Fourteen hours and counting until I have to go take the GRE…wheeeee.

But I get to go see a play tonight. Sadly, I have to find someone to take Jen’s ticket, as she’s come down with a nastiness.

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This evening was the induction for Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society, so I am now officially stigmatized as an English nerd. And yes, the group DOES use the acronym STD — how could anyone resist?! It was short and sweet, but fun to socialize with other English nerds.

A couple of our professors were there, including the prof for my poetry class. I met with him Monday morning to discuss the folder of work I’d turned in at midterm. All in all, it was very productive. We spent a long time puzzling over a particular poem that (after revision) I was fairly pleased with, but he was concerned about its “piety”. I was nonplussed over that one — with it’s strong religious connotations, “piety” is not a word I generally associate with myself or my work. Finally, though I did come away with the general idea that it needed more tension of some sort.

That very afternoon, this professor joined us in my contemporary writers class to talk with us about his own poetry, much of which seems to stem from a somewhat dark worldview.

This evening after the induction, a friend of mine thanked him for joining us in contemporary writers. I added that it had given me a prospective on what we had discussed concerning my work. I told him he really should just have told me, “Katie, this poem is too damn happy!”

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I don’t really have anything else to say, but this needs to be shared.

Quote of the day:
“I don’’t darn socks; I damn them to the trash can!”
-Jen

Categories: college
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Why are my downstairs neighbors out on their balcony, trying to toss around a football with buddies on the ground?

When out on the balconies I heard such a clatter… hmmm, shall we spoof Clement Moore?

At least they’re not breaking in…they’re just being stupid. And loud. If there are going to be men under my window, they ought to be serenading me. Or at least they damn well better not be grunting and making ape-ish, testosterone-induced noises.

Ahhh…college life. Just another perk of university housing. Right up there with being told that a toaster oven is a fire hazard. It has an open heating element, you see. Unlike a regular pop-up toaster. The fact that one has a door where the other has open slots for sticking in one’s fingers/a wet fork/random falling debris doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Housing Apes.

There seem to be too many apes in the world tonight. They need to get off campus and go back to the jungle so they can stop being endangered out there.

Categories: college
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Finally, finally, I know. Don’t look so shocked.

Academically speaking…

I think my favorite class this term is going to turn out to be Writing Poetry, which is with a professor who intimidated the hell out of me in freshman humanities. He seems more human now – not sure if it’s me or if it’s the chance in venue. He’s more personable in a small class setting (there are perhaps 15 of us), but I expect he will still push and challenge us; should be good. We’re reading and discussing a lot of poetry as well as writing our own (I might start posting some here if anyone would be interested.) Unfortunately the class includes a girl who exhibits all of Hermione’’s worst qualities with none (that I’’ve seen) of her good ones. She annoys most all of us –– though I heard someone say once that the qualities we like least in others often tend to be things we don’’t like about ourselves. I worry that there may be some of this going on. I try to be nice, but sometimes it takes effort.

Furman Hall renovations are all but done –– they’re still finishing a few cosmetic details — –and it looks really nice. The English department is settled into its new home at the end of the hall, and right next door is an “English lounge” –– couches and comfy chairs and such. I think this is a great thing and have been spending my hour between poetry and lunch in there, reading.

It was clear from the first day that my grammar class has the potential to be either truly fascinating or deadly dull and it’s taking some time to decide which. The linguistics book we started with (I’’m guessing Carmen may be familiar with de Saussure?) was a slog (we’’ve moved on to a grammar text now, though), and the prof is not the most engaging lecturer, but the material itself is okay.

I have discovered that the reason many people are taking the course is because the professor is reputed to be easy, and it’s not hard to see why. He is deeply concerned about things like grade inflation –– he points out that Furman’s cataloge describes a C as “satisfactory”. Of course this being Furman, none of us regard a C that way; neither do our parents or grad schools or anyone else. His way of dealing with this is to simplify the process: either you put in satisfactory work and you get an A and he allows everyone to be happy, or you don’’t and you get an F. He assuages his conscience by writing you a letter at the end of the term, giving you his professional opinion of your work (“here’’s what I REALLY think….”). Personally, this sounds a bit fishy –– is he not adding to grade inflation more than anything? At any rate, this is apparently why there are about fifteen people in grammar, rather than about five.

My other class, Contemporary American Writers, brought lots of excitement last week. Part of the fun is that the prof manages to get at least some of the writers you study to come speak to the class. We actually had two come last week; they were in town to speak at an event with a couple other local writers that evening, which was very neat. The two who came to class were Tommy Hays (author of The Pleasure Was Mine) and George Singleton (author of Why Dogs Chase Cars) and they could not be more different! Each man is exactly the sort of person you would imagine from reading their books –– one a quiet, Southern gentleman type, the other outspoken, chattering, and a bit crazy. I’’ve been fighting all weekend to write a short paper on the Hays book, which is about a family’’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, loss, and related themes. It’’s a sweet, sentimental, thoughtful book, firmly in the noncommital “”It was nice”” category. Finally realized I just needed a new topic –– required to pick one of three and this is just not the book for writing about themes. The Singleton book, however, is hilarious –– I haven’t quite finished it, but I do recommend it to those of you with a twisted sense of humor.

With an eye to the future…
…I have been exploring all sorts of scary things like job openings, grad schools, and the GRE. Still deliberating about the whole grad school thing – I could probably pick up anything a master’s in publishing could teach me, but it might be a trump card in a job search. Current plan is to take the GRE and apply to schools, but if a promising looking job opportunity comes up, I may spring for it. Basically, I’’m trying to avoid making a decision…

In other news…
…I have gotten seriously hooked on Firefly. A couple of the local radio stations hosted a free screening of Serenity last Wednesday, and Cort was able to get some tickets. Each one admitted two people, so of course Cort and Jen were one, while Genie graciously agreed to be my date. It was AMAZING and you should all go see it, even if you haven’t seen anything of Firefly. I hadn’’t (though am currently working to remedy that), and you really do catch on pretty quick.

