wait until the Drunk Idiot Brigade decided to find another keg. So I went outside in my pajamas, as good as blind without my contacts, and asked them to be quiet. When that didn't work, I said it less politely. And they mocked me. "Dur- is it quiet hours?"
Yes, yes, it is quiet hours, you festering, inconsiderate slob. So, let's go over the situation again. Me? Sleepy, squinting, and really in no position kick anyone, seeing as I was barefoot. The RA? Missing in action. The only possibilities left were to have a screaming tantrum right then and there or to call campus security. I opted for the third choice- going to bed and seething until the last of the Neanderthals left the hall more than an hour later.
Anyway, the story ends with me falling asleep sometime after 5 in the morning and waking up at 11. I absolutely hate those people. If I'd actually had a stomach virus, I would have gladly vomited all over them. As it was, I wanted to get a list of their names so I could give them all a friendly wake-up call at 5 in the morning. And did I mention I absolutely loathe my stupid, smelly, noisy, cretin-infested hell of a hall?
Call me a party pooper, say I'm no fun, and criticize my utter lack of sympathy for kids who want to party on weekends. I quite honestly don't care. There are plenty of halls and lounges for alcohol-addled nitwits to have their very urgent and meaningful conversations about the benefits of off-campus housing. But I have only one bed, and during designated quiet hours, I want to sleep in it. So. Shut. Up.
What I'm reading today: The Origins and Development of the English Language, by John Algeo and Thomas Pyles
Spare time has been a foreign concept this week- between the difficult reading for constitutional law, the time-consuming listening assignments for The Beatles, the complete and utter frustration known as translating Old English, and informational meetings on choosing a major, I'm swamped. A "break" consists of half an hour to eat dinner or check my e-mail. I really, really want this whole major choosing thing to be over. Of course, when that happens it'll be time for midterms. To quote Bill Simmons, I will now light myself on fire.
In the realm of smaller dilemmas, my college wants me to write a short essay about what I like best about it and what I'd most like to change, as part of my application to be a tour guide. Is it fair to say I want my dorm changed into a non-smoking one, and the idiot drunkards and potheads to be hung upside down by their ankles so those of us who like to sleep can throw apples at them? No? Dammit. Maybe I'll say something about the water pressure in the showers, otherwise known as glorified faucets...
What I'm listening to today: Bach: Transcriptions
Weird Facts of the Day:
The Ron Rifkin who played Herr Schultz in the Cabaret revival is the same Ron Rifkin who plays Sloane in Alias. Eek.
Michelle Pawk is in Democracy- but only as a recorded voice announcing voting results. Otherwise, the cast is all male.
The wind is blowing giant chunks of snow off the trees and making them explode in midair. I'm not sure I want to go outside.
*stomach growls*
Oh, dammit. I'm getting waffles.
I spent all day today meticulously working out my school schedule for the next two years, reading up on case law regarding prior restraint on speech for constitutional law, and doing homework for statistics. Finally, at 7:30 I decided I would go to dinner. I put on my coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and boots and trudged my way over to the sandwich shop, only to find...it was closed.
Oh yes. See, that's the thing they must have forgotten to mention in the inclement weather policy- while classes won't get cancelled unless the professor gets stuck in his or her driveway, food can cancelled any old time. So my dinner today consisted of a bowl of Cinammon Toast Crunch.
I have a headache.
Edit: But wait! There's more! I spent 45 minutes trying to untangle all the wires behind my desk because my printer wouldn't work. Really, nothing tops off a day of intensive reading and starvation quite like crawling around in a corner trying to find a loose connection. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do something productive, like banging my head against the wall.
The questions I'll be asking myself in two years, no doubt. What do you do with a B.A. in English? The only things that spring to mind are "English teacher" or "writer." I'm not going to be certified for the first (nor do I particularly wish to be), and I don't even know what the latter means. Journalist? Novelist? Columnist? Poet? I doubt I'm good for any of those things.
Oh, well. That's why I'm graduating in 2 years, I guess. For now I've got to decide my course schedule for those remaining 4 semesters- and heck, I've got to pin down my last class for this semester. History? Boring. Semantics? Threatens to be mathish- predicate calculus? Eek. And morphology? Three hours long on Friday afternoons. I almost fell asleep shopping it. I'm going to try to sneak into a Don Quixote class next week, and barring that, I might finally cave and take music theory, which will at least help me if I go for a music minor. I refuse to compromise and just settle for my boring history class because I'm already registered for it.
