Oh man, I forgot that I had class at 9 am. This schedule is sooo awkward. All the classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for one MW class that keeps me from sleeping in because it's at 10 in the morning. And to a one, they are lit classes. I am going to have a lot of reading on my plate. I don't know how I'll get through it all.

If I had gotten into all the classes I wanted, it would have been much tidier. Blech. Not as if I can drop a class to make my schedule easier, either—it would put me under the minimum units. And I couldn't have waitlisted a class as backup because I would have gone over the maximum units.

I've got this awful runny cold, too. Mucus everywhere. You know the kind.

Anyway, this is just me griping to the internet before I shuffle into bed.

Um...no.

But I guess that sounds lame, doesn't it?

I've never done the resolution thing. If I'm making self-improvement goals, I don't need a special holiday to do it. I can just do it.

Tell you what, though, since you asked, I'll make one. I need to get into the ENL 100 series. That means I need writing samples to submit. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. So here's a resolution: I'm going to write some actual stuff. Not just durdling all the time like I've been doing lately. I'll produce something. Sound good?

Sure. It's on. I guess.

I've been hammering at this English essay for a few days now and it's more difficult than it should be. This literary analysis stuff, blurgh, it can be such a drag.

And it's been cold, too. My feet are all freezing and everything.

Anyway, I'm still finishing up my term paper too, so back to the grinding wheel, I guess.

These late chorus rehearsals are really wearing me out. We ran until like 9:40 tonight, and I was about ready to drop by the end--I hadn't had anything to eat except a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a slice of pepperoni pizza for lunch, and at some point after standing up for that long, it's all you can do not to pass out.

The irony is that I actually did pack a microwave soup bowl to eat during the break--I just neglected to pack a spoon. Herpy derp derp.

Don't worry, I'm fine. I drank lots of water. I was just hungry is all. I went home afterwards and ate a big bowl of potato salad and some crackers.

The Unitrans F line doesn't run that late, though, which is a little awkward. I had to take the J line instead and walk the last few blocks. So I got off at the stop by the grocery store and bought a chocolate bar because, y'know, energy, right? Right, of course, it was only practical.

I still need to figure out my uniform. I need, like, a tux-type thing. Do I have a tux-type thing? I'm not sure. The concert is on Friday.

Hey, unrelated note, turns out there's a new season of My Little Pony and I didn't notice? Gotta say, I'm not really buying Trixie as the cackling villain--feels a little forced. And that bad guy from the series premiere is really generic and uninteresting. And I'm starting to get the feeling that the characters have been turning into caricatures of themselves.

I need to write up an application for the creative writing class I want to take next quarter. That means a sample of my fiction writing. I'm not sure I have a good sample. I guess I could use my short story from English 5F last year, but I don't feel like it came out quite that way I wanted. I'm thinking I should write something new.

My inclination is to go with a first-person something or other. Like maybe a journal or a diary. So I need a character to write it, and I need something to happen for them to write about. I wonder what TV Tropes has to say about it?



Hmm. Interesting, interesting. Good options.

Well, I'll mull it over.

Boy, I've been working on these sentence trees for my grammar class, and it's taking longer than it really has any right to. All the sentences are full of extra adjectives and adverbs that don't really make them difficult, but sure as hell make them take longer to draw.

Well, I suppose I'll be all right, since I'm working with a solid buffer before the deadline. The objective in having so many modifiers is presumably to drill them until they become routine, as is standard practice with homework in many such disciplines. I just wish they could take up less space on the page. At this rate, I need a full page for each sentence, and I'm losing paper faster than Mitt Romney is losing Facebook "Likes".

I also had to write up an essay about Robinson Crusoe for English 10C and do a poetry workshop writeup for 5P, so I've been busy this weekend.

Unrelated: I'm finally getting around to reading the Thursday Next books. I finished the second one this morning. So far so good; I'm enjoying them. Pretty nifty premise. But of course, I'm also excited about the impending release of a new installment in The Dresden Files--so much so that I went ahead and preordered it from Amazon to get it delivered instantly to my Kindle as soon as it's available. The sample chapters have been trickling in on Jim Butcher's website, and it's all very thrilling.

Scheduling considerations!

Well, I double-checked, and my pass time for registration is in a week. So I've been looking through the classes I want to take in the winter.

