Wait, what?

So apparently it's the last day of February. What?

The last part of my week last week did not go so well. Fail ranged from completely bombing my tutorial, having no self-esteem to continue my essay, not falling asleep until 3:30 (and learning that, apparently, I should be able to control all sources of bad stress in my life), getting the "You all right?" "Yeah." "No, really, are you okay?" conversation four times on Friday (tutor, till worker at sandwich shop, and librarians at both the Philosophy library and the New College library), being so tired at Guest Dinner that I'm sure everyone was convinced I was drunk, wanting to sleep on Friday night yet having the world conspire against me OMG, etc.

Yesterday was a bit of a turn-around for my luck, though. Kate and I went to the International Festival at the exam schools across the street for lunch, which was fun. We got coupons for a fiver and I spent mine on a huge plate of fried rice and a cup of chai. Kate also tried Turkish Delight for the first time and is probably now convinced that England is Narnia. Kate also showed me to a new library, the Radcliffe Science Library. I like it in there, and even though I'm no scientist, I may go study in the room she showed me, because I think it is awesome.

Also, apparently gypped is a racist term. I feel bad for not knowing that before (and also not knowing that that's how you spell it, thus my complete ignorance). Sorry, world :(

Today I'm trying to get my reading done pretty quickly, as the Failed Novelists (my writing group here) are going out on another pubbing adventure across Port Meadow tonight. I'm not sure where we're eating dinner but I can guarantee that wherever it is, it'll look like Middle Earth, and for that I am excited. To celebrate, I am wearing my "I'm an English major: you do the math" shirt, which also makes me excited. I'm also doing relatively well on my reading for this week, all things considered, and today I slept in, so that was also good.

Tomorrow I may or may not be going to London; it all depends on how I feel. If I don't get enough done today, I may pass London off until next week (I keep putting it off but I just want a few hours at the Tate Modern so badly...). Anyways, must get back to work, this Internet break has lasted about 15 minutes too long.

- Jen -

ETA: Also, I only have about 550 pages of reading this week. Which doesn't sound all that good until you realize that probably 150 pages of it is re-reading from last week because, durr, I had no comprehension skills, and the other 400 pages is all English-type reading about literary criticism that reminds me of my most favorite poem ever, T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'. So, I think this is a win-win.

Also, I saw snowdrops when I was at Balliol for my tute on Thursday. Apparently in this country that means it's spring already. I love it here! Especially since, for the past two days, it's been mostly sunny (only occasionally rainy) and I haven't had to wear a coat as much. I'm going to hate going back home to Ohio where there's apparently 3 feet of snow on the ground.

Best Week Ever

is such a funny show, am I right?

Well, as it turns out, I got 700+ pages of reading finished in four days (Saturday-Tuesday), and I got all of my Aesthetics reading done in one day (Tuesday). Even with the Migraine from Hell. So, I'm kind of proud of myself.

This also means that it's noon on Wednesday and I'm already 20% done with my Philosophy of Mind paper, which isn't due for another 20 hours. This is truly a joyous day. I don't think I've ever started a paper this early since I came to Oxford - this is going to be hard to top. Too bad it took me until Sixth Week to learn how to balance my schedule... oops.

I'm also making plans for when I go home over break! I was invited to a bridal shower, which is yay. I'm trying to make plans to celebrate [UK] Mother's Day with my mom. I'm figuring out when I can and can't go to Cleveland, and I'm setting up what might be the best ND weekend I've had in a long time (Thursday-Sunday: this'll be fun!).

So, basically, today is a day to kick back and relax about not having to write a paper in four hours. This is... wow. This is relaxing and, dare I say it, fun?

I also found a band that's like a cross between Franz Ferdinand (in the general feel sense) and Spinal Tap (in the way they are a parody of pretty much every kind of rock out there, and in how their lyrics are completely hysterical). It greatly amuses me when I write papers on Aesthetics to music that most people would not find aesthetically pleasing.

