"he who drove out the cold"

Oooh, look. Before I freak out because my rough draft is due in two days and my senior show keeps changing every critique period, I'm taking a deep, deep breath and grabbing a cup of coffee. And I'm evaluating. Aren't you proud?

I had my last critique. Nobody can offer me any more suggestions now, not unless I ask them. Deep breath. There's no way I can fail to complete the project. There's a way that yes, it could fail to be lovely and dramatic and captivating, but right now, I can't help that. Its effect on viewers will vary by temperament anyway. It's between them and the work, and at some point I need to at least pretend to let go.

I have a rough draft of the paper. The minimum-of-20-pages paper. It is not the correct length, yet, but neither is it utterly incoherent. And as of Sunday at least one person in my class hadn't even opened a word document for it. So I am not hopelessly behind. And Professor Perrin says that I've "figured out a way to outsmart the project," so that's good. Initially I was not in the least interested in the project. Now I am, mostly because I am talking about artists in it.

I've decided, though, that I don't want to be Daniel Finch any more when I grow up. There are a lot of things about his teaching style that I love and that I would like to borrow, yes, but I would rather be Professor Perrin when I grow up. Because she understands criticism very well (she's one of the most perceptive critics I know, which means I end up changing the most when she critiques my work) and she also understands encouragement (so even though I end up completely changing everything, I'm getting better and she always takes care to let me know that and that the seed of what I really wanted is coming through, somewhere).

And actually, maybe I just want to be me when I grow up, except perceptive and encouraging and critical all at once. And fun. Don't forget fun. And maybe eccentric like none other (I'm apparently well on my way to achieving that one).

As of now, my tentative plan is to leave on Sunday, March 16 for home. Get up horribly early, drive like a maniac (by which I mean perfectly safely but for a long period of time), get home, and then probably start doing more homework. But at my house, which is an important distinction.

how i forgot daylight savings. twice.

Read on dear reader, and I'll tell you a tale of woe. A tale of a multiplicity of stupidities, which will shock and dazzle the mind and hopefully delight your sense of humor. For, lo and behold, not being content to forget daylight savings once, I forgot it twice.

Yesterday Greg and I arrived at St. Luke's, having made heroic efforts to leave on time for once, to find that the doors were closed and no one was handing out bulletins any longer. "Oh, well," we thought, "We're only three or four minutes late." So we walk in, find a seat, and lo and behold, they start singing. But they're not singing the first song listed in the bulletin, oh no! I take a glance at my neighbor's hymnal and realize they're singing the recessional. You know, the one that comes at the END of the service. We're crazy confused. Then Greg realizes that this weekend must be daylight savings. We leave without having been at any kind of church service.

After church, we go to Greg's family's house in Lebanon for lunch, then I do homework all afternoon, and we eat dinner with some friends of his later. I do not go back to my apartment all day. I go back to my apartment around midnight to go to bed, because I've got class in the morning.

I wake up this morning, look at my watch, and realize that although my alarm says 9:25, it is in fact 10:25. I forgot to change my alarm clock. I miss swimming class.

The End.




In other news, this is the most awesome internet video I've seen in a while. . . and no, don't mock me if I'm coming late to internet trends. I've got better things to think about than internet movies all the time.

so that's where sci-fi movies get their laser noises from

Small brown birds in the trees next to the Union today were yelling back and forth at each other. Their three-note calls sound exactly like really cheesy laser beam sound effects from low-budget video games.

So you know your experience of nature is mediated by technology when. . . .

Hmmm, apparently I am depressing when I worry about life after graduation. Well, since this isn't required reading anyway, I don't apologize.

Yes, that is me being combative. It is an epidemic. I try to temper the combative with good listening skills when I talk to my professors and during critique. Other times? Maybe not so much.

In an attempt to here temper my depressive with something else, I'm reduced to talking about the weather. It has largely been AMAZING for the past few days. Yesterday, when we went to Washington, DC, it hit 60 degrees. I was going to say "no sweat," but I'm pretty sure that people who didn't check the weather before the trip did, in fact, sweat.

It was the best field trip I've ever been on, I think. Megan and I hung out for a long time, and Greg came down. So there was a small group of people that I like who all wanted to go the same places anyway and who wanted to eat lunch around the same time. And Megan and I both like making fun of art history. So. That satisfied my combative side for the day.

But next time we take a day trip to the city, if we're not on a bus with like fifty other art majors for a sponsored field trip, I think we'll use mass transit. Seriously.

A little more good news on the western front (get it? It's like almost a pun on the title "all's quiet on the western front" except not really): I have written fifteen pages! Granted, it is fifteen pages of utter crap, but it is only 5 pages away from the total word count of my final draft. Oh frabjous day, caloo, calay! Or something along those lines.

In not joyous news, I realized that I cut the wood wrong for the base of my project and the proctor doesn't really know how to use a router bit and there are a zillion other people wanting to use the table saw, which, ironically, the proctor feels more comfortable with. Hmmmm. . . .