Well, it's late in the day, but it's still Sunday, so I'm going to go ahead and count that as a win. It's amazing how low your standards can get right before spring break — although admittedly, I don't have nearly as much midterm stuff this week as I did last week, which is why I spent an awful lot of time this weekend doing absolutely nothing. It was fantastic. I mean, I suspect that there were a number of things I should have been doing instead, like writing applications and otherwise being a productive human being, but whatever, I can ignore my randomized guilt for the time being and just focus on the fact that I'm almost caught up on sleep. Huzzah!
Alright, then. Shall I take you through my week? (Well. My week minus Monday, at least, since I'm pretty sure I covered that in my previous post.)
[Below the cut: My week, examples of awful scholarly writing, some minor rambling regarding the Avengers, and the return of Badly-Drawn-in-Photoshop!Sasha!]
Tuesday was boring. Honestly, most Tuesdays are pretty boring, since they're mostly split between going to class and trying to pretend that I'm intelligent, and lying around my apartment and trying to pretend that I'm being productive. And belly dance, but really, that's pretty much the only exciting thing. Tuesdays and Thursdays? Basically a wash in my book — especially since some of the readings I had to get through involved sentences like
Therefore, Desire directed toward another desire, taken as Desire, will create, by the negating and assimilating action that satisfies it, an I essentially different from the animal 'I.'and
But there is a complementary aspect: this negation of Nature is not merely given in consciousness—where that which exists in itself appears (but only to disappear)—; this negation is exteriorized, and in being exteriorized, really (in itself) changes the reality of Nature.Which, seriously. Sometimes I want to go up to various scholars and tell them, "If all my margin notes are some variation of 'I HATE YOU SO MUCH, START MAKING SENSE ALREADY,' then something is going very, very wrong." Clarity is severely underrated, in my opinion.
Here was one good thing about the week, though: I kept on running into these "You are beautiful" messages across campus. First was in the HiRise elevators:
And then, on Friday, in the downstairs bathroom of Usdan:
It was a really nice thing to keep stumbling across during the week.
Wednesday we got a mix of rain and snow, and I realized that I must now be grown-up because the very sight of a snowflake didn't send me into flurries of ecstasy like it would have when I was younger. I mean, yes, I usually feel a little frisson of glee when I see flakes of white drifting past a window, but it's tempered by the knowledge that A) school will most likely not be cancelled, B) freezing conditions make it very tricky to walk the downhill slope leading to Hi-Rise, and C) it'll all turn into miserable, chilly slush within 24 hours.
Being a grown-up is sad, you guys.
On the other hand, I clearly retain some of my juvenile instincts, because when I found out that the new Avengers trailer came out that day, I nearly stroked out.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE
No, actually. My facebook status after I discovered this went as such:
"Dear whoever thought it would be a good idea to release the new Avengers trailer when I have a paper, a presentation and an exam this week:
I hate you.
A lot."
Which apparently confused certain friends of mine, because how can a 2 minute video distract me from my work for longer than, you know, 2 minutes? To which I replied that I obviously had to watch it, watch it again, go on tumblr and scroll through people's screencaps and various exclamations of joy, watch it again, go on tumblr and stare at all the gifs and fandom speculation, wonder why on earth Hawkeye/Jeremy Renner had absolutely no lines in the trailer, wonder why nobody gave the Black Widow/Scarlett Johannsen a bigger gun, watch the trailer again, go look at more fandom speculation and excitement, try to do work but continually get distracted, watch the trailer again, turn off my internet but keep thinking about the Avengers while attempting to write my presentation for anthropology.
Essentially? Never underestimate my capacity for distraction. I am a master of dist— ooh, shiny.