- Jen -

Sixth Week Blues

That should totally be a song title.

- Migraine. 'Nuff said. I'm looking at my monitor on the dimmest setting, the only light in my room from behind me, and it's still too bright and my keys sound too loud. Also my head hurts. /redundant
- Too much reading... Though I finally finished my Philosophy of Mind reading today, it didn't come without some pain and/or suffering. I nearly threw a book out the window. Yeah, that bad.
- Completely derailed from doing anything productive in order to respond to an e-mail from a friend. This kid knows I'm pro-our current gun laws, I know he's pro-ban guns forever, and he decided to e-mail me this morning and basically start a fight instigate a reasonable and well thought out discussion. I'm going to go ahead and postulate that it was this that pushed my headache over the edge into becoming a migraine.
- Miss home, ready to go back now.
- Practically incapacitated for the night due to pounding head.
- This is actually a better day than the last two days, if that says anything.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for the next three hours besides read things on the Internet - I can't do any reading for class like this. Today sucks.

- Jen -

Just a few little things.

I'm doing all right on my reading - my goal is 140 pages on the day so that I'm 20% done with my reading, and I'm almost there.

I had Oreos and Diet Cherry Coke for lunch. Best lunch ever.

I'm missing out on Junior Parents' Weekend! I think we get to hang out with next year's juniors if we want our parents to do it, but really... I'm kind of jealous that I'm missing out on all the fun activities. And I didn't even realize/recognize it was this weekend until last night, so... um... yeah.

But the main reason for the blog post is this bit of news:

NEW SEASON OF RED VS BLUE AIRS 1 APRIL! Excuse me while I go glee some more.

- Jen -

MST3K trivia!

Did you know that... there are 88 'Cabot's said by the cast of the movie "Outlaw"? (That are able to be heard through the riffing, anyhow, and I'm not including the several 'Cabot's by Mike and the 'bots. Be very careful if you do a drinking game to this word.) Yes, I just went through and counted them all. Next time I'll be counting references to buffalo shots.

It's been a good week, and this next week looks to be just as great... if only I can get some work done tonight. D'oh! Keep getting distracted by the Internet...

- Jen -

ETA: You probably actually want to know something about my life, right? Well, get this - more statistics for you. I have at least 436 pages of reading to do... and that's just for Philosophy of Mind. And currently I have 55 pages' worth of PDFs for Aesthetics, and that's just the non-required reading for this week. All the books I need for my required reading are either stolen or otherwise missing from the philosophy library, which means a trip to the Bodleian later this week... If I were to give a guesstimate, I probably have 700 pages of reading to do. Oh, joy of joys...

It's always something different.

I'm talking, of course, about the one thing that academically grates on my nerves every week. Last week, it was references to Duchamp's 'Fountain'. (I still swear that if I see another reference to it in my reading for Aesthetics, the shotgun's coming out.)

This week, it's two things.
1. Journals and anthologies published with two columns of text on the page. What do you think you are, the Bible? It just makes things so much harder for me to read, especially if I'm reading the article electronically and I can't remember if I need to scroll up or scroll down once I hit the bottom of the page. This should be simple, folks.
2. 'Phlogiston' and 'caloric'. If I see another reference to either of those in Philosophy of Mind, once again, shotgun.

This is a short post because I still have reading to do to prep for my tutorial tomorrow morning, so ta for now and expect better entries this weekend.

- Jen -

Please pass the Brain Bleach...

You know, today was going to be a good day, until two things happened.

1) I saw a story I liked by someone in my fandom. So I followed this person to their personal journal, hoping that they would have back-posted some of their other stories so I could enjoy them. Instead, I found a bunch of random memes (which is fine, that's what personal journals are for). What's not fine is that this person uses one of these memes for the sole purpose of bashing people who came into the fandom after a certain date (2008, in case you're wondering), saying they 'can't stand their writing' and that, in fact, the only people they can stand are the ones they were already friends with.