It's a different experience this time, because for the past two years, I hadn't really settled on a major. But now, I'm firmly settled into English (Creative Writing emphasis), with a minor in Writing. Additionally, I've gotten all my GE breadth units are locked up, and I have upper division standing. Consequently, instead of browsing the entire catalog looking for areas that interest me, I get to peruse a list of requirements for the degree I want and pick from a much smaller selection of courses that fulfill those requirements.

I'm looking at ENL 110B, which is a required course about literary and critical theory. I definitely have to take it, but I may or may not end up taking it this quarter, depending on how the rest of my schedule works out.

I've got a lot of historical literature requirements to fill, so I thought I might start with Shakespeare (ENL 117). That'll conflict with Chorus rehearsal, though, so I can't take it this quarter. I'll have to wait for it to be offered at a different time slot. Good chance I end up taking Early American Literature (ENL 142) instead. I also need one course on pre-16th century literature, and I'm hoping to fill that with Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (ENL 113B), but it won't be offered until the spring, so that'll have to wait.

I definitely want to take ENL 100F (Creative Writing: Fiction), since writing is what I'm really interested in. (The nonfiction version isn't offered this quarter, so no need to choose between them.) It requires an application, so there's a chance I don't get in...fingers crossed, though.

ENL 183, Adolescent Literature, is being offered this coming quarter. I'd really like to sign up for it. I'm not sure if it'll count toward my major, though, because I only need one course from its category, and it's in the same category as English Grammar (ENL 106), which I'm already taking this quarter. However, ENL 106 is also a requirement for the Writing minor, and I think you're only allowed to overlap one course between your major and your minor. If I use UWP 101 for the overlap, I might still be able to take ENL 183. I'm going to check with my advisor next week about this.

On the minor side of things, I'll need to take one of the "Writing in the Professions" courses. They've got Business Writing, Law, Journalism, Elementary and Secondary Education, Science, Health, Technical Writing, and User Experience Documentation. I might spring for Technical Writing (UWP 104T) or Business (104A), or maybe Education (104D), I dunno. My current instructor for UWP 101 also teaches 104T; I might be dropping by his office hours anyway to get some feedback on my essay, so I s'pose I could ask him about the other class too.

So if I take four classes, that'll be 16 units, plus Chorus makes 18. If I took all three of ENL 100F, 142, and 183, that might be awkward, though -- my Tuesdays and Thursdays would be a solid 4.5-hour block of classes from 10:30 to 3:00, with another two hours of Chorus rehearsal from 4-6. Missing breakfast and lunch two days a week seems rough. If I were to swap 142 for 110B (which is a MWF class), I'd have a break at noon to get something to eat.

Oh! I guess I also have to finish the ENL 10 series with 10C. I should probably do that. If I take the first section, I'll still have 6.5 hours of TR classes, but they'll be spread out better to give me a lunch break. Yeah, that's got to be the correct play.

The Freshman Seminar I took last spring is also being offered again this quarter, Wednesdays at 2:10. I can't get credit for it twice, but there's a good chance I decide to audit.

So yeah! I'm definitely moving along.

In which I gripe about homework

Well, looks like I'll be cooped up doing homework for a while this weekend.

To kick things off, I'm working on my ENL 106 homework tonight. I have to draw phrase markers (trees) for a dozen sentences. They are long, long, meandering sentences with many adverbial clauses.

We should have been expecting something strange from Persephone, obviously, but her manner has remained cheerful yet obdurate and she is working things out under difficult circumstances.

There is no way I finish this in one night. I'll see how far I get before falling asleep and pick up from there tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and I'm designating that as my "Do the reading" day. I've got hella stuff to read for both Poetry and Lit, and from the skimming I gave it, it's pretty dense. So I'll finish off the rest of those sentence trees (who knows how long that'll take), then I'll get everything read. Depending on how long it takes me, I can start on my analysis of the readings for 5P -- I have to give a presentation on one of the readings, with a slideshow and everything.

It's probably too optimistic to expect to finish all that on Saturday, especially if I want to catch some of the Pro Tour coverage, so I've allotted a couple hours to get said presentation together on Sunday, and I'm hoping I'll have been able to at least get a few notes jotted down from before to help get me started.

I've also got an essay to write for UWP 101. It's not due until the week after next, but it's a profile essay, which means I need to interview someone. And that, of course, means I need to schedule an interview with someone. Who? I don't know. Anyone interested in being interviewed?

