greetings from finals hell!

This is the picture I used for my family's christmas card this year-- yes I did find time to do it. Every other picture had someone's eyes closed or a bad face, so I chose this one. People seem to like it.

Only 16 more hours to finish this seminar paper. GAH!

OMG

Finals are going to kill me this week.

Once I get my seminar paper paper done though, it won't be so bad, it is due Friday but I need to have it done before then. Wrote my Russian Art and Culture Final last Friday. Wednesday is my Russian language final. Shakespeare final is due next Monday and 19th Century British Literature final is due Wednesday-- but I am NOT going to stay here until the day before Christmas eve for this shit so I need to get it done.

GOAL: be home on Saturday so I can make sugar cookies for my Dad's sunday school class.

I have already gotten most of my family's presents ordered. I need to put together the custom christmas crackers and make a bag for Steph.

Can't wait for this all to be over.

(But then I have to finish those distance courses. Blah.)

bah bah bah

I am going to use this post to try to organize what is going on right now. Then, maybe, I can forget about keeping it all together for a while because it is written down.

Immediate concerns:

-Wednesday exam in Russian. Reading skills are pretty good. Spelling is decent. Still need to learn some vocabulary. Listening skills are awful.
-Paper due in 19th Century British Novel on Wednesday (semi-self imposed due date because is not really due until Dec. 2 but must get it done because I will have many more things to worry about at that point).
-Must harass Shakespeare professor into giving me the grade I deserve on my midterm. It is obvious that the woman put no thought into grading it.
-Finish "Middlemarch".

Pressing concerns:

-Seminar Paper in OW course. Must harass library into inter-library-borrowing the books I need because someone has decided to check out every single one that I want. After that, begin the arduous task of going from book to book and stringing together an argument. Start an immense word-doc for it all. Get it done before Dec. 12, ideally.
-General inability to find time for Russian.
-Need to write a paper for Russian Art and Culture comparing an American article and a Russian article on the same topic. Must find articles.
-Must make up Writing Intensive Petition. Check on Historical Perspectives Petition.

Less Pressing Concerns (until next month):

-Getting everything done before last week of term so that I don't end up doing schoolwork until Dec. 23-- like they want me to.
-After the term is over, starting and finishing "Origins of English Words" 3 credit course before Spring Term starts on Jan. 18. Finding a way to improve the quality of the Lecture CD audio.
-Finish Fiction Writing course.


General Concern:

-Get through this and have a day or two to rest before Spring term starts.
-Keep Sanity.

october is here

After an uncomfortable Indian summer, trudging to class in the nearly 90 degree heat in full sun alongside the road, it suddenly dipped about fifty degrees a week ago and the cold has stuck.

It has been rainy and chill, very appropriate fall weather. I would have enjoyed it more if the radiators in the building had been on. I would enjoy it now if they were working in my apartment (the heat is supposed to be included with rent).

Oh, well. I've dwelt long enough on my horrible landlord today. Here are some nice things:

I realized that I hadn't actually uploaded pictures for a long time. Readers of this blog (maybe just the one) will doubt this, but I used to be a proliferate blogger and uploader of pictures. It will won't be this sunny again until next year, I'm sure.

This is the little patch of dirt in front of my brother's window at home-- where I get free reign every summer. Around June this year (yes, it was about that time that it got temperate) I planted some nasturtium seeds. It took them a long time to take hold but a few weeks before this picture was taken it had rained a lot and the flowers were very happy.



In fact, the whole area in front of our windows grew like crazy.



You can see the nasturtiums on the left and some rabid mint under my window, the rest is a wildflower mix that was taken over by those zinnias. There are also a lot of blue cornflowers and one red poppy.



I love this mint because it is from my grandparent's house in Evanston, Illinois. At a summer reunion two years ago my mom pulled up a handful and we planted it outside my window. I read somewhere that mint doesn't grow true to taste (spearmint, peppermint etc) from seed (is this true?) so it is wonderful to have the same mint that I made mint tea with when I was five.



Of course, the big dogs were helping me take pictures:



Ole



Sven

We went and checked out the apple trees. We have exactly two and they were planted by the previous owner of the land, they haven't been pruned very well. The one had only these two little apples.



While the other was groaning (isn't that what they always say?) with these beautiful apples.



