Crazy things happen when Kemal goes away and Charles leads the class. He told us, among other things, not to be surprised if the gremlin sometimes gives us good advice. Point well taken. My gremlin's advice today is not to worry or even think overtly about the history paper that's due Wednesday. Apparently some of the other class gremlins feel the same way. Really, if this isn't a paper I care about or am even interested in, and no matter what I'll end up writing it late at night on Tuesday (hopefully not too late into the morning), what's the point of trying to squeeze it into my every spare moment today and over the weekend. I just feel bad that my friends and my mom felt the brunt of anxiety over the weekend. I tripped on plumbing and fell onto the sidewalk while I was running to African, scraping my hand and knuckle and thigh. But I'll survive the pain let's me know that I'm alive. My resolution: to pick classes next semester that won't require me to work overly much, at least at things that require excessive amounts of original thought about things that don't interest me. Not that this semester is particularly difficult, any more than standard. But I want to, and I really have to let myself, focus on other things: piano, playing music in groups, and Alyssa. These days I'm thinking Ling major, Arth minor, but it flip-flops a lot.

Ester tells me I'm a pragmatic romantic.


I found this over the weekend, which is the source of these two adorable pictures. Good picture of Ali especially. He mispelled Alyssa Timon's name, but okay. Today has just gotten better since I decided to follow the gremlin's advice. Thanks Charles. This morning, for the record, was as it normally is. The last Victorian class (?) was about par for the course, with even more picture books than usual, including favorites Beardsley and especially the Symbolists (Puvis de Chavanne, Redon, Moreau, my favorite folks.) Some of my favorite writers too: Housman (great, I have to go back and reread the whole of ASL) and Wilde. (I should revisit "The Invention of Love" too.) She read us Kipling's "Female of the Species" to conclude, which was fun. Then I came back and talked to Ester, who is much more diligent than I, if more hemmed in by constraints.

Dinner after class was excellent if delayed - veggie and tofu tempura courtesy of Michelle. [I was listening to OK Computer through the window because someone was blasting it next door, but they just turned it off in the middle of "Electioneering"]
The SAC meeting was insane - eight proposals to fund in two weekends with what turned out to not be too ridiculously skimpy of a budget ($2100 if we took everything from our discretionary funds rather than pretending that we would use them for "something special" during reading week.) I had ulterior motives for trying to coax events away from this Friday, and it worked, sort of: Phil Watts and Andy Alderete are going to have their MarTin-style techno-bash next weekend, although they apparently are planning to have another one this Friday anyway, in any case they're amenable to compromising about Rattech. As it turned out, only this weekend's parties fared that badly, due to fears of low budget and my already allotted $317 (thank goodness I went to propose two weeks ago and got those funds set aside!) Next weekend, by flushing Flux (oops), we were able to give the Society of Women Engineers a very reasonable amount for their Paces party, which should be fun, and "Why War?" $250 - about half what they asked for but apparently much more than they expected, as apparent from Micah and Elena's jubilance when I saw them at Paces later. Funny talk with Amanda on the way out about SAC directors - I posit that they should be coupled very carefully, to make an effective comedy team. Paces was frenetics - I gave out lots of hugs and had fast and furious conversations back and forth with Mariah, Nina, Elena, Dan, Marc, etc. about Lisa Cohen, Art History, Bruce Dorsey, SAC, sleep, and so on. I think my 12 hours from last night finally kicked in (I had actually been feeling kind of tired during the day.)

Walking home, I saw two familiar haircuts and started whistling at them. They didn't seem to notice, so I whistled more forcefully and then resorted to some more obvious "conversational" whistle patterns. Finally I had to run over to them, prompting Elizabeth to loose an impressive shriek, which made Brigid laugh and brandish her safety whistle. I accompanied them to the Lodge, and they promptly left, leaving me to talk to Felicia, Stef and Kate about my future, airport security, and summer plans. Stef and I sketched out ideas about travel to Seattle in the summer (?) or Colorado over spring break (!) Would be much fun. We'll have to see what Alyssa and her car are up to. Now back here, and sleep soon. But I want to write a Solex review first.

there was a grown man running from fright