Um, no. Way to not give me a chance. I consider myself to be an okay writer - certainly worse than some of the Big Name Fans in our fandom (of which this person is not one), but I try, and people seem to genuinely enjoy the things I write. And you know, really I write for me, and I just lap up the comments I get - that's the only reason why I publicly post, really. But to say that I'm automatically not any good at canon or style because I joined this fandom two years after you think I should have? Nuh-uh, logic fail. Besides, I'm one of the few people I know that actually a) was around/watched during the first season and b) came back later just to get into the fandom specifically.

The worst part was, after the review I left (which was generally positive), this person decided to take an attitude with pretty much everyone, including taking shots at people's ships and demanding that they take shots at writing pairings they're not comfortable with. Also, in the reply to my review, this person insinuated that their character interpretation is the only right one, ever. I didn't want to cause wank because this is an insanely tiny fandom and, without the gender-neutral pronouns, it would be painfully obvious who this person was. But... really?

You're going to judge me because you think I write the 'wrong' pairings, have no justification for my pairings, and I came into the fandom after an arbitrary date that you set? You know, we all pretty much get along; don't like, don't read, and all that. That being said, the canon itself is pretty much crack - it's one of the few series I know where you can literally get away with things that don't seem physically possible, including gruesome deaths and male pregnancy. So the fact that I took the entire length of a 9500-word fic, actually using canon scenes, to justify my characterization instead of making it cracky should mean something to them, even though they don't like my conclusion. And since this person's being a wanker, I'm not even going to go into how I think they're wrong about their characterization. Yes, they wrote a pairing I enjoy, and the story was good, but it soured completely once I realized that they had a high and mighty attitude.

2) This video. I don't know what possessed Justin to share this with me, but oh my god I have been crying for the last twenty minutes.

So, thanks. Thanks, life, for giving me two DO NOT WANTs in one day. NEDM is going to save this. I'm just going to go, you know, cry in a corner for the next forty-five minutes.

- Jen -

ETA: Apparently this entry needs its own lexicon, so here we go.
wank: specifically in the context of fandom, an argument that gets completely out of control. See additional and more specific use in the term 'grudgewank'.
wanker: generally a British term, original use meaning someone who wanks; just replace 'wank' with the previous definition.
canon: original production of a work. For instance, all seven Harry Potter books are canon. All released Harry Potter movies are also canon - a different canon. This is as opposed to fanon, which is never explicitly stated in the original work but picked up by fans of the work and presented as factually present in canon. Note spelling: canon is not a cannon, though I do wish I could shoot people with it sometimes. Compare use in religious senses: canonical books of the Bible.
fic: short for fanfiction - a piece of derivative fiction based off of an original work.
fandom: the legion of fans collected together for a certain canon. These fans generally have interaction with one another at some level - after all, these people both produce and read derivative work. Some fandoms are small, some are large, and the proportion may have nothing to do with the critical acclaim of the show. If you are just a fan, you are not necessarily a part of the fandom; fandom members actually participate in derivative works, whether that's through searching them out/reading them or producing them themselves.
meme: in this context, any sort of post that is picked up from a friend, posted on one's own personal Internet space, and then passed on to other friends. Somewhat like a virus in that respect. Compare Facebook notes where the instructions include 'tag 10 friends lol'.
ship: short for relationship. In fandom, used as a verb indicating that the poster prefers to see works with the given relationship in them. Example usage: "I ship Ron/Hermione lol so canon guys." Also used as a noun, as in someone sails on the Good Ship Harmonian. [If anyone gets the joke in this definition, I will bake you a dozen cookies of your choice, reedemable within the next year.]
pairing: what you ship. Traditionally posted with a / or x between the names, though portmanteaus are not unheard of. See also OTP, short for One True Pairing, which is the preferred ship for a fandom member, and OT3, short for, well, One True Three.
cracky: anything that is crack. Crack is generally a label for pairings that seem impossible in canon for characterization reasons (note that spatiotemporal difficulties never seem to factor into this). The 'crack' label is not equivalent to the 'OOC' (out of character) label. Given a legitimate enough argument, though, pairings can move out of the crack category, though most fandoms agree that certain pairings will always be crack. An example of a crack pairing would be Hogwarts Castle/Giant Squid. [Yes, this actually exists. Oh, the horror of the Internet.]
You happy now, AJ?

