how does it feel?

Is there, at the end of this long, cold nuclear winter, some sort of karmic uprising? one designed to right the axis of the slowly turning ball of clay we call home?

Am I mistaking charisma for sociopathy?

Am I squandering a gift?

Who am I? Where is here?

Letters to you.

In response to your response:

I didn't say the tweed jacket was bad (I, personally, own one or two). I just think there's a lot to be said - ironically enough - for using fewer words. Like a Hemingway esque style (maybe not so sparse). Honestly, there are times in G.E. where I'm sitting there going.. okay, there are a lot of words, but he's not really saying ANYTHING here. He could cut these two pages down to two paragraphs, and have the same effect. Well, it wouldn't be DICKENS, but it'd be better -- in my opinion - and easier to read, and easier to take lightly.

a lot of people think shakespeare is so complicated because the linguistic structure of the Elizabethan age differs so greatly from our own. Even the words themselves were different, and that takes a lot of people aback. AT least in G.E., dickens was using "real" words. It was just his sentence structure, and conversation styles that were difficult to wade through.

And its not the difficulty that ruins most classics for me. I'm extremely interested in Modernist and Post-Modernist works, which - in most cases - are inherently designed to confound the reader, and resist analysis or deeper reading of any kind. So its not difficulty that I'm having a problem with. its the lack of reward, i find, that kills it for me. To me (and i think its because i'm reading this a billion years after it was written), the story of a young orphan who goes from poor to rich just doesn't "do it" for me. there's no real excitement, and i don't get involved in the story. I can't engage with the characters and the settings and the events. It just doesn't sweep me up and take me along for the ride like later novels such as ON THE ROAD, or WHAT THE CROW SAID do.

For the most part, the reader isn't reading the text to analyze it fully, and to squeeze every last bit of meaning from it. Most people read to escape; most people read to enter into an alternate "world" to experience new things, or leave behind old experiences. I like to read fantasy for just that reason. The whole "Wheel of Time" series is just absolutely perfect for escapism (13 books so far, all at least 500 pages, sometimes 800). I just enjoy (especially for school) reading books that i can enter into, and live, while analysing. Entering to the text offers a different aspect or perspective of the author's intentions, the character's personalities, and the overall meaning of a text. And then, once you've entered into the text, you can pull back, and analyze formal elements, and other things.

I dunno, I guess I've just made a really good case for why I should continue to be an English Major, and not drop out and take a Mechanic course.

* * *

In other news... CLASSES ARE OVER! All I have left are two finals (Can Lit on the 24th, and Brit Lit on the 28th) and my university year (and probably career, for now) will be over. Then on the 28th (11 DAYS) I move into my new apartment! I'm so excited to not have a room mate's stuff EVERYWHERE, and have someone else's mess that I can't deal with and talk to them about.

Also, the whole debt thing is going rather smoothly, so far. I've paid of my tuition, and accidentally, though I'm not complaining, made an extra payment to my car loan, so my total for that is a little lower than expected (I can actually see the end now). And so begins another summer of paycheck-to-paycheck.

Its been a whole year, and I haven't changed anything, really. I still want to go home, I still can't go home, and I'm still essentially the same procrastinating person I was a year ago. I'm still obsessed with change, marking it, and analyzing it. I have learned some new things about Language and Philosophy, and I think I've made a few mistakes in the courses I've picked so far. But I realize that I'm probably going to have to expand my timeline for higher education (yet again) to possibly take about a decade. Hmm..

That's about all I have to say for now.

OH! except I have my reading list compiled for the summer. Its going to be so awesome. I'm even (nerdily enough) going to compose mini essays about each book:

1. Jack Kerouac & William S. Burroughs - And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks

2. Charles Bukowski - Post Office

3. Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master & Margarita

4. Leonard Cohen - The Beautiful Losers

5. Eoin Colfer - And Another Thing...

6. Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities (yeah, I know. I hate dickens, but I own this, so therefore I must read it)

7. Charles Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby (same deal as Tale. Except this is a HUUUUGE novel)

8. Fyodor Dostoyevski - Notes From Underground

9. Soren Kierkegaard - Either/Or

10. J.R.R. Tolkein - The Silmarrilion

And there you have it. My summer at a glance. You'll know how I'm doing by how many mini-essays I blog. :)

also, I've been including various essays from various classes in the "Where Else Can I Go?" section. I'm going to be re-naming it as "Academia Nuts" (get it?), so you should really check it out. ASAP. I duno how to allow comments on each page, but yeah, feel free to comment on a post about one of the essay (or both, cause I like feedback).

