IAN!

Welcome to the Dvorak side: by now you've learned that practicing a new keyboard layout is an excellent way of procrastinating. How else do you think I indulged my senioritis, way back in the spring of '03?

Now time for a long-pondered request: what I really want (aside from a sacrarium in my Christmas stocking) is a "Typed on Dvorak" graphic for this very site. I think I'd put it above "Powered by Blogger".

Miller used to say that my room looked like a cathedral. He's wrong.

It looks like a Carmelite shrine.

PS: Should it bother me that I just opened my (grown-up, not ID) wallet to find a movie ticket from seeing Collateral with Miller in September '04? When was the last time I used this thing?

Oh, would you look at that.

I found my Latin syllabus just in time to learn that I have a quiz tomorrow.

Was I tempting fate by posting my to-do list, or what?

I Want My Mama

Well, I got that stomach flu my pilates instructor was talking about-- and I was so proud of not getting sick this quarter! I've not been so ill since that horrible Bryn Mawr visit my junior year.

Wonder how much of that to-do list is going to get done. Well, I'm certainly not making dinner tonight.

Next task: working up the energy to make the trip to CVS for ginger ale and cranberry juice.

The problem with being a third year...

...is that your paper assignments get longer and longer, while simultaneously getting less and less frequent. I haven't written a paper yet this quarter, and so I keep forgetting that I have a (5-10 pg) term paper due for Professor Fasolt on Thursday, and a (10-12 pg) term paper for CVN due a week later.

Who assigns a 5-10 page paper? Honestly.

Every time I do one of these boring "all the stuff I have to do" posts, I remember Heavens saying, "have you seen the week this girl has?". That said, it is both a cathartic exercise, and one which helps me keep track of things.

SO.

This weekend, I must:
Finish two more internship applications,(finished one-- and got called for an interview!)
Do latin homework (and learn the subjunctive conjugations that I got confused on the exam),
Read for my German Reformation class,
Figure out what I'm serving (vegetarian and low-carb) for the roommate dinner rotation tomorrow night (my winter fall-back plan, chicken and dumplings,* for obvious reasons, is right out), (canceled due to illness)
Get a substantial start on that German Reformation Paper,
Get a substantial start on that Canterbury Tales paper (CVN is a fierce grader, and I'd like to turn in a draft),
Re-write Catholic Students Association Board bylaws and constitution as requested by Fr. Rugen et al,
Make aforementioned dinner, (canceled)
Mass,
Other Social Things, e.g. Dinner w/ Worthen esta noche, Motet Choir concert, Ghirardelli's with Veronica.


Monday:
Calvert House Undergrad Dinner
Chaucer Reading-- Clerk's Tale
Latin Homework
Yeah, Monday was a total wash, spent sleeping and watching musicals.

Tuesday:
If I'm going to turn in a draft of the Chaucer paper, it's due today
CSA board meeting, which overlaps with the
Choir rehearsal for Ash Wednesday mass with Cardinal George
German Ref reading

Wednesday:
Cardinal George comes to give a talk for the Law School, but I can't attend due to the need to
Write my German Reformation paper

I'm pretty sure I have a Latin Quiz in there, too, but I can't find the paper and I don't know when. I hope it isn't Monday.

In The Near Future, I need to come up with a BA topic and start thinking about summer research opportunities. Last Wednesday's talk about applying to grad school was pretty anxiety-inducing. Actually, I should probably figure out if I really want to go to grad school.

The BA topic problem, it turns out, isn't so much a problem of not having interests. The problem is that I'm interested in too many things. Examples:
Clovis' Salic Law - What the Heck?
The Carolingian Dynasty and Millenialism
St. Ignatius of Loyola - Chivalry and Sanctity
St. Martin of Tours - Chivalry and Sanctity
The Templars - Chivalry and... you get the idea
Anything Involving Peter Abelard
Those round diagrams you get in medieval manuscripts.
The Merovingians (a nasty lot)
Pre-reformation Germany
British Vernacular Literature and Fairy Tales, especially in Wales
Medieval Historiography
Heresies, and what they can tell us about intellectual history.
Mystics

Things I'm NOT interested in: The Reformation Period (with the exception of the Catholic Historiography thereof), Medieval England (with the exception of the OE & ME languages), Humanism (sorry, Danny), Chaucer (except insofar as I can connect him to Ovid and Boethius). From this list, the reader can extract the problem with this quarter's classes.

I don't know why I don't like Chaucer. I want to like Chaucer. Kathleen (roommate) has suggested that a stiff drink before reading might lower my inhibitions and allow me to find him more entertaining.

Went out for Cuban food with Mr. Marinides, Miss Robinson, et al last night, but it's getting late and this post is getting long, so I'm just going to leave you with a cliff-hanger there.

*or, you know, Dumples

Run Away With Me

I WANT TO BE IN ABERYSTWYTH.

That is all.

Late Night on Woodlawn

Gaby: That skater's so hot! Look at him!
(Skater spits on ice)
Gaby: Well, that wasn't hot...

Alice: (browsing facebook) Mr. Patrello has changed his picture to... a slab of bologna.

Today is the day my desk gets clean.

And by "desk", I mean, desk, surrounding floor, and nearby bookshelf. Today might also be the day to figure out why my printer imploded and coughed up black ink all over the place.

Constantin Fasolt rocks my world.* In a discussion of the history of papal infallibility: "What? Pope John XXII? Who he? Papal infallibility 'a pestiferous nonsense'?... was he infallible when he said that?" **


*After Wednesday's discussion of Wittgenstein, Mr. Marinides wants this statement changed to "Constantin Fasolt rocks my beetle-box".
** The answer to this question, of course, is no. There is a strict criteria a statement must meet to be infallible, and this statement doesn't meet it. It was not ex cathedra, and was not to the entire church, but was directed at the Spiritual Franciscan's use of papal infallibility.

It is currently 3:57. I started this post almost five hours ago, but was pleasantly interrupted by Worthen, who wanted a breakfast companion-- an outing followed by much time at the Reg.

Quote from brunch:

Worthen: I love the fact that Wittgenstein and Noam Chomsky can be dismissed in the same way.
Hutton: Which is...?
W: Speech follows a practical logic, not a formal logic.
H: Ah.
W: Wittgenstein can be forgiven for this, but Chomsky...
H: There are many things for which Chomsky cannot be forgiven.
W: Like existence.

The desk is still covered in stuff.

I should have known the relationship was doomed

when I realized his philosophical blog bored me.

Going downtown this afternoon to see "Pericles" (for cheap! as Ian would say), followed by dinner with the P o' P girls, followed by Jasmine's Chinese New Year party. Last night was Steph's surprise birthday party and Tera's swanky "drinks and finger foods" event, at which I recognized most but knew almost nobody. Somehow, however, "making an appearance" turned into a two-hour-long conversation with Joel Avila. At first I thought he was a little tipsy, but then I learned that he's not drinking until he turns 21. I suppose that can tell you something about his personality.

My laundry is cursed. Just so you know.

An Interruption for Minor Panic...

Aaah! Latin Midterm tomorrow!

Aaah! Metcalf Applications due Monday!

With any luck, dinner with Worthen this evening will provide the devil-may-care attitude I need in order to be able to relax enough to concentrate.

Happy Feast of the Presentation! The authors of The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living write, "attend your local parish's lavish celebration of this feast, which is sure to include a solemn procession, the formal blessing of candles, and polyphonic choral renditions of traditional chants such as "Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion." Bring along your groundhog to have him blessed."

Shoot! I forgot to get some candles! And a groundhog!

(While typing, I realized that today is a proper feast day for Ian and Ancona, the little pyromaniacs.)