MLIA stands for My Life Is Awesome

Because you totally know it's true.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I got to talk to Justin for a little bit, which was great! My blog entry, reposted as a note on Facebook, got about 25 comments from people who weren't me, so omg that was fantastic to have my inbox fill up with so much comment spam love. The LJ community I'm active in was having a time-limit fic challenge (only 5 days to work on whatever), and it was fun to write that and see everyone else's entries.

Most of all, though, it was Chinese New Year and all the shenanigans that took place then... including talk about orgies, saliva-rape, Moments, and drunk pictures. I don't even know, but I laughed and I laughed really hard. AJ, Dakota, and Kate, I heart you all so much and you made my day.

I mostly just wanted to post that I'm halfway done with my school year as of Saturday and I hardly even noticed. I've finished with Week 4 of eight of the second term out of three, so yeah, do the math and I'm just now halfway done with my school year.

As for slightly more happy math and statistics, only 25 more days until I get to see Justin! Slightly sad statistics, though, is that I still have five articles to read for the paper I need to write Wednesday night and I've only done about ten pages of reading today. Whoops!

- Jen -

Come on, have a seat.

We're all going to have a chat today, k?

First of all, it's Chinese New Year. Woo for awesome food and wine tonight with my friends!

Second of all, my desk calendar tells me that it's also Valentine's Day. And that's what I wanted to have a chat about. So, please, get comfortable, because we're going to air out a few grievances.

I understand that a lot of people who aren't in romantic/sexual relationships right now are angry and hurt, declaring today to be Singles Awareness Day. And as much as you feel hurt by the excessive shows of schmoopiness around you from established couples, I want to point out that the moniker 'Singles Awareness Day' is pejorative to couples - specifically, couples like the relationship I'm in right now. I don't have my schmoop to give out this year, because my boyfriend is far, far away; it hurts me just as much to see couples smiling and holding hands as they walk down the street (yes, hurts, my nails have left prints on my palms by now). So if we're going to have a bitter and cynical name for the rejection of romantic love, I'd like to nominate 'Loneliness Awareness Day,' because trust me, I'm feeling it too.

Frankly, calling it any kind of awareness day also calls attention to how bitter and cynical you are. And really, that's not going to get you anywhere. In fact, my very good friend Conan O'Brien would like to remind you all that you will never get anywhere in life by being a cynical and bitter person. Holding out hope and feeling love for yourself and others is a sure-fire way to help people get along; it's just on a day like today that cynical and bitter attitudes don't fit in.

I understand that a few of my male friends hate this day, and trust me, I truly understand why. I would like to remind the people whose birthdays are near today that you should be thanking your mothers for pushing you out of their uterus rather than cursing the world that you were born near a pretty much arbitrary holiday. For those people who have had romantic mishaps on this day, I want you to remember one thing: That was in the past. I understand that today is an emotionally charged day, really I do, but the past is really past. It's a part of who you are, and I understand that, but it hurts me to see my friends give up on romantic love just because they were burned. I'm sorry that it happened to you, and I know it hurts very much to remember that it happened. So if it hurts, I'd advise letting some of that hurt dissipate. Holding on to hate is just going to make you a bitter and cynical person, and really, would you want to fall in romantic love with yourself if you're just going to be bitter about the whole thing?