Oh, and there's a piece for the Chorus where I'd really benefit from a little practice and review. So another thing to squeeze in.

Hmm...is that everything? I think so.

Somewhere out there is a grad student rolling their eyes at my easy 18-unit workload.

Again, I'm going to go ahead and post my homework. This is the essay from the outline I put up two days ago.

Fifteen

    From across my desk, I hear a whisper. “Open me...oooopen meee...” Oh no. I look down. It’s the booster pack again.
    I know the voice is only my imagination, but my gaze is drawn, as if by an Izzet electromagnet, to the glossy blue-and-indigo foil of the Return to Ravnica booster. The wrapper crinkles invitingly under my touch. The Selesnyan mage adorning the package seems to beckon.
    Opening a booster pack is one of the purest thrills in the game of Magic: The Gathering. Whether it’s the indigo trim of my Return to Ravnica booster, the silvery white of Avacyn Restored, or the jet-black of Magic 2013, every expansion set’s booster packs bundle fifteen randomized cards in crisp foil wrapping: eleven common cards, three uncommons, and most precious of all, one rare. The rarity distribution is more or less constant, and the cards are all from the same expansion, but the exact contents are always a mystery.
    Return to Ravnica is Magic’s newest expansion, released earlier this month. Back in 2005, when I was still new to the game, Wizards of the Coast released Ravnica: City of Guilds: a set that took place in a world where one sprawling, ecumenopolitan cityscape covered the entire globe, and society was controlled by ten “guilds”, each representing two of the game’s five colors. It was wildly successful, both critically and commercially. Now, seven years later, Ravnica is still one of the most beloved settings in Magic’s history, and as of this month, the long-awaited sequel to City of Guilds has finally arrived to bring the guilds to a new generation of planeswalkers. Return to Ravnica features five of the ten guilds from the original. The other five are slated for Gatecrash, the followup expansion to be released this winter. All of them are eagerly courting fresh recruits. Join the white-blue Azorius Senate, Ravnica’s bureaucratic legislative guild! How about the blue-red Izzet League, a guild of mad scientists notorious for their explosive experiments? Perhaps you’re more interested in the black-red Cult of Rakdos, where the success of a wild party is measured by its body count. Or do you prefer the black-green Golgari Swarm, caretakers of both life and death?
    I know where my loyalty lies: with the Selesnya Conclave, the green-white guild dedicated to harmony and unity. So when the time came to choose a side for the Return to Ravnica prerelease — a special event to celebrate the unveiling of the new set — I already knew exactly which guild I’d be playing. Sure enough, I shuffled up a green and white deck (with a splash of blue) filled to the brim with efficient creatures ready to overwhelm my foes. And for good measure, I signed up for a second flight later that same day. After battling through eight rounds for the glory of the Conclave, I stood strong with a 7-1 record. Hardly daring to breathe, I hovered tremulously near the counter where prizes would be paid out. Finally, my name was called: twelve packs. Twelve. Twelve packs. Twelve honest-to-goodness Return to Ravnica booster packs.
    But today, there’s only one booster pack on my mind. Just one of the twelve. Once again it whispers: “Go on...you know you want to...ooopen meeee...”

Opening a booster pack is a gamble. As long as it’s unopened, its value is fixed — it’s a solid $4 no matter what’s inside. But once I crack it, I’m stuck with whatever I’ve got. I could end up with a powerful land card like Overgrown Tomb or Hallowed Fountain. I could be the lucky recipient of a rare and valuable planeswalker card like Jace, Architect of Thought. Or... or I could open a useless junk card like Guild Feud, Search the City, or Volatile Rig. There’s plenty of space in between, of course — a mid-tier rare like Loxodon Smiter might be worth around the same price as the original booster it came in. Not the most exciting card to pull, but it’s better than whiffing.

My hands itch. My pulse quickens. I want to rip the foil off of that booster pack and flip straight to the rare. I can already hear the crinkling. I can smell the fresh fragrance of ink and glue. I can sense the cards inside calling to me, begging me, pleading for me to release them into the world. It’s no use resisting. I don’t have the strength to hold back. I can’t...I have to...I...

The wrapper is torn. Tenderly, I tug the cards from their broken shell. One at a time, I inspect the spoils.

The commons are always in front. The first is Drainpipe Vermin: a dinky little rat. Worthless.

