that time of year thou mayst in me behold

when exams are about to eat your SOUL!

Monday - classes, with icon and nature projects due in photography, my painting needs to be mostly finished on pain of death as per Daniel Finch's orders, and the usual art history schluff.

Tuesday - classes, except I might skip bioethics. Poetry portfolio, sketchbook, and self-assessment due.

Wednesday - Reading Day! And I get to go see my new house! And possibly put my fridge in storage.

Thursday - My poetry "final exam." Whatever that actually means.

Friday - Photography portfolio due.

Monday - Bioethics final exam at 8:30 a.m. Then Photo "final exam" at 10:30. Basically just viewing everyone's portfolio.

Tuesday - Art history exam at 8 a.m., then painting final critique at 10:30. Done by 12:30.

Whew! Sounds like one crapping long marathon. And in the midst of all that, I have to find time to pack up all my crap. And clean. And I'd like to actually spend some time with my friends, too, since they won't be around all next year. Sigh. Well, that's why I'm not blogging or online or whatever other mode of communication I use to talk to you. See you in a little over a week.

oh, and by the way, I'm still alive.

skanking to the song of the puppy bees

And the song of the puppy bees is really that song from Lord of the Rings when Gandalf is galloping across Rohan. You know. Dun, dun dun dun, dun-dun!

Eighteen months. I've been blogging for eighteen months. That's a year and a half. This blog is like my extremely whiny part-time child, who ought to be walking quite well by himself now, except that somehow he's still dependent on me for posts.

That could have been the best metaphor ever. But when it came out, it just sounded silly.

People portraits: oddly intimate. Self-portraits: pretty hysterical. It feels odd to be in a class full of people who are inspecting their own faces. It's like they forgot to wash their faces or perform ablutions that morning and are making up for it by three full hours of intense face-examination.

Amish Paradise? almost as good as the puppy bee song.

they've never done a superhero movie without a hero in it before!

Oh, the daily show! Pretty dang hysterical tonight.

Oh, school. Starting again tomorrow. I hope I'm centered enough from break to handle the rest of the year, because there isn't another break till the end. And finals are always a lot of stress.

In conclusion: I find myself craving subway. Mmm... subway....

the only thing to fear is fear itself - and the spanish meatballs

- Liz

I also fear the beginning of school again. Granted, a little more structure than this weekend will be nice, but this amount of stress, forever, would also be nice. Mm. Seems like you just can't win. I feel like, if I can get a job as a professor, I'll have weekends and things where I don't have to go to work. And that would be nice.

And now, a short excerpt from my poetry homework reading:

"Why do I write? Why do I write? Why do any of us write or make art? Why not make something practical instead like a chair or some money? Why not make something edible that disappears and, if bad, can be easily forgotten, or if good, can live on in memory screened from damaging changes of context? The question is: How does one hold an apple/who likes apples? Is the question about intentionality? Is the answer to such a question to be trusted? Would it be better to continue speculating? By better are we talking about being more interesting or more productive? Should this answer be a record of something that has already happened, or should it be prescriptive and affect poems that have yet to be written? Can there be an experiment without a hypothesis? Is language poetry scientific? Is lyric spiritual? If a poem was written in the tradition of the avant-garde but is then absorbed by the mainstream, what is it? Is a poem less valuable if it appeals to a large audience? Can a poem be committed to the lyric tradition, even if the poet is not? Is lyric committed to beauty? Is there such a thing as beauty? Where does it reside?"

The whole statement is like that, but it's delicious. I mean, intellectually I knew that other people must ask tons of questions (some of them unanswerable) as they work, or of their work, but here's a bit of empirical, published proof. I dunno. I just got excited. = )

let it soak through your bones

I'm in full quiet mode, now. At first it was a little eerie, and I buried myself in a book. But I have to say, now that the first shock of the silence has worn off, it's soaking through me, and feels fine. I feel that to speak or move too quickly or think too hard would break the spell of peace.

I feel this crazy stab of... something I guess is joy every time I look up from my book or computer and see the quiet gray sky outside. And every time I think, no homework due tomorrow. And basically any time I become aware of anything. = )

So yeah, my Easter break has started quite well.

i don't think rubens would have painted a woman built like barbie

Yes, there's seriously an article about that on the art historical databases I've been searching. Definitely one of the most amusing. Along with Picasso's artistic tendency at the end of his life to 'flirt promiscuously with Ingres.' And the funniest phrase I found while researching? As a parenthetical phrase: "no eunuch - he is all there." I mean, the point was important to the paper, and it was put fairly gracefully, but honestly, I don't think you're supposed to be that funny in an academic paper.

The phrase that made me most indignant? "He makes High art seem hip." Of course, in this postmodern world, my conception of 'high' and 'low' art has probably radically blurred compared to this author, but it still made me indignant.

9:24 p.m. Tuesday night, and I have finished a very rough draft.

UPDATE: 10:30 and I have one paragraph of my final draft done.

*UPDATE*: 1:16 and I've printed off my final draft. And the printers worked!!! I swear, I feel so light I could fly. I got all my work for tomorrow done! Two yearbook spreads, two photo projects, and a research paper... I don't think I've ever had so much due in one day, and I hope it never happens again. I hope I can get to sleep with all this euphoria flowing through my veins (or wait, is that caffeine?). = )

i sometimes feel like sysiphus

Is that how you spell his name? Guy who has to perpetually roll a rock up a hill in heck.

But! Good news: I got a new battery for my camera and it's been workin' fine and dandy. And! I turned in my painting today, so that's off my mind. Everyone was nicer to it than they should have been, but... I guess I don't actually mind that, so much. There was one part of it that I really liked a lot (the rest of it could have been burned). I'm thinkin' if I get to choose a subject for any of our next paintings, it's going to be people. They're difficult, and maybe if I paint them enough my rendering skills will just go through the roof....

Advising night is tonight, so I'm hoping to get the art side of my schedule all ironed out. Then I need to set up an appointment with my english advisor and see how many rules I'm going to skirt in taking these classes completely out of order. = )

I also discovered something in taking a little break from blogging: when I don't blog, I hold a lot more conversations with myself in my head. = D

"your ambition keeps you ahead of others"

Heh. A fortune cookie actually relates to current events, and it has to be an ironic one.

I got my sophomore review evaluation back.

I'm not ahead.

And if you ask, I'm going to get all emo on you.

and the legs of the beetle were broken

Well, I wrote a sestina last night. Kind of a double stretch for me, since I don't like (or normally use) form, and I usually write poetry which is much shorter than a sestina. So I guess that's good. And it's not a terrible sestina. It's just definitely not great.

I feel like I don't have anything to say recently, so I fall back on whining. But I decided that if I don't have anything to say, then I just don't have anything to say, so I'm not going to say anything (try that five times fast). So I might not be blogging for a while. A couple weeks, whatever. Who knows? I just feel bad about whining all the time.

rusty wallace... yes, like the race car driver

Well, the whole dealing-with-life thing is going much better now that I've gotten eight hours of sleep. 'Course, I'd like more, but there's so much to do....

Play was really good. Hysterical, actually. My stomach muscles hurt afterward from laughing so much. Congrats to Liz for such a great job!

Also the senior show was really good. Congrats to Brendan for getting a slide projector that works, and also for being a surprisingly approachable upperclassman.

Yeeeep, I guess that's all I gots to say. Got an idea for my summer project (depending on where I can get a job), and can't wait to be done with homework for just a little while.