That's another thing I want to point out. It's a chronic problem across many Western societies, which is strange, because this concept was only invented about 500 years ago. See, the thing is, romantic love is not the only kind of love there is. I know that today being Valentine's Day and all, you might be tempted to think that romantic love is the only kind of love that is worth having, or the only kind of love that you can be proud of and nourish. And that's not true. You love your friends, your family, your dog, your computer, your online communities, your interests. So, please. Think about what you love, and do something you love today. [Fill in joke about something=someone here.]

So, if you have a group of friends who are all complaining, seriously, cut it out. Do something you all enjoy. Maybe that's going out to Chinese and getting drunk, since it's Chinese New Year as well. Maybe it's having a movie/video game marathon into the early hours of the morning. Maybe it's having a snowball fight and then sharing funny stories over hot cocoa. Maybe it's pranking someone, and seeing them laugh when they realize it was you who did it. Maybe it's finally getting up the courage to ask someone to not be so alone with you.

Notice how the only option I put up there that was even slightly romantic was the last one? Yeah. Because you can love all of these people that you do these things with; you can love them until your heart breaks, because they're all people you care about. But it isn't romantic love. And that's fine. (And asking someone to share their loneliness with you doesn't have to be romantic either - maybe you just want to have a two-person pity party and feel terrible about yourselves, and just not feel so alone while doing that. I find that perfectly acceptable and in fact therapeutic. And it doesn't have to be someone you're romantically interested in!)

My final point comes from Wikipedia (endless source of all truthful knowledge, etc. etc.). See, St. Valentine was canonized somewhere around the 4th or 5th century because of 'word of mouth' deeds that made him saintlike. We've discovered now that, back then, there was no individual St. Valentine to whom these deeds were ascribed. There's another St. Valentine from Spain who was martyred in the 8th century, but the 14th of February isn't his saint's day. It's believed that the celebratory part of this holiday evolved sometime in the 14th century, along with ideals of courtly love (which, I must point out, have fallen somewhat out of favor). So if you're Catholic and wondering why some young lovers had to choose to be martyred today, stop wondering! St. Valentine never existed as such, and so you can feel free to let go of all of the stigma of this day. (As a side note, Valentine is a name evolved from the Latin word for 'valor', which I find awe-worthy and motivating and also find amusing that it has nothing to do with love, except maybe love for the Church.)

To reiterate my points... please. I'm so tired of seeing hatred, bitterness, and cynicism when this could easily be a day just as fun and love-filled as any other. Make Valentine's Day your own day. If you like the Hallmark-card, chocolates-and-roses, buying-things-for-someone-you-love option, that's great! (I love all those things too.) If you like the spending time with one specific person you care deeply about, however it is that you care about them, that's great too! If you want to remind all your friends, family, online communities, and random strangers how much you love life, I heartily applaud this effort and hope that you make your day this fantastic. Mostly, though, I hope everyone takes advantage of this day to show everyone how much you love them. Because we all like to know that the love gets spread around, and we all like to be reminded that romantic relationships aren't the be-all end-all or, in fact, the only way you can love someone.

Peace, love, and chocolate,

- Jen -

V-day Weekend

This weekend has absolutely rocked so far (and yes, yesterday totally counts as part of it).

Yesterday morning I had probably my greatest tutorial here (about how I don't think 'art' can be essentially defined, or in fact have any kind of definition that doesn't have a courtesy meaning). This tutorial also ended with the best proclamation a student can hear: "We'll pick up on this again next week. I can't send you reading until Sunday, so it'll be a little lighter, and you won't have to write a full essay, just discussion points." *fistpumping forever*

Then there was the fact that I'm actually writing again. This makes me joyous. What makes me even more joyous is that people like what I write and really seem to appreciate it. I'm a member of a fanfiction community (for a really small/obscure/weird fandom) that is overflowing with so much love and support that... I don't even know. I heart everyone there, though.

And! I had a chat with Kate about her day yesterday, and I'm not only proud of her for not passing out/upchucking but also proud that she's not freaked out by Eye Scream as much as I am. She deserves a country's worth of chocolate.

