Thursday, December 27, 2007
I found the latest in a long list of books I want to read soon. I wore out my eyes reading the review on the computer screen, but perhaps if I take a nap later this afternoon, I will have been motivated enough to write a thousand-word purpose statement. When April and her loverboy arrive from Austin tomorrow, they will be tasked to help me expand and revise the midterm paper I wrote for the Roman satire class last spring.
As anticipated, I have gained weight and avoided completing any projects this holiday season. I had Christmas dinner with a friend, Marilyn, after we watched her grandkids open presents. Marilyn and I had exchanged gifts two weeks earlier, but she surprised me with a colourful coffee mug she found at a gift store. It holds chocolate milk nicely.
I missed seeing my siblings again this year, for I have no money for rent, let alone travel. They post pictures of themselves on their MySpace pages, so at least I have an idea of what they look like.
My older sister, Ashlea, sent me an iTunes giftcard. I gave her four bars of soap with the letter "A" (for "assbitch", not "Ashlea", as one might presume) carved out of them.
For Michael Aaron, a copy of Voltaire's Candide.
Kailey Marie got Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, which I read in high school.
Eddie Bob, the fifteen year-old baby of the family, received a set of Mexican train dominoes.
Now I must run errands.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 10:20 AM]
Wer Hat Meinen Cookie Geraubt?
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Ich liebe die deutsche[n] Schlagersänger/-innen. I began using the German version of last.fm recently. German reggae is entertaining. I've also heard a decent version of "El condor pasa" auf Deutsch.
In other news, the sanitizing solution at work combined with dry, wintry Lubbock weather has cracked the skin on every knuckle of both hands. The sanitizer makes my hands burn at every washing. But at least I haven't gotten my annual winter cold yet.
Jetzt muß ich fliegen.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 5:14 PM]
Cleanse And Flush
Monday, December 10, 2007
I look forward to the break from university study, which begins sometime after I turn my grammatical analysis of a portion of The Bacchae in to Avril Wednesday afternoon. I made ambitious plans to shut myself off from the world for the rest of the month to finish reading several books I started, complete most of my grad school applications, and review Latin, Greek, and German grammar. Most, if not all, of any projects set will, of course, remain undone, written colourfully on the humongous dry-erase board of my conscious mind. But I will consider completing many tasks, which almost feels like actually doing them.
At the moment I toggle between dicking around on the Internet and writing a ten-page term paper for the Latin elegy class. It might be said that I am dicking around on the paper, which purports to concern itself with the role of the elegiac mistress, utilizing examples from Propertius and Goethe. I am less interested in elaborating my nebulously-formed thoughts about any aspect of elegy than in beginning to read the entirety of a book about Propertius' placement in the circle of Augustan elegists that I checked out from the library a few days ago for the purpose of citing something (anything) from it in the above-referenced paper. I checked out another book auf Deutsch, titled simply Properz, that I might (codespeak for "assuredly will not") skim over the break. The first page I flipped to quoted a few lines of Latin, with subsequent reference to Goethe's Römische Elegien.
I also have a short German essay to revise and expand tomorrow afternoon before taking that final exam, for which I have prepared little. The Latin essay has consumed most of my time. I am also anxious about Avril's grammatical analysis- he expects something thorough, which I simply cannot do between all the other things I need to make time for and have not made time for. The independent Greek study this semester has not gone as well as it should have, since I haven't been able to make time to review the text or the side topics Dr. Lavigne points out. We didn't even translate half the play. Finishing the text will be another goal that I will fail to achieve.
Bedtime.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 7:49 PM]