Hello, what's this?
(blows dust off blog, coughs)

Ah, the old blog. It's been, what, a year or so now? Cor blimus, but that's no fun. Well, a lot has happened since then:
1) I've been to England.
Yes, it's true: unlike certain minor dramatic characters believe, England does exist. I've seen it with me own four eyes. Cambridge was especially lovely and I'd like to live there and/or be reincarnated there about 1889 or so, let's say. Lots of fun.
2) I've completed my thesis.
And boy was it ever worth it. Dam-ned thing. Horror! Horror!
3) I's gradumidadted!
They let me walk onto the stage and everything. There are pictures. You may not see them.
4) I am going to Grad School.
After three tries at various institutions (Berkeley? More like Jerk-ley! Ann Arbor weren't that bad, actually -- it sounded like they'd read my packet and thoroughly hoped I'd get in) for Classics, I'm now going to... stay here, and do the English thing, moving on to Grad School in something literature-based and possibly Medieval.
5) ... but they're not going to pay me for it.
Yes, that's right, the assistanceship hasn't, if you take my meaning. So I get to either a) duke it out with other Grad Students for "unexpected openings" at the Orientation Session in August, b) find some fellowships (hobbits and wizards notwithstanding) and/or wealthy dowagers who believe in the power of education, or c) beg on my knees at the loans department. Sadly, c) looks to be the option I take, which sucks SO HARD. Of course, now is the time to mention that donations to your public Grad Student's Educationary Fund are accepted.

So, "What are you doing right now, you dirty layabout?", I hear you ask. Well, I'll answer that in just a second. (walks off) (sound of flushing) There, that's better. For starters, I'm doing a lot of writing, by which I mean not that much. I've an essay to rework for publication, with which I hope to be done by, oh, Friday. There's also a lot of photocopied handouts that I want forma digitalis, so there's a couple more weeks' worth of work. Plus I'd like to actually complete a Telax Moral story one of these days, so there you go. Plenty to do. There's also plenty to read, most of which I am likewise ignoring because it's tiresome (e.g. Ulysseys, The Art of Courtly Love, etc.) Instead, I've taken up playing the Final Fantasy games, and am in the middle of FF3 (FF6 in Japan).

Other News-related limericks:

Justice: Sharing Data Would Crash System
We have secrets. You may not see them. Go away.
Voting official seeks process for canceling Election Day over terrorism.
Great! Iraq got democracy, all right: OUR democracy. Wondered where it'd gone.

Remember, if nothing else, get out and vote. Vote for, vote against, vote lesser of two evils, I don't care. Just do it!

You might want to check out Grizz's blog, over at http://grizzsgrowls.blogspot.com/. It's more rant-y, but he's having major back surgery, so hopefully that will taper off. Hopefully.

Well, it's been a quite week in Lake Wobegone, my home town, out here on the edge of the prarie...

Wait, that can't be right. Anyway, it really has been quiet. I've gotten another book (actually several, but only one's arrived so far) which I needed for my thesis, and I've been ploughing throw that; otherwise, I've been spending my mornings and early afternoons at the Writing Centre, in part because they let me sit somewhere quiet, drink their coffee, and enjoy their air conditioning whilst I pretend wholeheartedly that I'm going to do work. In the coming week I'll be leaving for Little Rock, to recieve my truck and see about seeing some folks (and getting an eye exam, but the one has nothing to do with the other). I've sent the change-of-address form, and set it for Wednesday.

The ceiling is still leaking, but it stopped for several days this week, which is nice, as the floor has had a chance to dry out some. Starting Monday (and sadly going only through Wednesday), I'm calling Faucette Properties EVERY MORNING to let the gormless gits know they NEED to come fix my ceiling. YESTERDAY. Some people, eh?

Speaking of which, I am down to a solid four pages, but I did get to compare the entire Roman aristocracy to a littler of puppies.

Back at you in a week or so.

Well, I spent the past few days in LR, like I said, and the air conditioning was nice. The house only partly felt like a home; as my folks move their stuff out and into storage, the memories get packed away as well, and that's the way of things.

Quite a few things came out of the excursion, though: for one, I now have clothes I can wear in public (I'm down to six shirts that don't have paint on them) and my first suit (mom cried -- well, almost). I also received the boon of three boxes of my grandfather's old books, which he no longer even acknowledges exist, and probably would have shipped off to St Michael's like the rest of the library. The sad thing is that, going through his library, I realised that my grandfather was a very intelligent man -- I emphasise the was, for although he isn't dead, he's certainly given up on thinking. It is frightening to think that I never met the compassionate, liberal vicar he revealed himself to be in his writings, that such a person, turned from forestry to God's work, LIVED the way of Christ, the loving truth, and then... poof. One anyerism, and he disappates into slovenly madness. tis de bios, ti de terpnon -- and what if that happens to me?