Then! There was guest dinner with Dakota last night, which was full of music, terrible English dubs, gossip about AJ, and Pokemon as possibly the greatest game franchise of all time. Also, I think I used the word 'fantastic' about 100 times in two hours. After said dinner, I was also tipsy-posting on the aforementioned comm.

And then! I actually got to talk to Justin for, like, an hour! For the first time in a long time! And I ate those silly Necco hearts, and listened to the audio commentary for my RvB DVDs, and re-read what might be my favorite piece of fanfic of all time, and... I don't even know. To reuse a word, yesterday was fantastic.

And today's been even better, if possible. Had a lie-in until, like, 10:15, woke up to an inbox full of comment love, joined up for a V-day fic challenge, spent pretty much all my time awake on the Internet... and I'm only starting my work just now, even though it needs to be done. There is just so much glee in my life right now, I don't even know where to start.

So, I just hope the rest of this weekend goes this well. Not much going on tonight besides probably working on my reading for the week and writing up the other two fics I want to post to the comm this weekend, but then tomorrow we have Chinese New Year formal hall, which should also rock.

Look for a special entry tomorrow about how Valentine's Day doesn't suck, even if you're single.

- Jen -

Super Bowl Sunday

The title of this blog post is actually somewhat misleading, as I'm going to be covering the entire weekend instead of just yesterday.

So on Saturday night I went to see a performance of MacBeth at Keble College. Just in case I forgot why it was my favorite Shakespeare play, I was reminded again. At first I had trouble telling some of the actors apart (who really puts a long-haired blond Scotsman in the same type of role on both political sides? two different guys and I couldn't tell them apart). I feel like they might have been able to cast a different Lady MacBeth and had the play go over a little better, because I didn't find her very sympathetic. MacBeth himself was fantastic, though. And there was also a very good set of shrieks in the second half of the play that had AJ and I trying to replicate the noise as we were walking back to Bodicote.

So. Yesterday was, like, Honorary America Day or something like that. I went on a beer run as a study break and bought AJ and I some Budweiser for while we were watching the Super Bowl later, which turned out to be a good choice. I also painted my nails and accidentally did them in Saints colors when I was rooting for the Colts (geographically speaking):



Oops. My bad, guys. (If you want to know what I used, it was OPI Nail Lacquer 'Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees' for the black (2-3 coats), then leftover reward stickers from NaNo on all the nails that they would fit on, then 2 coats of the Sally Hansen 10-Day No-Chip Nail Color 'Clear'. Though the stickers aren't staying as well as I thought they would...)

So, then we had an all-'American' formal hall before the Super Bowl. I put American in quotes because sometimes it's plain that they don't understand how our country works (silly Commies). What really tipped me off that it wasn't as American as they said it would be is that there was no buffet. Ha, just kidding, but that would have made it much better. For our first course, we had some kind of... chowder... I don't even know. It wasn't American, I'll tell you that. (Neither were the raspberry milkshakes or the bagel slices with PICKLES on them. Pickles. Really?)

Things started changing when we got to the second course, though. Our table got kind of screwed to start off with, so at first I thought I was only going to be eating ribs, but at least they were good. Eventually I got fries, mac'n'cheese, a corn dog, and a 'buffalo' (read: plain) chicken wing. Yes, it was all American food, but it was just... enh. Fries were limp and not fry-like, and the corn dog was some kind of weak sausage-y thing which had actually been fried in fresh corn meal. Where's the processed food I asked for?

And for dessert, you'd think we'd have apple pie a la mode, because of the phrase 'American as apple pie,' but no, we had cherry pie instead. And the vanilla ice cream had brandy in it. Overall, the dinner left me very confused.

