Prepoceros

I have just finished the first draft of my Chaucer essay sixteen whole hours before I’m supposed to turn it in. I started writing it last night, TWO DAYS before the due date. I don’t remember a time in the last six years when I’ve finished a first draft *before* going to sleep on the night before an essay is due. Snaps for Natalie!

This does mean that I haven’t finished my two Roman Historians writing assignments, but I’ll take essay-deadline victories where I can get them.

I have them.

Well, I don’t have them personally, but I know where they are. And yes, I’m sorry to say, they’re deceased.

A few days ago, as I was waiting for my dog to lay claim to several bushes in a row, I noticed a single dead honeybee lying on the ground. I found this odd, as you don’t normally see bees out cold on the pavement and I hadn’t seen any live bees around, but I didn’t think much of it.

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. . . began eight hours ago, when I finished teaching my last class of the weekend. It’s now the final week of the semester (modulo one extra Monday), the period when managing my time becomes crucial (upgraded from “rather important”) to my passing my classes and maintaining my sanity.

If my memory is correct (most of these things are written in my planner, but it’s SO many inches away), my next five days will feature two problem sets, four exams, one term paper, one eight-page writing assignment, and a few dozen lines of translation. There may also be a few homework assignments that have been allowed to ripen but really ought to be turned in by the end of the week if I am to retain any shred of dignity and honest dedication to my scholarship. Just a few. Like one. If you don’t count Modern Physics. Like seven if you do.

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Right, so . . . Virginia Tech.

I’m reluctant to write anything about this story at all, lest I fan the flames of disasterbation* fueled by the 24-hour news networks and their constant rehashing of what was he thinking and oh what a tragedy and if only we had no guns if only we all had guns watch the victims mourn let’s interview them all about their mourning and do they miss their friends and weren’t they great people and no one ever thought this could happen here and let’s look at those photos of him with the guns again and here’s his third grade teacher and yes I think the murderer totally deserves to be famous so let’s play this video he made and they say he was a loner and do you know any loners and how do we deal with mentally ill people and could we have stopped it can we stop it again how would we know remember columbine it’s a horrible tragedy all those innocent lives DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?

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Yes, I’ve posted a similar list before, and no, there aren’t thirty-seven this time. Deal.

• An unfinished bar of dark chocolate in a plastic baggie. Now finished.
• My camcorder
• A necklace I’ve lost at least twice before
• Two AA batteries
• What looks like every paystub from the last year and a half
• A hair wrap I’d been looking for
• Four full bottles of water, all of different brands and sizes. (I usually drink tap water, but I’m often offered the bottled kind by tutoring families, so I collect and refill the bottles.)
• My mom’s Christmas present (bought 13 months in advance)
• The USB cable to my iPod

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Very, very cold. I’ve bitched about this before, I know, but why are public buildings always over-air-conditioned? Why why why? I could understand if maybe they had trouble regulating the temperature, so it was sometimes a little hot and sometimes a little cold, but it’s ALWAYS too cold indoors.

Right now it’s 73 degrees outside. I could handle 73. Seventy-three is a fabulous temperature. But no. No, we must chill the living goodness out of the air before we let you breathe it. It’s probably 65 in here. Sixty-five is a good temperature for a gym, but it’s much too cold for a room in which folks don’t exert much physical effort beyond that required to lift fork to mouth.

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Blogging, like many things, is subject to inertia. When I’m chugging along at my usual pace of four or five posts a week, I can summon up the motivation most days to write a little somethin’-somethin’—an overheard conversation, tales of appalling grammar, or a gushy-mom update on the continuing preciousness of my sweet widdle shnuffle-pumpkin*.

Once a week slips by without a post, though, it’s so easy to fall into the one-more-day-won’t-hurt mentality. I’ve half-composed several posts in my head during the last month, but I don’t even remember what most of them were about.

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