*sigh* Now I'm all depressed.

On the other hand, I've been reading Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and between that and the Gender Troublesit's had a profound effect, let me tell yow. Listen to this:

Gender does not imply desire. One can be 'male' without desiring 'female' or 'male'; thus, simply because the gender one carries assumes a cupidious gaze does not mean there is copulation behind it. One can desire Christ, desire to be penetrated by Christ, and mean it a metaphysical, spiritual way. By expressing agape with the terms of eros, bishops and other fathers are subverting the norm, and 'elevating baser desires'. As my father always said, 'Get your Mind out of the Gutter!' -- and it is no different here. Deisire is in the lexicon of both eros and agape, and it is use by both indpendent of either gender of sex of the subject or object.

Pretty nice, eh? That's probably going into the thesis.

I just realised (heh) that tomorrow is July 4, which means that a) the Writing Centre will be closed, and b) the Library will be closed, so I have to stay indoors and find a way to drink gin quietly without quinine. ('quietly without quinine' is (tm) and (c) Jacob Lewis, 2003).

Well, I'm in Little Rock now, as thanks to the loans (and a few gifts from people -- I also accept paypal donations, but I don't know how to tell you that yet (grin)) I can now afford to have the truck repaired. I won't be in the city for too long, though - with or without that truck, I'll still need to tie up loose ends in F'ville before it's on to Glorious England.

Classe(s) are done; the hole in my ceiling has widened; I bought a new fan (with its own mind, now, so it can turn itself on WHENEVER IT FEELS LIKE IT) and a new CD Burner (it made an audio cd in FIVE minutes. I wept openly.)

My mother will drag me to church, because she's like that, but it's only church, and I can put up with it for a little while. Besides, it's interesting.

I received my British Harry Potter on Thursday at 1632, and finished it Friday at 1327, with six hours of sleep and a little bit of work thrown in there, too. I'll have to read it again, since the hype made me fast forward through it.

I saw the property my folks are buying yesterday, and aside from its tick-infested nature and the fact that Mother Green has seen fit to make a new form of insect-slug-minnow hybrid grow in the ichor that used to be the pool, it looks all right. In another month, the fruit trees will be in bloom, and their blackberries will be doing nice indeed.

Off now. Shoo!

Well, the asceticism didn't go too well, the nearest desert being about a thousand miles away, and perhaps human beings aren't so bad anyway. Aside from that, well, Cambridge took their d**d money, and I talked to the loans people and found out that they're a bunch of clueless gits, but they have accepted this and are easily corrected, so that's all right. Following the news that I would get (insane amount of money deleted), I went off and -- hedonistic me -- ordered the two books I'll absolutly need for Cambridge.

Old English is still, well, old and not really English. I have a work-around, but it bugs me that I can't construct things in the language, such as sentences and complex thoughts (not too bad, though, as a truly complex thought beyond 'Hurr... Hrotwulf thrash with mighty, jewel-encrusted, sweet-killing sword, forged of blood and iron, with a sharp edge, how daddy loves his sword, yes he does (direct quote from Beowulf) -- anything beyond that would require, well, words such as 'complex' and 'thought'; I do, however, like their literal-mindedness sometimes: 'And Grendel, with his hate-thinkings, busted the door in two.' And besides, how many pices of authentic literature can start with the sentence fragment, 'was busted'?).

Mad as it may seem, I've decided to live in this flat for another year -- hence I sent off the signed lease on Saturday, along with a cheque for this month's rent, and a little note saying 'Please send someone round to fix the holes in the celings in my kitchend and living room', with judicious use of underline.

God, what a shitty week this has been. I've spent most of it in Old-English limbo, flailing about and not doing a bit of decent work; Quinn seems to think I'm doing well, but I know that I don't have the grammar down, and it's starting to show. I've begun working on Beowulf, and it's not going well at all.

I've also spent most of the week loosing sleep and having my insides liquidated over the fact that Cambridge, an otherwise noble and respected institution, has yet to debit my account the £975. It was supposed to be on the 6th -- and all of their literature stated explicitly that they would do so ON the sixth. I haven't seen the transaction, I haven't heard anything from them, just dead silence and me worried that I won't get in. If that happens, I don't know what the next step is.