Swift Justice: a white spell that powers up a creature temporarily. Unexciting.

Horncaller’s Chant: a green sorcery that summons two enormous, trampling rhinos. Meh.

Chemister’s Trick: an Izzet confusion spell that can be overloaded to cause mass panic. Eh...

Golgari Longlegs: a simple, boring creature with reasonable stats, but no abilities.

Axebane Guardian: a druid that grants its caster additional mana. Useful, perhaps, in a deck with expensive spells like Horncaller’s Chant.

Keening Apparition: an efficiently-costed creature who can sacrifice itself to dispel an enemy enchantment. Could be worse.

Viashino Racketeer: a shady back-alley salesman who trades a card in your hand for a random one from your deck.

Sewer Shambler and Drudge Beetle: two Golgari monsters that can rise from the grave after being defeated.

Eleven commons, none of them particularly interesting. Here come the three uncommons. Soul Tithe. Ouch, that’s a weak card. It has a few interesting rules interactions, but I’d never put it into my deck.

Slitherhead. Hmm, not too bad, I suppose. It’s another Golgari zombie that can buff a creature from beyond the grave.

Bloodfray Giant. That’s one of the Rakdos Cult’s heavy hitters. Monstrous stats at a bargain price. Unfortunately, it’s not very good at playing defense.

There’s also a basic Forest with beautiful new artwork by John Avon, and an advertisement insert pointing me to the Planeswalker Points website. But that’s not important. It’s time for the moment of truth. The rare. Is it a hit? Is it a miss? It’s...

    Nooooooo!

    I toss what’s left of the foil wrapping into the trash. It croaks out one final, mocking crinkle. The cards will probably languish in a shoebox. Search the City will get an obligatory place in my Junk Rare Box, yearning in vain for the day it finds a real home. I hold out little hope that such a day will arrive. The adrenaline rush is over; the booster pack is gone.
    From across the room, I hear eleven more whispers...

At some point I have to question why I'm keeping a separate blog when I'm already writing like 1000 words a day for school. Here's my poetry homework instead.

Okay, Eagleton, so you think Porphyria’s Lover isn’t about a giraffe, do you? I take that as a challenge, sir! Here’s how it happened. Porphyria invented a transfiguration beam to turn giraffes into chimpanzees. She tested it on a giraffe and he turned into a chimpanzee, whom she named “Lover”. She tried to teach Lover about religion, but giraffes and chimpanzees are both naturally curious, and Lover, who already secretly detested the woman who took his giraffe-ness from him, decided to test whether God was real by seeing if it was impossible to strangle Porphyria without divine intervention preventing it. So Lover tried it and voila, dead Porphyria. Then the murderous giraffe-ape bastard hung out for a while before running away to eat some leaves. QED.

I can do that because Death of the Author. We’re not beholden to the poet’s original vision. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, and any interpretation is valid as long as it can be backed up by textual evidence. I realize that Robert Browning didn’t write it with giraffes and chimpanzees in mind, but that doesn’t matter. A poem can be interpreted to fit into whatever context you like. It just takes a little creativity.

Okay, yes, I do also realize that Eagleton’s point is more that the text has inherent meaning to it, as opposed to it being completely subjective. It’s fair to argue that some interpretations make more sense than others. And his concession that a secretive group of English professors could use “syrup” as a code word to conceal their feelings on historicism from their colleagues does, admittedly, prove he does not lack the necessary imagination. So I can’t say I strongly disagree with him here. Only a little bit, I guess.

I smiled at the Cloud-Cuckoo-Land reference in Jarrell’s poem. I hang out on the TV Tropes Wiki a lot, and over there we have a trope we call “Cloudcuckoolander” to refer to characters like Luna Lovegood or Pinkie Pie who seem like they have their brains in a different universe all the time. That being said, “North” is definitely not a poem I’d expect to see from Pinkie Pie. Gloom gloom gloom. Just throw a party or something and it’ll all be fine, no need to go worrying about everything all the time.

On the Roethke, I see “The Pit” as one of the riddles you’d find in a Redwall novel. Like the heroes are looking for the lost staff of Martin the Warrior or something, and they find this clue that tells them to look under the tree roots, and talk to the mole who lives there, but watch out for the evil, uh, snails, and their leader, Mother Mildew, a giant, uh, giant snail, yeah, that actually totally works. I’d read that book. See, Eagleton, I can interpret it however I like. They had talking riddle-solving animals back whenever this poem was written, right?