Anyway! Later that night I also went to a review session for my Human Skeleton exam, which meant that I spent 3 hours (between 7-10 pm) stuck on the third floor of Exley, staring at skull fragments and growing increasingly certain that I was going to fail my test the next day. There are so many bones in the skull, you guys! And they all have these ridiculous tiny little markings that all have different names and it's completely impossible to keep them straight, and by the time I gave up and decided to trudge home, I was feeling more than a bit frustrated and glum. And by "more than a bit," I mean, "so overwhelmingly that it could have collapsed the event horizon of the universe."
And it was raining.
Not just normal rain, though; it was that particularly awful spring-winter thing where the rain is partially snow, and so melts its way down your face before puddling pitifully on your coat.
And everything is awful and I'm inevitably going to go back to my apartment and study until 1 in the morning and dream horrible nightmares about homework, and then I'm going to go to class the next day and fail my exam and suck at my presentation and then I'm going to have to write a 5 page response paper that I've barely started, and it's cold and I'm tired and everything sucks.
But I just tuck my scarf more firmly around my neck and continue on, because, damn it, I'm going home to a warm shower and a warm bed, even if I have to slide my way down a half-frozen hill — and then I look up, and remember that Exley is right across the street from Weshop.
And on Wednesdays, Weshop doesn't close until midnight.
Which means that at that point, everything in my brain stops, and the only coherent thought I have left in my head is, "FUCK IT, I'M GETTING ICE CREAM."
Suddenly my night got a whole lot better.
So I went to my classes the next day and I hopefully didn't fail anything, and I got my response paper done and it ended up okay, all because of the magic of dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and fudge swirls.
After that, the week got a whole lot better. I went to see the Princess Bride on Friday night, which remains one of the most fantastic movies ever to be fantastic in my general direction, and is apparently 10 times more fantastic when the entire theater is repeating, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," along with Mandy Patinkin.
Then Flatmate Katie, Delightful Neighbor Kristen, and I skyped with our friend Natalia, who is far away in China right now (I'm tempted to call her Far Away Natalia, but I'm not sure what I would change it to after her return to Wes), which meant that when it was 11 pm on Friday for us, it was noon on Saturday for her. I love time-traveling conversations.
On Saturday I went to Beer and Pretzels at Alpha Delt, where I ate some delicious soft pretzels and didn't drink any beer. (No, seriously. That's not me trying to be coy; I actually just hate beer.) I also spent approximately an hour and a half talking about Glee (and all of its assorted problems) with my friend Sara, because that's what we do when we run into each other.
After that a friend suggested that I head to the repeat performance of Nat Leich's senior thesis concert, which in December was called The Mixtape Orchestra but has apparently been renamed Kaleidoscope, and which featured this lovely piece of art on the program:
It was a fantastic concert, though. I desperately want a recording of it.
Then I watched the livestream of "8", the play about Proposition 8 that starred approximately half of the famous people in Hollywood. Seriously, it was absurd — George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, John Cho, Chris Colfer, Matthew Morrison, Matt Bomer, etc. etc. (Brad Pitt's wry portrayal of the judge was particularly amusing; Chris Colfer was heartbreaking, Jane Lynch was Sue Sylvester, and every scene involving John C. Reilly got simultaneously more depressing and more hilarious when you realized that the entire show was taken from the records of the deposition, and so a real person actually said that.)
Aaaaaand that's about it. I did a little homework today, interviewing people about their definition of "crush," and I made some fantastic polenta with roasted brussel sprouts and cauliflower, but that's about it. Plus, the clock is currently ticking over into Monday morning, which means it's time for me to wrap this sucker up. See you lovely people next week, when I will officially be on spring break! Joy, excitement, etc.
[Original tags for this post: AVENGERS AVENGERS AVENGERS, awful weather is awful,concerts, exams, film series, ice cream is magical, LOOK I DID THINGS, my whole life is me pretending to be productive,pretty pretty pictures,princess bride,scholarly writing makes my brain hurt,the return of the badly drawn photoshop comic,these comics actually take a ridiculously long time to draw, weshop makes life better]
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