Okay, end of boring class contemplation. What else is happening? Well, it's cold. Not quite to the point where I think my extremities are going to smap off, but getting there. And we're getting snow tomorrow! Yay! Or not. At least while I live on campus I don't have to shovel. I still have a phobia of slipping and falling on my butt, though.
Today I auditioned for the chorus and got in- the audition was really a test of minimal sight-reading competence, and after a semester of musicianship that wasn't really a problem for me. Anyway, the choir director kind of hinted that the orchestra was always short on violas (suprise, surprise). But on the other hand, I also saw the audition sign-up sheet, including the solos people were going to do. All concertos and sonatas. I'm a violist, dammit, not a soloist. I've barely had solos within larger orchestrations, let alone a whole sonata to play.
So the moral of this entry? I'm completely spineless, feckless, and everything-else-less. I really need to do something instead of sitting around thinking about it. And I'll do that- as soon as I figure out what it is I'm going to do.
One of my favorite quotes ever, and one I'd like to toss at more than a few self-righteously 'patriotic' citizens. And while we're at it:
Anyway, I'm back to school and being drowned in reading for Constitutional Law. The syllabus for that course is 42 pages long. No, that's not a joke. Luckily, my next class is The Beatles, a course for which I'm so prepared I've already read two of the textbooks. Ah, music department. How I love thee.
In other news, I'm investigating the possibility of going to London for a semester next year. I was actually leaning toward going to Australia or even France, but then my dad made the mistake of mentioning the West End. Suddenly, my decision looked a whole lot easier. So, Kate, how's it going over there?
Okay, everybody. You have to excuse my whiny, over-privileged Yankee fan attitude. Why? Because my basketball team is the Nets, that's why. And they're cursed. Urgh.
What I'm reading today: Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment, by Anthony Lewis
My favorite baseball team is run by people with all the foresight and self-control of a three-year-old on a sugar high. That is all.
Between this and Garden State, Peter Sarsgaard is officially on my list of Very Good Actors. Not in the same way as, say, Ian McKellen or Judi Dench or Cate Blanchett, who all have such abundant presence that film practically vibrates when they're in it- Sarsgaard is a master of understatement, completely compelling while seemingly doing almost nothing at all. And dammit, why can't we get Kinsey by where I live?
Speaking of Blanchett, she was absolutely the best thing about The Aviator. Her Katherine Hepburn was so alive and real most of the other characters seemed a bit faded in comparison. I didn't even think Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as Howard Hughes really came into its own until she'd been gone for a while.
I'm rather ambivalent about the movie as a whole. It had great production values, some wonderful writing, and most of the acting was at least servicable, though the point of having Gwen Stefani play Jean Harlow is a bit beyond me. But it felt too long, like it was lacking structure. There were interesting stories within the film as a whole- the neverending filming of Hell's Angels, the relationship between Hepburn and Hughes, the battle between Hughes' TWA and Pan Am- but there was no overall arc. Or maybe I just didn't see it; I can be oblivious like that. Anyway, my Best Picture vote stays with my beloved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
One of the great ironies of my life is that my elite liberal arts education leaves me with almost no time to read books unrelated to school. So I've spent this vacation making up for my deprivation at a breakneck pace, reading books almost as fast as my local library system will provide them. I'm a squirrel hoarding stories. Some of the books I've read so far:
A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. LeGuin. I bitched about the SciFi channel's atrocious Earthsea mini-series a few entries back, so obviously this wasn't my first time reading these books. After watching that misinterpreted monstrosity I felt the overwhelming need to read the source material again to reassure myself that I was remembering it correctly as a uniquely spare and beautiful fantasy rather than the bizarre WB story of destined romance I saw on TV. I was.
LeGuin weaves a story with a lot of the typical trappings of fantasy- wizards, dragons, and hidden damsels- put into a very special storytelling style and world. The magic of Earthsea is in words; when you know the true name of something you can bind it. It's typical of LeGuin's approach- her magic is literate and her story has almost no violence or sex. Instead there's philosophy, and somehow it's not ever boring. Along with The Farthest Shore, these books make up a truly fascinating fantasy trilogy.