Also, Sylvia Plath’s daddy is a Nazi vampire? That’s pretty messed up. If my dad were a Nazi vampire, I mean, I can’t even imagine. Oh, wait, this is one of those figurative things, isn’t it? So who is she talking about, then? Her literal father? Or is “daddy” supposed to be a metaphor for...uh...something? Actually, I could probably see it going either way. You could have your Nazis being written about as “daddy” or your father being written about as “Nazis” and end up with reasonably similar poems. I’m leaning towards Nazis. But I’m sure there’s a good name for a rock band in there somewhere. Oh, and the tulip poem is okay too, but I don’t have much to say about it.

Regarding the Berryman: Inner Resources, ha, that’s a good line. I can just imagine how that goes. “Mom, I’m bored.” “Johnny, haven’t I told you that saying you’re bored is only confessing you have no Inner Resources?” “...Mom, I have no Inner Resources.” That droll acceptance of the implications — brilliant. I like it. Also, what is chicken paprika? Never heard of that before. I know what chicken is, and I know what paprika is, and I’m guessing chicken paprika is either chicken-flavored paprika (?!) or chicken spiced with paprika (that’s probably more likely). And who exactly is this Henry person? Henry Ford? John Henry, the steel-driving man? Henry Kissinger? King Henry V? Just some random guy named Henry? Just some random girl named Henry (or I guess Henrietta)? The poetry takes on different meanings for all of these. I kind of like the Henry Kissinger version.

Then we’ve got some “Deep Image” styles of poems, which are supposed to focus on powerful imagery and narrative. I can indeed see some of that in Kinwell’s “On the Oregon Coast”. We can see the first few lines of the poem dedicated just to describing the waves breaking against the shore and sweeping a log across the beach. He uses both visual and audio details — “pewtery sheen on the water” alongside “bass rumble of sea stones”. And the narrative element appears both in the pseudo-narrative of the floating log and the meta-narrative of a conversation about evolution. Would I see these things if I weren’t being prompted to look for them? Well, in this case, probably, yeah. Seems like sort of the point of the poem. But even with the background info, interrupting with that anecdote seems oddly out of place. Essentially the only segue is “Since I’m talking about a beach, let me tell you this story of this one time I talked to this one guy and, oh, there was also a beach nearby. (Is that a coincidence or what!)”

“Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm” is the first poem today to make me put it down, sit back, and wonder what the hell I just read. “I have wasted my life.” Woah. What. Huh. What happened to the bronze butterflies, the chicken hawks, the fields of sunlight? Why is life wasted? That’s a curveball if I ever saw one. On reflection, I think the speaker means that he wasted his life not doing this. Like, “I can’t believe I ever worked all day in the city when I could have been lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s farm!” That’s my best interpretation. Either way, it’s a jarring last line that feels like it comes out of nowhere. I was surprised. Oh, and again, deep imagery — this poem does do a lot of image-painting for the reader, with, again, bronze butterflies, fields of sunlight, et al.

And “A Blessing” clearly has the narrative going. Breaking into a horse pasture, basically. Uh...that’s fine, I guess, if you’re into that kind of thing. I’m not really into horses. Pinkie Pie notwithstanding.

I've got an essay to write. Here's my outline!

My assignment for my UWP 101 class is to write a descriptive essay about an object. This space is a brainstorm of objects that are around my room. Good chance I just pick one randomly.

• Water bottle
• Hat
• Backpack
• Ramen
• Juggling clubs
• Return to Ravnica booster packs
• Old receipt
• Bike lock
• Gloves
• Wristwatch
• Ethernet cable
• Kettle
• Headphones
• Mousepad
• Rubber band ball

I'm a little surprised at how much homework I'm getting assigned for my poetry class. She wants a four-page response to the reading for every class. Yeesh. I just finished my first one--I added in some hypothetical dialogue, including a silly little aside about a Simic Guildmage trying to use cytoplastic implants to write poetry automatically; and a cynical, snarky impression of one of the readings as a Poetry Hipster who only reads poets you've probably never heard of.

First impression: doing this for every class is going to be a pain in the neck.

On the other hand, having to write so much is certainly a challenge. It'll take some creativity to find enough content to meet the length requirement. So it's a non-trivial amount of work, but I do expect it to stretch those creative muscles.