I also said something really stupid and vaguly sexual (and clumsy) to an otherwise lovely and wonderful person, and, after heavy drinking (or rather before, since that's what brought it on), have decided to become a desert ascetic, because this whole living-among-human-beings thing just really isn't working out. Jesus Christ.

*blows dust off of blog*

There. Geez, it's been a month. I suppose I haven't written in a while as there's not much to say. The thesis is coming along slowly, but it *is* coming along; I've decided to rewrite the opening significantly. As I said to Quinn, 'I'd like to build a bridge from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity by demonstrating what has changed and what hasn't. I will then examine the gender roles of men in Late Antiquity and compare them to CA -- pointing out that, again, little *has* changed, save that the return to an oligarchy heralds a return to the Late Republic and Early Empire.' Later papers, like Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations, will build on this, and, if I'm lucky, eventually grant me tenure. As Terry Pratchett says, 'There is always a spare study somewhere, and a seat in the Great Hall (though to bring one's own napkin and utensils is a mark of wisdom).'

I have decided to -- once and for all -- give up on searching for keen, awakened women. There are too many failures, and outright blind alleys, dead ends, and dangerous pitfalls involved in the quest, and it's not fun anymore. I'm getting old, after all (I was tweleve when I was six, and twenty when I was twelve; at that rate, I am now approximately 47.398199e6), and you only live thrice. I'll just go on being myself, and let HER find me.

Other than that, not much news. I'm waiting on loans, and Cambridge to debit my account, which they said they were going to do yesterday but apparantly didn't get around to doing, because for all my duck-and-cover, end-of-the-world gloom, there's still (censored) dollars in there, so I'm safe. I may even buy groceries (mwahahah!).

Also, I discovered that reality is merely a fiction wrapped around an even scarier hollow shell, which is just the other side of this wall. Weird, no? I'm shocked.

The fundamental things apply early.
-- Frances Synotre, Things You Should Have Learned in School.

Ramadan is over, the new moon's shown her face
I'm halfway round the planet in a most unlikely place
-- Jimmy Buffett, 'Far Side of the World'

The semester has come to an end, and none too soon. I'm rather tired, and there's not much I can do about it at this point if my grades suck. As the papers got turned in, I felt just a little lighter; when Sexton's paper was away, I weighed about six pounds. The hard part was finishing all the stuff for Dave (which is now at http://comp.uark.edu/~jcl08/rof/); that took a lot of work, and I'm not at all happy with the result. Some of the pages are boring, or simply shite. Decent shite maybe, but tiresome all the same.

I made an Epityrum and served it up like the Umbrians do, with lots of oil and sphagetti. It was salty, and more than I think the Romans would have liked; I need to find some decent olives that aren't already pre-spiced in the brine. Still, it was good, and a decent excuse to expand my spices to the Roman side (coriander, cumin, fennel -- if anybody has any rue, I'd love them forever if they were to give me some). I need a little spice shelf now.

Now that the summer is officially here, I have a list of things to do next week while I'm off. Cleaning up is one; I'd like to move some furniture around, but I'm not sure where yet. I need to bracket out my paper for SEMA, and begin reading for it; I target late June or early July for the actual writing to begin, and I'd like to have a list of things to look for whilst I'm at Cambridge. Of course, there's also Latin, Greek, and German to study; I don't want to do too much with French yet, since the class is ultra-basic, and I don't want to get stuck in the 'oh-this-I've-had-this-before-blah' mode which results in nasty things like B's. There's tapes to be cut, and 'big' laundry to the laundro-hut; I've agreed to make bread for Genet, since she made that nasty face at me (I love that nasty face; all her faces are so cute... but don't tell her I said that).

Girls meet boys and boys tease girls
I'm headed out this morning for the far side of the world

Well, enough of this loathing-self whining. It's coming up on finals week now, and I've gotten a draught of the paper to Sexton, and am awaiting her comments. Dave's sent me a few comments on the site as well; I intend to finish those today *after* I write an essay for him on Corbeil's 'Why Do Roman Politicians...?' article; I'd also like to get started on the philosophy paper.

But there's better news ahead: Sturgis came in this week, and, once it was deposited for sure, I purchased a ticket to London for 23 July to 21 August. Man oh man, that's gonna be great. My passport's come in, and I'm thinking of using just a little Sturgis money to get some passport photos and then the International Student ID, which will, so I'm told, be *really* worth it. I also bought the book Quinn and I will use this summer; it's called 'Old English Grammar and Reader', and will be really fun. Along with that I picked up 'A Taste of Ancient Rome', which should be fun. I think I'm done buying things for now (grin).