I don't know what kind they are, but I might make some apple jellies with them this weekend.



I was throwing them for the dogs but they don't really know how to play fetch, they just buried them.



But I only get to enjoy this all on the weekends. Most of the time I am in my unheated apartment at school, cleaning up after repairmen.



At least I have my bags made from the Jane Market Bag pattern by Alicia of Posie Gets Cozy. I had SUCH a fun time making these in my spare time this summer. The one on the left I accidentally made one square inch too small on all measurements but then made the handles and the squaring on the bottom according to the pattern--all by accident, of course! (But I rather like it). I think I need to make more seasonal ones!



This is what I was carrying in the one on the right. And, incidentally, why I go home on the weekends-- to get treats (tea, mittens) and things from the mail (I don't trust the service to my apartment). And my laundry done. Those are just four of the million books I will be reading for this term.

I've started a quilt from another one of Alicia's patterns.



It was HORRIBLE picking out the fabric! I don't know how my grandma does it! I was in the warehouse with my mother, running from one table to another, gathering this huge pile of disparate rolls of fabric while she grimaced at my choices. She actually left me after two hours. In the end, I realized that I was trying to do two different quilts: a shabby-chic one sort of like the pattern's and the other was...I don't know. Sort of "night" themed.

And I know, I am bad. I made up the right number of squares but I couldn't find 10 (was it?) fabrics, I just couldn't. I also might have washed and ironed the fabric...



As I barely have time to sleep, it is coming along very slowly.



But I can't wait to see it done!

the bottom line

This is how close I am to graduating from college.

All the pink stuff will be done by the end of spring term/on time for graduation.

HOWEVER, the black circle signifies the Historical Perspectives requirement I am said not to have met (regardless of the History course I have taken). If I can't meet this by petition I will have to give up on a Russian Minor. And the arrow is to the English major requirements, wherein they have told me my "Critical Approaches" course doesn't count for the theory course at UMN-TC. Greeaaatt. At the same time they won't let me take a class at the TC that WOULD count for the requirement because it is too close to the content in my "Critical Approaches" class. They might not let me take my Senior Seminar this spring because I haven't met the language/theory requirement.

This is sooo messed up. Right now I am actively taking 17 credits but I am technically signed up for 23. If I finished the "Origins of English Words" course that I have via distance learning then this would all be OK. I have the Short Story class mostly finished.

Tomorrow I am going to a mandatory information meeting about the English Senior Seminars. They obviously have a flair for the dramatic because they haven't put the titles of the courses on the schedule yet. It figures that they would want to ~reveal~ them to us in a way that wastes an hour of our time.

If I channel Kanye West: the University of Minnesota Twin Cities doesn't care about English majors.

the beginning of something long and painful

So, my Fall 2009 class list is as follows:

Russian Art and Culture (3 cr)
Intermediate Russian I (5 cr)
Shakespeare (3 cr)
19th Century British Novel (3 cr)
The Wilde Nineties (3 cr)

Basically, a 17-credit hell of my own making.

While the classes I am taking are more geared towards my real interests than they have been in any other term (wow, it was a revelation to consciously put that into words) and their content is--on the whole-- fascinating, the combination of five courses at once has left me with no time for any true pleasures in life. Eating, sleeping, crafting, baking...talking with my mother and calling my siblings. I have little or no time to do any of these things anymore. And judging by the schedule I laid out on Friday of the next four months, I won't have any time for these things or Christmas planning (and in my family I have become the one who does the Christmas planning).

You have deduced that this is stolen time. I require a little time before going to sleep to decompress. Perhaps this will be beaten out of me.

Getting to class, almost more than the classes themselves, has become a major tax on my energy and general will-to-survive. I daily confirm my belief that living in a small town is much better than a dirty metropolis-- especially for someone who doesn't really enjoy any of its benefits, like shopping and the culture of bar crawling. Overall, it is a very grim Catherine who wearies to and from campus several times a day over broken glass and other refuse of frat row.

(I wish I could say that referencing myself in the third person was a product of too much Bertram Wooster, but it is not. It must be the coming insanity of overpowering civilization. Maybe this is the same thing.)