Sorry, hang on, I just got a mental image of "creative mussels". Little clams painting pictures and writing poetry. Ahahaha.

My schedule this quarter

I keep getting asked about this, so I'll just lay it all out there.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have to get up at 10:00 in the morning for English 106 (AKA Linguistics 106, thanks to cross-listing): English Grammar.

I get out of ENL106 at 11, and on Mondays and Wednesdays I have an hour of downtime until my next class at noon: English 5P: Writing (Poetry). It's a block away in Olson. Not too far. I dunno what I'm doing in that hour. Probably get something to eat. Either that or durdle around doing nothing.

That's MW. On Friday, I don't have English 5P, but I do have a discussion section for English 106, which runs from 1-2 PM. Either way, my MWF schedule ends at 2:00.

For Tuesdays and Thursdays, I don't start class until noon, when I have UWP 101: Advanced Composition. A writing class. That one lasts until 1:30.

Immediately afterwards, I have English 10B: Literature in English II, a continuation of Literature in English I (which I took in the spring). I get out of there at 3:00, probably starving since it's a continuous three-hour block of classes that runs right through lunchtime.

Then from 4-5, I have rehearsals for the University Chorus, where I'll be singing Bass 1.

And that's Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I don't have any classes on Saturday or Sunday. Of course, this week, I do have the Return to Ravnica prerelease Saturday morning, where I'll be playing Selesnya and, for the afternoon event, Izzet. I might ask about maybe judging one of the other ones too, haven't decided.

Did you get all that? No? Well here's a handy diagram.

I hope that pre-empts any more questions about what classes I'm taking right now. Probably won't, but it can't hurt to try.

You know what bugs me? Research papers.

It's not that I mind writing. I'm fine with writing. It's just a colossal pain in the neck to rustle up some arbitrary number of "scholarly" sources and mash them into the paper. Going out and searching through scholarly journals is not much fun.

Doing an experiment to gather data of my own might be even worse. It really turns me off of an assignment. I don't think I want to go into a field that has a lot of that. One of the reasons why I feel like I want to change my major.

And don't get me started on length requirements. Ugh. If I have to write six pages, that's supposed to be considered short. I am not a long-winded guy. I am not cut out for that kind of bullshit. Anything longer than maybe two pages is a struggle.

It's been a rough month for essays. Sigh.

So today was pretty uneventful.

Now that I've finished The Dresden Files I decided to re-read it because seriously. I chomped through Ghost Story again between last night and today, and now I'm going back to Storm Front. I haven't decided which book is my favorite. I guess you could say I never had a favorite--never really felt like I needed one. Aye?

Apparently I'm supposed to write some essays and stuff for next week. So that's also a thing. I've set aside some time tomorrow to do some work on that. Tumbling some ideas around in my head for my myth/legend/folktale rewrite. The story of John Henry from the machine's point of view? The story of Persephone via Persephone's diary? Hades's diary? Or maybe through the letters that Hermes might have delivered back and forth between the characters during the crisis? Who knows.

Didn't do anything terribly interesting in class. Statistics discussion was boring. English, we talked about some erotic poem about a flea. Myths & Legends was some lecture or other. All pretty mundane. I had noodle soup for lunch and ramen for dinner.

Weather's getting hot. Very sunny. Much better for biking than the cold and wind, though, of course.

Watched the newest episode of The Legend of Korra on the Nickelodeon website. Bolin is funny in a Woobie sort of way, but Tenzin didn't show up at all. At least the airbender tots got a scene.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I did today.

Today was fairly uneventful.

We formed up into groups of three in my writing class. Next week we're going to do some draft-looking-at or something. Gotta have something to work with by Saturday night. Should be doable.

Talked about Proto Indo-European stuff in Myths & Legends. Shared cultural roots leading to similarities in mythology and folklore, blah blah blah. And we watched a video of a Welsh folktale called "King March" about a king who's embarrassed to take his crown off because he has horse ears and it looks very silly. Only his barber knows the secret, but the barber is bad at keeping secrets, so he whispers the secret to the ground. Except then reeds grow from the spot, and the local piper uses the reeds to make a new pipe, and when he plays the pipe it whispers the secret to everyone. So the king is embarrassed but it turns out everyone still respects him and nobody laughs at him, and it's a happy ending.

