Procrastination, continued

Hey,

Anna, I'd like to hear more about your short story class. What do you mean when you say you love the way it makes you think? I've been enjoying running too, but it just snowed and got cold(er), so unfortunately I'm going to have to start forcing myself to run on the indoor track or even on the treadmills.

Have you guys read The Turn of the Screw? I have to read that for Lit Theory. How about God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane? And yes, I'm still doing my thesis on literature as moral philosophy, but I haven't started work on it . . . You know who's not cool? Lacan. I don't know what he's talking about.

Ben, what's up? Still looking for jobs? or is that all settled?

Ben

Procrastination

Hello, I should be working but I am taking a break.  Or I guess it's not really a break if I haven't started yet.  I am in a wonderful short story class and have discovered that I love Fitzgerald, even though he doesn't seem to like women. The class is making me think in a way that I love.  Both about the stories, and my life in general.  It is nice to be in a class that feels like the professor cares about the students. Not just educationally, but wants us to become better people.

So what happened with the thesis? Is it a go?  I feel like I am somewhere between worrying as much as ever about grades and not caring.  Not stressing out as much would be a good thing.  I have only done yoga once, and the teacher yelled at me because I wouldn't take off my socks.  Maybe I should try it though.  It could help me relax.  I have really liked running lately.  Especially in the rain.

I haven't made much headway on To The Lighthouse, but maybe I can read it over fall break.  Now I have to write an essay for my Jewish Lit class.  Hope you are both good!  I love hearing from you and want to see you soon!

Post

Hey guys, good to hear from y'all. I don't really know what I'm going to do for my thesis (my proposal is due tomorrow). I think I have Senioritis. I've gotten, let's see, an F on my first Lit. Theory paper (I turned in one page), a C- on my first Symbolic Logic test, a C on my first Physics homework . . . and now I have this philosophy proposal thingy, which I haven't really thought about yet . . . . There's a strange kind of freedom you experience when you let go of your fear of getting bad grades . . . . I don't know if I want to go to grad school now. I've thought, briefly, about going into osteopathic medicine (is that the right word? I'm thinking about the eastern-tinged pseudo-spiritual acupuncture massage type doctor). Oh, and I just wrote my first article for our school paper (a concert review) and it was embarrassingly bad. Badbadbad. Sigh. I like yoga, do you guys? I need to find more free yoga classes at Hamilton.

Are you reading anything cool for your classes, Anna? I've been stopped on page 182 (of 209) in Lighthouse for about two weeks (probably another senioritis symptom). I'll post some of my ideas about the book another time -- it would be nice to bounce ideas off each other. Ben, I like the Middlemarch quotes, I'll have to read that eventually. The Borges lectures are fun to listen to: they can be a little boring, but I like the sound of his voice. For now, here's a Woolf quote about Middlemarch:

She was by way of being terrified of him--he was so fearfully clever, and the first night when she had sat by him, and he talked about George Eliot, she had been really frightened, for she had left the third volume of Middlemarch on the train and she never knew what happened at the end; but afterwords she got on perfectly, and made herself out even more ignorant than she was, because he liked telling her she was a fool. (98)

I like the image of a book traveling on when the person gets off the train. I'm not sure what to make of it though. Any thoughts? I'll have to read the Obama speech again, and the last Eliot quote you posted, Ben. And send away with your thesis, though I don't know when I'll actually read it. Best, BP

Chilly Fingers and Toes

It is starting to cool off.  I wore my winter coat this weekend, and there is a new smell in the air.  My friends and I spent dinner rehashing an old discussion of whether or not there is a difference in the meaning of the words crisp and crispy... I take the first to refer to brisk weather whereas the second is about food.

I wrote a post last week, but my computer disconnected from the internet and I lost it.  Ben (P), I started reading "To The Lighthouse" a few years ago, but even though I was enjoying it I never finished.  I am going to pick it up again tonight and I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you thought more about your thesis?  Ben K, can you send yours to me as well?  I never got a chance to read it.

I am excited to listen to those lectures, and I looked at your blog (Ben P.) I am looking forward to going back because I want to spend more time looking at it!  Very cool.  Other Ben, I like the quotes!  Middlemarch is one of my favorites.

 

I hope you are both doing well.  Things here are so busy, especially with the election coming up so soon.  Make sure all of your friends are registered to vote!  This is a critical election and every single vote is going to matter.  

On that note, here is one of my favorite speeches of all time.  Obama gave it on Super Tuesday, and it gives me chills every time I read it.  I put it up on my wall to try and inspire myself.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek.

We are the hope of those boys who have little; who've been told that they cannot have what they dream; that they cannot be what they imagine.

Yes They Can.

We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubts that tell him that he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him.

Yes He Can.

We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt; that she cannot reclaim what was swept away in a terrible storm.

Yes She Can.

We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen and what we believe- that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across the nation as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest- Yes. We. Can."

Yes we can! Miss you both

~Anna

P.S.

Hey Ben,

I'll send you my thesis. It's awfully long though. Just a heads up.