So it ends,

and,

So it begins.

**EDIT**

I'm also thinking of taking this whole blog business on the road to Xanga, because of the wider variety of page layouts. thoughts?

**END EDIT**

-- jr

Its alright for you

I did it. I'm done. Finally. stupid essay.

in other news, it can be viewed, along with my essay about Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind in the "Where Else Can I Go?" section of the blog.

o'er yonder somewhere ---->

possibly in --> /\ that ish direction.

hell is so close, and heaven's outta reach.

Emily Dickinson was kidnapped by ninja turtles.

It was a daring endeavour,

and an even more daring escape on her part.

i wonder if its at all possible to have a narrator that knows less than the reader? a narrator that knowingly or otherwise lies to the reader at every turn? one that confounds the reader on every page?

Is that possible?

do lawyers have [lawyers]; do landlords have [landlords]

this wind literally drives any creativity out of my body and soul.

one day, you'll be [just] like us

So this is it. I'm ruining my life.

two words I [always] think, after you're gone

the answer is...

I just couldn't get it done. I sat and stared, and researched, and found some decent articles. But I couldn't get it done. I told you once, and I'll tell you again:

The classics are ridiculous. I absolutely loathe them. I can't get through it. Stupid Dickens.

second floor [living] without a yard

I just don't want to write this stupid Dickens essay. Its due at noon "today", and once again i'm sitting in my computer chair thinking to myself "why don't i just not write it, give up, and go to bed?".

the answer?

I haven't figured that part out yet. I'll let you know.

[rock] steady

so that few minutes turned into a few hours, and those few hours turned into a day or two. I know, I'm sorry. I've been dealing with some things. And I've been frantically trying to form a thesis for all of my essays. I've been getting nowhere.

Although, I have a pretty nifty outline formed for my Dickens essay. I write using a whiteboard. I like to write out the big thoughts, have them all side by side on the board, and go from there. Usually I can make a pretty decent outline/thesis just by using the board. My mind doesn't work in a linear manner. I like to have everything laid out in front of me at once.

It makes me feel scattered and harried and rushed.

But it works. usually.

you make me [dizzy] miss lizzy

April is here already, rather, has been here for a couple days now. Where the hell did March go? Why, all of a sudden, do I have the rest of my life due in the next couple of weeks? I'm invariably going to spend the entire weekend NOT writing my Brit Lit essay, NOT reading Dickens, and NOT getting the B+ I so thoroughly desire in that class. All I need is a B+ in Brit Lit, and A- in Can Lit and a C in Logic, and I'm back in good standing at the University. I think. At least I'm not getting kicked out. However. The matter of money is still freaking me out. I've never been hugely responsible fiscally. In fact, I've never really been known as "responsible". Sure, to those who don't really know me, I probably seem overly mature for my age. That's mostly just cynicism and a general hatred for the world.

It's eating my soul.

More to follow in a few short minutes.

i miss the comfort [in being sad]

Why aren't they heeeeeeerrrrrrrreeeeeeeee!? I'm waiting ever so patiently for my last student loan, so I can make another payment to my tuition, pay my cell phone bill, my internet bill, and make a payment on my VISA, and pay some of my car loan. Gah! Why does it have to be so freaking complicated all the damn time?

why couldn't they just send me cheques. or. or. credit my account on the LAST day of the month, instead of the first day of the month. that way I would have the money when my rent Automatically came out on the FIRST day of the month. and because its Easter, everyone is closing all weirdly, and I'm afraid it won't get here, and they'll make a mistake and not send me the last $600 they're supposed to, and I'll be up a creek without a paddle. Which... I've never really understood. If i'm up a creek, shouldn't the current just bring me back down? wouldn't it be more apt to say, down a creek without a paddle... or.. on the edge of a waterfall with no paddle, parachute, or comprehensive life insurance? *shudders*

that's a scary thought right there. Meanwhile, I can't get ahold of my parents, and i have a mystery package waiting for my at the post office [less waiting for me, more me waiting for them to receive it] and I have no idea what it is, or who its from. i know I have a wedding invitation coming to me at some point, and I also have a grad invitation. It could possibly be either of those, but I don't know why they would go to the Post Office?!

I'm so confused, and the world doesn't make sense anymore. Stupid automatic banking. I think more money gets lost because of automatic/online banking than anything else. Even hobo's on the street.

EVEN HOBOS!