Thursday, August 16, 2007
Productivity levels this summer have been negative. Without routine, I am pulled in too many different directions and am almost incapable of making rational, efficient choices. Consequently, I spend too much time waiting for something to happen or putting off tasks, rather than acting immediately to accomplish as much as possible. Even with a consistent schedule, organization becomes problematic, but this summer the usual problems have been significantly exacerbated.
I wish I had no mind, because dwelling on matters only complicates them. I over-analyze the process of getting into my pants every morning. That alone is one of the various reasons I give for not wanting to have children or get married- I can barely dress myself.
Yesterday I made an especial trip to the dollar general store for two water bottles. I emerged carrying four bags of dollar store delights, including a Cookie Monster cinch bag, which is absolutely necessary to further my existence. I ought to never leave the house, really, because just these sorts of excursions make me broke.
Lauree + spending on credit = doubleplusungood.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 11:45 AM]
A Vindication On The Rights Of Laurees
Friday, August 10, 2007
I finished reading a library book about Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. I did not read Oedipus at Colonus; I just read a commentary. When one has a thorogh commentary, why bother sludging through the actual play? I shall be resourceful, to make use of the extensive bibliography, which contains many general works about the tragic genre.
I mananged to kill the battery on my car. I had sat down in it to adjust the mirrors, find the blinker, headlights, etc., then left it in the alley behind my backhouse. Apparently, I neglected to turn the headlights off, for when I went to start it two days ago, nothing happened. I need this vehicle to transport goods from the dorm to my new place of residence, but a dead vehicle does me no good. No one I know has the cables or know-how required to revive it.
Oh, well.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 4:30 PM]
Research Keys To The American Renaissance
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The day before yesterday I picked up a library book with the fetching title: Poetry as performance: Homer and beyond, but after reading through two repetitive chapters that convey no information in particular, I have decided to hurl this disappointing contribution to the mound of useless classical scholarship down the returned items chute. The Cambridge University Press should be ashamed.
Tomorrow or the next day I will thus be free to begin reading The Bacchae in translation. My reading schedule depends on the factors of whether I begin moving my worldly goods into the new Lauree Lair this weekend or afterward and of whether I satisfactorily complete my research for a paper about Texas immigration policy. I have begun with reading about border control policy during the Clinton administration, but I need to follow up on the statistics gathered, legislation enacted, policies amended/added, etc. since 2001.
One article I have read quoted an INS report as stating that a decrease in apprehensions indicates the efficacy of increased border control. Ingenious. The author of the article then proceeded, rightly, to elaborate that most scholars consider such numbers dubious and inaccurate as a reflection of the effectiveness of the border policy implemented during the Clinton and W. administrations.
I should quit researching and go to bed.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 8:49 PM]
A Man Is A Two-Face
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Having read every chapter covered, in its entirety, and neglecting to so much as glance at the lecture slides my professor provided on his website, I scored a ninety-seven on the first American public policy exam I took a couple of weeks ago. For the exam I took today, I studied the slides exclusively and ignored the book. I felt confident about most of the answers- surely I made a "B" or better. The questions were mostly intuitive.
This evening I walked a friend of mine from the coffee shop to the campus library (I wanted to be there to protect him, in the event of attack by a serial murderer-rapist). At one point in our conversation, he turned to me and said,
'Lauree, if I could take on just one percent of your misery, I would have a life-time supply.'This is veritable. He fabricates all of his angst, but mine comes from legitimate foundations. I trace everything that goes awry to having stemmed from something my father did.
Exemplum: About two weeks ago, I wiped out on my bike, bruising most of the right side of my body. The emergency room bill incurred afterward comes to slightly under four thousand dollars. The bruises to my hip and a rib or two still prevent me from walking or breathing properly. If I do not heal very soon, my doctor has threatened to put me on physical therapy.
This is all my father's fault.
Logic: When he was eight, my father taught himself how to ride a unicycle. He kept (and presumably still has) that unicycle, and used to take it out to ride on occasion, as one of his impressive, though mostly useless, miscellaneous talents. In high school, my sister's boyfriend captured the spectacle on home video. He also kept and rode sporadically a yellow racer-bike from college. My senior year of high school, we went to Academy and picked out a bike (as a birthday expenditure) for me to ride around during college, since I was probably not going to afford a car anytime soon. A week later, he went back to Academy and purchased the man-version of my bike for himself.
Since then, I have always had a bike. The one I brought from home ran away, presumably, though I found out (too late) that I had left it on campus, whence it was very likely impounded. Several months later, a friend kindly gave me his bike, which I had grown accustomed to having as a main source of transportation over this past year. Without it I felt impotent, and over-compensated by investing in a fancier, more efficient bicycle, with some half-baked notion of slowly training over the coming academic year to enter in marathons... or something. At present, that bike is parked, gleaming and undamaged, next to my dorm, mocking me as I hobble by on my way to class every morning. I haven't decided yet, whether I am to trade it in for a more user-friendly (or at least, "Lauree-friendly") model.
None of this would have happened, if at the age of eight my father hadn't been fascinated enough by a unicycle to teach himself how to ride it. His determination assured my misery.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 7:40 PM]