The relationship with haec ille Clodia has, I hope, come to its natural end; I hope to still be friends with her, but this silly physical relationship has GOT to stop, because neither of our hearts is in it. I mean, she's good people, and we work together really well, but there's just not the right kind of harmonie. Still, somewhere out there, She is drawing closer; I can feel it.

Bah. Enough silliness! To work! I'll see you all in a week. Stay at peace, world.

I don't know. I'm broke, I'm headed toward drunk, and I'm depressed. There's two holes in my ceiling, no women in my life, a festering wound in my arm, and a helluva deadline in my future. My head hurts, my feet stink, and I don't love Jesus. I need to be held, but there's no arms to hold me. My truck's broke, my larder's empty, and my clothes are all wet. I don't even have a dog, but I expect that if he were to exist, he'd've r-u-n-n-o-f-t by now. What the hell am I supposed to do?

Women delight, confuse, and mystify me, and one woman in particular, who will most likely be my undoing for a long while yet. Other than that, I have little to say.

So much to relate, and most of it took place on Friday. I'm going to Cambridge -- more or less -- and I'm taking three hours with Quinn in Summer I, when he'll be teaching me Old English! I applied for my passport on Friday, and sent off the application for the programme as well; this was followed by the Fulbright Award ceremony, which, as all ceremonies are, was tedious. But afterwards, I went to Julius Caesar, the Brando version, and... well, I'm not going to publish the rest of the evening online, but it was inexperssible in words and long-sought-after.

The paper got in, if you're wondering, but it's crap, and I was off my stride all day yesterday: Connolly and I spent three hours just hanging out and attempting to speak Latin, a venture of doubtful success, but nonetheless worth having. The evening was capped off with dinner at A Taste of Thai, with friends who seem to think the world of me, for whatever reason.

"Let me confront you with the arguments of Reason herself; then you will see that she is right."

Had to break into my own damn house today, and then spent the rest of the afternoon getting groceries. I'm tired, and I have a paper due tomorrow. Woo!

What a depressingly average week. I've been working on all this website stuff for Dave. I got the paper back from Sexton, and it was marked up in ways that mean I'll not have any free weekends from now until the semester's end. Coon didn't belive that I'd read all the stuff I told her I'd read, or done the things I'd told her I'd done, and berated me again; can't wait until the fall. I've also been trying to work on getting a "Latina Viveat" club together, where we could speak Latin aloud, for fun and prophet; I may have found a time, but that remains to be seen. I'm also entertaining thoughts of running for Prytanis for 2003/4.
I'm really worried about going on Study Abroad this summer; it means assuming a lot of debt, and possibly doing things that may not be very interesting. On the other hand it's England, in the summer.
I wish I could say it would take care of itself, but... shit. I can't, and it won't, and I've got to worry about keeping the flat in the summer, and paying the bills.
I hate stress. It may very well kill me.

Sic volvere parces.

Okay, so, much to relate. I gave a presentation on Thursday that was I assume warmly received. Then, on Friday, 10 of us left for the HSF convention, which was very interesting. Old friends were met (and sadly snubbed, I'm afraid, but that's convention for you) and new friends made. After our victory (see below), we ended up at "Toto's", a real Italian restauraunt run by a real Southern Italian, which was most unique; as it turns out, they only serve food on Friday nights, so we lucked out.
Two of the three papers were not so good, and the middle one was GREAT, but it didn't win; in fact, the worst was honored, which makes me wonder about the state of the minds of the executive board.
Half of us won the Certamin; Aaron Randolph was elected as Megas Grammateus. The shirts sold quite briskly, and in fact we are nearly out of them, despite the fact that I think these were possibly the worst I've done.
Other than that, life has returned to normal, inasmuch as one can call stress and madness normal.

Christ.

The folks came up, which was wonderful, because it broke the terrible pain that it is to birth a paper -- and this one, by all accounts, seems to have been quite the abortion. At any rate, we (my folks and I, not me and the paper) went out to Pea Ridge, a park I'd never even been to, so as to get a little sun. Boy, did I get it -- I think this is probably the first sunburn of the year. Oooh yeah.

Afterwards, we went over and saw The Pianist, a powerful film that defies any mention of me telling it to you. All I can say is that you should see it.

