so much for brevity
I've been exiled the past few weeks, battling the thesis and generally forgetting to enjoy life. Walking across campus today with Fran Healy crooning in my ears and a spring breeze swirling past reminded me just how good it is to be here, awake, alive. I'm now at work in Schoenberg Hall's music library, where the distant voices of a choir rehearsal fill the room every time the door opens. It's ethereal and beautiful and strange. Canterbury and York have nothing on us.
This weekend wasn't too shabby either:
Thursday I handed in 20 pages of my thesis and held my breath for the first really substantial verdict. Until I went home and passed out for a few hours.
Friday I went to work, then to BrewCo with co-workers for some Newcastle and an AMF, and finally to a beer tasting with some of the summer abroad kids. I didn't need those brain cells anyway.
Saturday morning I was up early to see Ray Bradbury, sip overpriced cherry lemonade, and browse books at the Festival of Books. Bradbury is 86 now and had to be wheeled onstage in a wheelchair, but he's still a sharp storyteller. Among other things, he told us how he wrote the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 in the basement of Powell Library here at UCLA, on pay typewriters at 10 cents per half hourwhich makes it, as he put it, "a true dime novel."
Also saw S.E. Hinton (understated and hilarious), Mitch Albom (a sports writer turned "serious" writer with Tuesdays with Morrie), and Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes fame). Albom was supposed to interview McCourt (or so we thought) but ended up doing most of the talking, and he was surprisingly funny and light on his feet. Most interesting to me, though, were his more serious remarks on why it's okay to be happy or sentimental in this age of cynical angst. He said that he's seen a good deal of death, and you know what? No one's last words are ironic.
On Sunday, flinn and I saw Travis live at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. They are a band, incidentally, who still understand the art of being happy. You can feel it in their music and in the sheer joy they emit onstage, even after being at it together for over a decade. More on them later!
Yesterday my advisor e-mailed a much shorter verdict than expected:
"I read the first section of your thesis that you gave me. It's superb work - beautifully written, thoroughly documented, lucidly argued. Just carry on!"
This is high praise indeed from the woman who required an "audition" last spring before she agreed to take me on. Now to just...carry on. Wish me luck.
On a related note, shortly after my long ramble on academia, someone explained far more succinctly why he's no longer an English major:
"It's kind of like saying, 'Hey, that puppy is cute!' And then dissecting the puppy to see what makes it so cute."
Exactly.
This weekend wasn't too shabby either:
Thursday I handed in 20 pages of my thesis and held my breath for the first really substantial verdict. Until I went home and passed out for a few hours.
Friday I went to work, then to BrewCo with co-workers for some Newcastle and an AMF, and finally to a beer tasting with some of the summer abroad kids. I didn't need those brain cells anyway.
Saturday morning I was up early to see Ray Bradbury, sip overpriced cherry lemonade, and browse books at the Festival of Books. Bradbury is 86 now and had to be wheeled onstage in a wheelchair, but he's still a sharp storyteller. Among other things, he told us how he wrote the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 in the basement of Powell Library here at UCLA, on pay typewriters at 10 cents per half hourwhich makes it, as he put it, "a true dime novel."
Also saw S.E. Hinton (understated and hilarious), Mitch Albom (a sports writer turned "serious" writer with Tuesdays with Morrie), and Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes fame). Albom was supposed to interview McCourt (or so we thought) but ended up doing most of the talking, and he was surprisingly funny and light on his feet. Most interesting to me, though, were his more serious remarks on why it's okay to be happy or sentimental in this age of cynical angst. He said that he's seen a good deal of death, and you know what? No one's last words are ironic.
On Sunday, flinn and I saw Travis live at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. They are a band, incidentally, who still understand the art of being happy. You can feel it in their music and in the sheer joy they emit onstage, even after being at it together for over a decade. More on them later!
Yesterday my advisor e-mailed a much shorter verdict than expected:
"I read the first section of your thesis that you gave me. It's superb work - beautifully written, thoroughly documented, lucidly argued. Just carry on!"
This is high praise indeed from the woman who required an "audition" last spring before she agreed to take me on. Now to just...carry on. Wish me luck.
On a related note, shortly after my long ramble on academia, someone explained far more succinctly why he's no longer an English major:
"It's kind of like saying, 'Hey, that puppy is cute!' And then dissecting the puppy to see what makes it so cute."
Exactly.