One of the things I feel bad about in this neglect of self is not giving adequate attention to the people who I've met over Lang-8 and who graciously help me with my Russian whenever I've had to time to post something. One even sent me a whole message with MP3s to Russian music at my request-- and I haven't even had the chance to download them all, listen and reply. Whenever I have a moment of free time I find myself either sleeping, worrying about things I have to do, or letting my brain be tranquilized by bad television. Hopefully, I'll find more time to give to them once I become more efficient with my schedule (though I don't know how, because all I ever seem to do is homework until I can't read anymore) or on Christmas break.

Anyways, before I was in this deeper circle of hell, I was in one that was relatively easier to bear-- only a few leaden yokes, small fires and such-- and I was able to go on a walk around and take these pictures.









This was a period of time after my summer terms ended and before my fall term began. It became cool for a spell and though I was still mildly tormented by distance learning courses, at least I got to sleep in.



It is one of the many sadness es of life that times that are good can only be fully appreciated in retrospect. Only sentimental or very silly people will say "this is the happiest moment of my life"-- none of them really mean it and they say it too often to be true. (Now, this is definitely Lord Henry Wotton speaking.)



But the thought does occur to me very often: why can't this make me happy? In truth, it is the accumulation of years of work and the realization of many old wishes. So much so, that it is startling to think about how close my life has come to what I've wanted it to be. I live in my own apartment in Minneapolis. I go to a legitimate university (the last two institutions seemed to lack this quality). I read novels and write excruciating papers as an English major (though the excruciating part was never in the plan). I am in intermediate Russian. I can drive. I have a car. I am not in any way obese.

How depressing it is to think that all of this has transpired and I do not feel much happier day-to-day.





It comes down to consciously making an effort to enjoy life's minutiae. Or maybe, picking the right things to want. Or perhaps, wanting what one has. Or if it is all just chaotic, trying to remember to want what one wanted once.



I think I understand that carpe diem notion now.

my god, it feels good to write in english

One of the side affects of taking intensive beginning Russian is over using the word "demoralizing". Which is a word, to be honest, that I don't think I'd ever used with any real sentiment before. But now I find myself with a sort of violent blob sensation on my eyelids-- like something is coming at my face and then retreating--and a feeling in my chest that alternates between stolid resignation and humiliation.

These signs are supposed to let a person know that he/she should probably abandon the effort. How much of a beating should a person take?

Three hour class.

Homework all day.

Homework comes back dripping with red ink next day.

Repeat and then add terrifying exams that come back lacerated with a B minus.

There is some comfort in knowing that I am doing all these things with stringent compunction: getting up in the morning, going to class, homework etc. But there is some element of really getting into the material that I just can't manage when I have such a schedule. The schedule is not in my nature (a nature that is being severely repressed) and so it is difficult to put myself into such a strange and often unpleasant endeavor.

Of course, the language itself-- as a pure entity apart from the horribleness of the classroom/pedagogy-- is surprisingly delightful. I never thought I would feel any real connection to it via the artificial lists of verbs and their conjugations or scary vocabulary lists but some words are beginning to feel elemental. Certain words really evoke the sort of impulse that goes along with their english equivalents-- but in a different way, in a a Russian way.

Also, apparently the word for "crucifixion" is similar to "Friday" in Russian. Fascinating, huh? I agree with my professor that there is some etymological mystery to be solved in this coincidence. Also, "crucifixion" is spelled with an "x" in English-- very old world/British.

But боже мой! (I swear learning bridge will be the last step to my grandmafication) It feels marvelous to have a large vocabulary in at least one language. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be able to write without scruples. Hell, I can use dashes and semicolons like it is my last day on earth. (Though it turns out that Russians like the long dash-- which I am readily embracing.)

It occurred to me, at the end of writing this (ie. right now), that I should look up "demoralizing" to see if it really means what I think it means. I have been known to be wrong before.

...to corrupt the morals of
2 a : to weaken the morale of : discourage, dispirit b : to upset or destroy the normal functioning of c : to throw into disorder

Nope, seems pretty spot on. And since, apparently, all of my ill-founded wishes are coming true this summer (learn Russian? really? what a great idea!) I find this quote from a book on Voltaire via the OED particularly apt:

1871 MORLEY Voltaire (1886) 133
Miracles..have necessarily a very demoralising effect.