But yeah, so, I have a draught of this fucking S Petro paper, and man, it's an ugly mother. I'm going to have to spend some serious revision time on it -- but not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I figure out what I need to have done that I would have done last week if I hadn't been working on this paper.

Welche Farbe hat der Mind?

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono;
imperium sine fine dedi.

Ave Buse! Nos qui fracturi rota sint te salutes.

In short, in honour of the war, I have *stopped* reading Dante's Paradiso, and have instead added the Koran to my nightly Sacred Works readings (Tanekh and Christian scripture, and, if I could find it, a decent Nag Hammadi), and have taken to reading the Æneid, in English, as well. Cultural understanding and empire-making. Makes you just want to be Celtae in the hills, no?

Erica came up. She's doing well, for Erica. I gave her my folks' email and phone, and told her that my mother was concerned about her and would love to hear from her. She made the house smell like grass (for pain) and cigarets, and with the outside smells, and coffee, and the normal house smell, it felt like The House in Damascus, and I got very serene. She was a breath of fresh air, really -- if she hadn't come up, I'd be a different person.

Life feels good.

Well, That Silent Planet is done, and I've taken to reading a little Old Testament, a little New, and some Dante; I'd really like to get through all three of those things, but that might take a while. I've been taking Nyquill in the evenings, too, and that gives me about fifteen to twenty minutes to read before I pass out.

Nights have been warm, and days too, in spite of the rain. I hope *knock oak* that Spring's really here. Certainly my sinuses are sure of it: with the conifers being horny, my nose is being overly phlegmatic, and life's becoming a bitch. However, I seem to be getting over it, and that's a plus.

Spring break is up: I'm not going anywhere for it, though. Erica might come up here, and the folks too, but in between, there's a lot of reading and writing to do. I did get paid -- and if the folks come up and are amenable to it, I'll have lots of books to sell, and more money from SR and the Tax folks. Money provided me the ability to eat pretty well while that's going down. CL even took me shopping, so I have alcohol as well. Anything to get all this work done, I tell you what.

I got copies of God's Phallus and The History of Sexuality; the latter is for the Sexton paper, and the former may come in handy... someday. That's the big thing this week, actually: I have to have it to a presentable point (1/3 of it done, with five images to be shown and a host of other requirements) by the 27th.

I didn't even talk to fucking Coon this week; she was being a bit of a pill, and since I had to wait twenty minutes with no meeting, only to discover later that she'd been in a meeting and we'd missed each other in the hall, which caused her chastise my "patience", well, I let her have it, and haven't heard from her since. We'll see if she even wants to talk to me Mittwoch after next. Still, though -- I'd actually DONE work for her this week, and to have to wait -- not even being told that she *had* a meeting -- and then get a sarcastic remark like that... well, if she didn't deserve it, I'd like to see proof.

On another note entirely, I really, really wish I had a significant other, or a least a glimmer of hope for one. Not that it's vital to my life, but dammit, human beings need something to love, and I don't even have a cat.

Bah! Enough whining. L'chaim, or at least to work. Wish me luck; I'll write to you soon.Wish me luck; I'll write to you soon.

God in heaven.

This was a rough week. Dave lectured on Lacanian psychoanalysis, which is a whole mess of fun and caused me to briefly give up my desire for the One. That was recovered the following Thursday in NeoPlatonism, though, so that's all right. Of course, Wednesday morning, I awoke to discover that my sinuses had been drinking without me, and have yet even now as this is being written to sobre up. I've tried a lot, from mulled wine to ginger tea to herbs, and now I'm going balls-out Roman and drinking a tea made by boiling halved Red Wine with Honey, Rose Hips, Willow Bark, Mint, Yarrow, and Sage, all of which are designed to over-sanguinate my system and thereby crush whatever's giving my sinuses hell. The worst part is the drainage, though -- it's giving me a helluva cough.

My plate is equally full this weekend. I've got to complete a paper, read an article and answer questions, and prepare a lot of Latin for Dave; write an argumentative paper for Spellman, and read *some* gender stuff a/o archetecture for Sexton/Coon, so they'll get off my case about being lazy. Coon was especially selfish this week, and Sexton wants half a paper in two weeks. Thank God there's spring break there soon, and I've got some money coming, or I'd be just starving and going mad slowly.

Slowly? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I've got a killer sinus problem, and there's no telling just exactly how much hell I've got to go through before it's all over. Christ, I don't need this right now.

Still got That Silent Planet to read, and a lot of other books once the ol' Tax Refund returns.

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie, File Gumbo...