***
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. This book is an absolute epic, over 700 pages long. I was completely drawn in by it and it still took me 3 days to finish. Like most of the fantasy stories I love- the Earthsea books are an exception- this one comes from England. The two men of the title live in that country during the Napoleonic wars, and are notable for being the only practical magicians in an era when magic is only studied in theory. Norrell and Strange, his student, want to bring magic back to England, but exactly what that means becomes the book's central mystery and point of contention.
Strange is a character you've probably read before- the gifted, adventurous man who may be too confident in his skills for his own good. Norrell is a more atypical combination of qualities- he's cowardly, paranoid, anti-social and possessive, but also extremely intelligent, hard-working, and driven. It's magic that binds them- each of them cares more about magic than anything else, and as they're England's only two practicing magicians, only they can understand each other. Their student-mentor bond leads to some of the most poignant and wonderful scenes in the book.
The only complaint I would have against Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is that it needed more of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Clarke paints their relationship masterfully, a few powerful strokes serving to say a great deal. But I wish that perhaps there had been a few more scenes of them working together. Similarly, when you can go for tens of pages without hearing from them, it might have been good to have more scenes between Strange and his wife Arabella, especially as she becomes more central to the story. The elaborate footnotes and multitudes of characters and small sub-plots made these relationships lose focus a little bit. But to Clarke's credit, she could reinvoke everything that went on between characters 100 pages before in a few short sentences.
***
Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen. Comparitively, this book is total fluff. It's the story of Joey, a woman who gets pushed off a cruise ship by her husband for reasons unknown during their anniversary cruise. Wacky hijinks involving Jamaican pot, dancing bears, skydivers, pythons, a hairy painkiller addict and a sheep farmer ensue. Confused yet? Well, the story takes place in Florida, which seems to be some kind of weirdness magnet, and the author evidently has a reputation for filling his stories with the over-the-top bizarre.
My biggest problem with this book is that some of the characters needed a little more development- Joey seemed too good to be true, and Mick Stranahan, the man who pulled her from the water, had a colorful past but didn't show why during the course of the story. But the secondary characters were a lot of fun, and overall, the book was a nice read. It flowed well and had a lot of moments of surreal humor (one of my favorite kinds.)
***
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, by Buster Olney. My interest in the New York Yankees was at its peak during the 2001 World Series. I was still in high school and able to access New York radio broadcasts, which came in handy, as I wasn't allowed to stay up and watch the games. I spent nights that autumn lying in bed, pretending to sleep while I actually listened to games on my Walkman. I cheered silently the double miracles of that World Series, lay there bug-eyed with shock as Byung-Hyung Kim failed in the exact same way two nights in a row. And I read every single Yankees-related news story I could get my hands on, which, considering my Google access, was quite a lot. So maybe it's no surprise that when I read this book, I felt like I wasn't getting anything new.
It doesn't help that Olney was the beat writer covering the Yankees for The New York Times that year- I read that newspaper every morning and never failed to read all the Yankees stories that season, so I was already extremely familiar with Olney's ideas, insights, and turns of phrase. Still, though, I expected the book to feel like more than just all of Olney's stories blended together.
Perhaps the last straw was that the overarching framework of the book was Game 7 of that World Series, which remains probably the most agonizing loss I've ever witnessed. It felt like a punch in the stomach, and as stupid as it sounds, I'm not entirely over it. And maybe that's partly because of what Olney's book is about- that World Series game in November marked the end of a chapter for the Yankees. Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, and Chuck Knoblauch all left afterwards, and the team never quite felt the same. I don't care what Jerry Seinfeld says- I cheer for people, not just laundry. And when half the roster seems to turn over every year and my favorite people aren't on the team anymore, it gets harder and harder to be enthusiastic about the pinstripes. I didn't just stop following the Yankees so closely because college leaves me without time or access. I stopped because the team just doesn't feel the same. And dammit, don't get me started on that stupid Randy Johnson trade.
***
I'm now in the middle of The Epicure's Lament, by Kate Christensen. The epicure of the title is the book's narrator and a total bastard. But he still has over 200 pages in which to redeem himself, so I won't make judgements for now. After that, I have to finish Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (oh, the melodrama) and I'm off to the library again. I need a book to read on the bus to see Democracy.
Did I mention I love vacation?