Then the Super Bowl... us Americans got there a little late, so we had to drag computer chairs to the back of the JCR so we could even sit. AJ, Matt, and I were all back there with Matt's Slingbox hooked up so we could at least see the American commercials (though we couldn't hear them). I thought the halftime show was pretty good, but I already liked the Who, and it was great seeing them on television when I was in Britain - something about that felt so right. Budweiser and crisps, too, and somehow I managed to get the last Oreo on the face of the earth... which reminds me, I need to make another Sainsbury's run today to get Oreos and breakfast food. Also probably caffeine.

I left when there were two minutes to go in the third quarter, when it was 17-16 Colts, but apparently the Saints won...? I have a hard time feeling vengeful, because New Orleans deserves it, but still, Peyton, ya let me down. And it was strange waking up this morning, because I thought I would get barraged with either angry or ecstatic status updates on my Facebook Live Feed, but instead everyone was all 'superbowl enh' and it was relatively spoiler-free until the last status on my page. Weird.

So, I have a ton of work to do today (hopefully want to finish my Mind paper, plus I just remembered I have to make it to the library sometime today), so that's all from me, and I'll try to blog more regularly from now on!

- Jen -

Whoa, it's February!

Totally missed it because I was so busy.

The last week has been a lot of reading, procrastinating, subsequent last-minute (or last-four-hour) essay writing, and procrastinating by wishing I wasn't procrastinating. My knee is feeling much better, thankfully (and it had better, because it's been a week by now) - though the kneecap is still a little unstable. It slides when I walk in a really weird way... but at least I can walk, so no complaints there. Another gripe about the last week is that I accidentally missed the airing of the season premiere of Lost last night! Oh well, I already got spoiled for it through my newsfeed. I'll probably just catch up with Justin when I go back to the States.

One thing I realized today is that Cherry Coke tastes more of cherries in the UK than it does in the States. This makes me glad to be here with delicious caffeine, but sad to go home to the insufficient Cherry Coke Zero that I adore/am addicted to while I'm at school. ETA: And one interesting thing I learned yesterday was that the old, not so politically correct name for the game we call 'Telephone' (you know, mutation of a phrase either deliberately or unintentionally as it's passed from person to person, comparing the mutated phrase with the original by the time it passes around a circle of several people) is actually 'Chinese whispers.' Either this is a British/Canadian thing (the tutor who mentioned this is British, his wife is Canadian) or I'm just too young to have known the name.

Tonight I'm probably going to a showing of MacBeth, which I'm really excited about because it's probably my favorite Shakespeare play. This'll be my second production of Shakespeare I'll have seen in the last year... I just hope it lives up to the Tempest production I saw with my dad in Chicago. Tomorrow there's a special American formal hall, which I hope to blog about after it happens because it should be hilarious, and then there's the Super Bowl, for which I need to find Bulmer's for myself and my friends. The rest of the week is work, work, and more work, which I hope to alleviate by doing most of it this weekend amongst fun activities.

This is kind of a piddly little blog entry, so I'll leave you with two quotations from my philosophy reading that I enjoyed. The first one is serious, the second is more for laughs (as it literally made me laugh out loud).

"It is certain, that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions, in which true virtue and honour consists. It rarely, very rarely happens, that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, a honest man, whatever frailties may attend him. The bent of his mind to speculative studies must mortify in him the passions of interest and ambition, and must, at the same time, give him a greater sensibility of all the decencies and duty of life." David Hume, 'The Sceptic', Essays Moral, Political, and Literary

"The [Greeks] approached [art] from a different point of view. What this was, we can perhaps discover by reading what people like Plato wrote about it; but not without great pains, because the first thing every modern reader does, when he reads what Plato has to say about poetry, is to assume that Plato is describing an aesthetic experience similar to our own. The second thing he does is to lose his temper because Plato describes it so badly. With most readers there is no third stage." R. G. Collingwood, 'Art as the Expression of Emotion', Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology (of course there's a third stage! you chuck the Republic out the window!)

Back to work for me, this book's on a short loan and I'm easily distracted.

- Jen -