St. John's College
Annapolis, MD
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

A non-chronological, but fairly complete, update

The days seem to be getting so hectic! I can hardly collect my thoughts enough to give a coherent account of the week. Bits and pieces stand out, but it's not easy to get them to settle into a pattern in my mind. I guess it's just been busy - and a bit weird. First of all, I had a lot of time off from my office job because my boss was in Florida directing our booth there. So I was actually a bit at loose ends several days ago. At the elementary school, too, I was off my usual schedule because one of my teachers took a very short trip, also to Florida. (I made up for this, though, by doing lesson preparation for three different teachers and then putting together a super cute bulletin board made out of construction paper and pictures of transportation.)

Classes have been taking up time and energy, too. Of course we always take studying seriously, but the longer we spend here (without a break, that is) the more, it seems, we become wrapped up and involved in the coursework. Add to that the fact that we had to turn in our proposals for paper topics on Monday, and you get a lot of young people really wacking out over some arcane old texts.

I personally wacked out tremendously. The only topic that comes up regularly at my don rags as a place to improve my work is in my papers - not in their strength or in technical matters, but in my willingness (or lack thereof) to "let loose" and interpret something more freely, to let my mind wonder on something rather than keeping it down in a close analysis. I don't like "wondering" papers very much, and despite all these injunctions I was seriously considering an analytical Hume philosophy paper for my junior essay.

Fortunately, fate, or something like it intervened. I looked at Hume and found myself incapable of really connecting to, really caring about it. (I get to care about what I study! Don't I live in the lap of academic luxury?) So, I went back to the text that spoke to me the most out of all the seminar readings from this year - Middlemarch. So I'm putting my hat in the ring for a good, juicy, messy, human literary digression this time. My topic, just to make things extra interesting, will be on the theme of redemptive love as seen by Eliot. Sound exciting? Yeah, I can't wait to see how it's going to turn out.

Other stuff! Party planning! Lola's is tonight, everyone is dressing up crazy Western-fashion and Reality is really hoping to get a big haul in from the gambling, because this is the time that we make the most money towards funding Reality Weekend. My own part of this has been to organize a clave of sophomore cigarette girls, which mostly involved me finding sophomores who had corsets and were willing to wear them in public. (It wasn't too hard, actually. I mean, this is St. John's. The fashion guidelines here can be generally summed up as "Um, whatever.") Other than that, we shall eat, drink, dance, play card games and try our best to swagger about.

Also, I managed to get a huge amount of wine and champagne for a dollar over cost by a) shopping wisely and b) having a delightfully helpful gentleman friend with a car. I don't need it right now, but this does mean I can throw an exceptionally good party of my own when croquet rolls around. I'm looking forward to it already.

Speaking of looking forward to things, when the heck did Spring Break get to be a week away? I'm going to be home soon! And what's more, I'll get started for real on my totally exciting plans for this summer - not to mention writing that Middlemarch paper.

Oh, and movies! And dinners! And lectures, and excitement, and democracy! Opera and improbable amounts of baking mix! It just goes on and on, and I still find it incredible that I am so lucky as to be able to live this dream of a life. Thank you for sharing it with me!

Roxanne