Categories: Firefly, college
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That sounds like a rant. But it isn’t.

Let’s start here: the BeliefNet Quiz that’s going around again. If anyone had any doubts…

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (92%)
3. Liberal Quakers (88%)
4. Secular Humanism (80%)
5. Neo-Pagan (72%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (70%)
7. New Age (66%)
8. New Thought (61%)
9. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (61%)
10. Reform Judaism (61%)
11. Baha’i Faith (60%)
12. Nontheist (59%)
13. Mahayana Buddhism (56%)
14. Taoism (49%)
15. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (46%)
16. Scientology (46%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (44%)
18. Sikhism (41%)
19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (41%)
20. Jainism (40%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (30%)
22. Jehovah’s Witness (29%)
23. Hinduism (27%)
24. Islam (26%)
25. Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (15%)
27. Roman Catholic (15%)

Wasn’t that fun? I enjoyed telling one question that I don’t believe in an afterlife, then telling another one that we might get reincarnated, or perhaps we are all rewarded in the end. I felt it accurately reflected my usual state of confusion.

More seriously (getting back to the Baptists), if anything, I feel much more comfortable and confident in who I am and what I may or may not believe after spending three plus years in the buckle of the Bible Belt. At times it has seemed that one of the lovely little ironies of my life has been that I have chosen to be part of a very conservative student body, even though I have grown up a Unitarian (a minority in a minority – far more people come to Unitarianism later in life after becoming disillusioned with more conventional forms of religion). But apart from any feel-good notions of confidence, living and learning among the Baptists has been an eye-opener in some unexpected ways. One that never ceases to amuse and amaze me is that I have actually started to pick up on Biblical imagery and symbolism in literature. For certain poets, a garden will always have the idea of Eden lurking in the background. Apples should be regarded suspiciously for possible overtones. Etcetera. I notice things now that would never have occurred to me five years ago. (I always think of a scene in Kafka’s Metamorphosis that involved apples – Mrs. Hesse connected the apples to the tree of knowledge and I was floored.) It sounds petty, but it has to do with learning a little bit about the lenses with which other people view the world – not for a moment do I regret my choice to spend my college years in an ex-bastion of the Southern Baptists.
And that’s not even mentioning the people I wouldn’t have met, the places I might not have gone, that I might be doing some other major!!

Coming this weekend: So what the hell has she actually been up to for three weeks???

Categories: college
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I’m here. Settled in – same apartment, same room. Starting to think that summer was just a dream. Classes start tomorrow. Went to the post office this morning to claim all the books I ordered online, then bought the last one at the bookstore, so I’ve got everything. This is my, “Why yes, I AM an English major” term – I’m taking Contemporary American Writers, Writing Poetry, and Modern English Grammar. More on THOSE later in the week.

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Now that my brothers have been back in school for over a month, it’s finally time for me to hit the books again. I’m looking forward to being settled for a bit – I have re-located more times in the last year than a leopard has spots! Or at least it seems that way.

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And in less than a week! Holy cow!

First order of business: Yes, I drive a box! The amusing part is that, despite the fact that it was made with my generation in mind, it was my grandfather who bought it for himself last year! Since then, the decision has been made that he really shouldn’t be driving any more, so through a marvelous stroke of good luck on my end, the Scion came to me! Mother drove it here from Las Cruces last weekend. Whee!

Next: I found a place to live in New Hampshire! Again!! The first place fell through due to uncontrollable circumstances, nobody’s fault – a mother-in-law needed to come live with her kids, so there wasn’t room for me after all. I found this out when I got home last weekend. AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Extremely frustrating, but after MUCH ado, a phone call I made this afternoon paid off – I will be living at a different B&B, but this time (after the first week, at least) I will have my own suite/apartment type area – private entrance, small kitchen, etc. I will be paying rent, and whatever I end up doing around the place will be taken out of that, which works. I leave Friday. Tomorrow is packing day.

Other: All final exams, presentations, and that darn monster paper are finally over. I managed to give two presentations – and hardly tripped over my tongue at all! I just checked grades online and two of the three are actually in already and are thoroughly satisfactory. The third one was the aformentioned monstrosity of a paper, we’ll see how that goes. I’m not worried. Or I don’t care – hard to tell which tonight.

Aaaaand Vader. I finally got to join the rest of the world (my family doesn’t count; we are cinema-challenged and that’s okay) who have seen Episode III. Pug and I went this afternoon. I recommend the nitpicking of Carmen & Co.. Enjoyable for what it was, though you have to go into it knowing that Lucas is not physically capable of writing romance besides “I love you.” “I know.” (This is not to disparage the Han & Leia style of romance – far from it. This is to slam silly-sounding romance scenes with lines like “I’m haunted by the kiss you should never have given me.” GAH.) I was also less that satisfied with the big climactic battle over the lava pit (or rather, lava planet. Definately no volcano.) – Pug hit the nail on the head when he called it forced. Honestly, if anything, it really made me want to watch the old trilogy. Sadly, no time for that before leaving for points north. So somebody go watch it for me!

Categories: college, home, internships
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Item 1: I have housing in NH for the summer – I’m going to be staying at a bed & breakfast and helping out around there in exchange for my room and board. Yay! So, no salary but no rent either. This works.

Item 2: All course work and presentations are done…except my 20 page humanities paper. Whoo.

Item 3: It’s really just time for school to be over…time to go home, however briefly. Five days to go. Five days, eight pages (see item 2), and two exams.

See you soon.

Categories: college, internships
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