We're still on Henry V in Lit class. Not my favorite Shakespeare play, I gotta admit.

For Plant Science we had a lecture on soil. Stuff about soil composition and saturation and...stuff.

Played some Beat Hazard to pass the time. Finished a few random tracks. Some 38 Special, some Beatles, a little Taylor Swift, a couple of the built-in ones. *shrug* Got 37/47 achievements in that game now, which isn't too bad if I may say so myself.

Watched this week's episode of Game of Thrones. I am pretty sure it deviated from the book, but the spirit is the same. It's a good show. I like it.

Went to Wal-Mart for groceries. Restocked on bread, milk, dried fruit (it's not as juicy as fresh fruit but there's less pressure to eat it immediately), and all that grocery stuff. Had a bowl of soup for dinner.

Currently reading Side Jobs, which is the Dresden Files short story anthology. I like it. Also got around to catching up on The Legend of Korra which I also like. Good stuff.

And that's what I did today.

So I'm biking to school, right, and I'm going through a roundabout, turning left, minding my own business. And this girl comes up behind me and tries to pass me on the left so she can turn right. Except I'm turning left, so I hear her shout "SHIT" behind me and then she crashes into me and falls over. So now I'm feeling pretty bad because even though I couldn't have known she would try to do that, it still feels like it's kind of my fault, right? I mean, I'm fine, I didn't even wobble, hardly, so I stop for a second to mumble "Sorry" and then keep going...like, it's not as if I should have been signaling the turn. It's a roundabout...that would be pointless.

Anyway later I tripped and fell on my way out of lecture so I guess it's even.

I didn't realize this before, but my school day starts at a different time every day of the week. Monday, my first class is the freshman seminar (which meets once a week) at 11 am. Tuesday I have my PLS005 lab (which meets once a week) at 9 am. Wednesday I have the discussion section for statistics (which meets once a week) at noon. Thursday I don't have any classes until statistics lecture at 4:40 pm.  And then on Fridays my first class is Myths and Legends at 1 pm.

I have a very oddly-staggered schedule. This has never happened to me before.

Anyway, I just finished Dearly Devoted Dexter on the bus ride home. Less disturbing than the first book, but heavier on the nightmare fuel because the bad guy does this thing where he surgically removes all his victims' body parts one at a time without killing them, ultimately leaving them a limbless, tongueless abomination. He does it in front of a mirror, and keeps them conscious so they can watch. And the most disturbing part is that he does it while playing annoying Cuban dance music. The first book was more disturbing, though, because while this one had a creepier villain, Dexter himself was a much creepier protagonist in the first one because he kept having these quasi-sexual fantasies about chopping up bodies. And having a creepy viewpoint character is more disturbing than having a creepy villain.

First day of spring quarter today, and I had a full four out of five classes to go to.

First off in the morning it was the freshman seminar, "So You Think You Can Write". This is a class about writing. I was on the waitlist, but just this morning I found out that a couple people dropped it and I'm enrolled in the class proper, so yay, I guess. For the first meeting we talked about what we'd be doing in the course, and we set personal goals for writing. I already did that six weeks ago when I decided to write here once a day, every day. I'm halfway through the textbook, too. So I guess I have a head start!

After that was COM006 "Myths and Legends". We went over the syllabus and the instructor did a bit of lecturing on what exactly "myths" and "legends" are. She has an interesting accent. It's like triangulating between Indian, British, and American. Her name is "Archana Venkateshen" so that seems to support the Indian bit. Anyway, instead of writing a formal essay, we're going to be retelling a myth or legend for our final paper. Now that's an assignment I can get behind.

And then ENL10A, which is the lit history class. After going over the syllabus stuff, we looked at that one passage from that one play with the thing about England. You know, that one with the...stuff. Something about a demi-paradise and a seat of Mars and a...moat, or whatever. Anyway, we read that bit.

Then I had an hour-long break during which I inflated my sagging bike tires--they've been squeaking for air. I also bought an egg salad bagel at the CoHo for a late lunch.

Finally, PLS005 lecture. That's the gardening class. The instructor here has an interesting accent too. Eastern European, sounds like--maybe Russian. I couldn't say for sure. Well, in any case, I'll have to get up bright and early tomorrow to get to my 9:00 AM lab where we will be planting...chrysanthemums, I believe? Flowers of some sort.

And that's what I did today. More or less.