*Shockhorrorupdate*
Well then... I'm updating. So, might as well get to it..
I saw Laura the day before yesterday, which really made my day. I really liked hanging out with her in Oxford, and hadn't really seen
her much after I came back to campus and hadn't hung out with her at all, so I felt kinda like... oh, maybe she didn't really like hanging out with me all that much... but we had dinner together that she made, and then just kinda hung out and talked, and she was like, you should come over more often and just read over here, and wants me to hang out with her and see Nate and Rach's kittens, so.. that was happy. ^_^ It's funny that something small like that can cheer me up so much.
Today I slacked off... slept in rather than going to my 8 o'clock Intro to Acting class, which's really unusual for me, since I never really skip class, and I had no real reason for doing it except for just randomly getting more sleep, although I wasn't even that tired. Ah well... I got one of my papers back from African American Lit, too, the first longer one I've turned in this year. I got a decent grade, but I was disappointed because my prof said that I overuse the colon and that I seem like I'm trying to be too serious and sophisticated in my writing, so basically I'm pretentious. ^^'' I don't mean to be, but I guess maybe I do try to hard sometimes or something. I think the long sentences/chronic colon problem's probly a result of Oxford. Being immersed in Henry James (who's notorious for his long, convoluted sentences) and literary theory (just think incomprehensibility x 10) is not healthy for anyone's writing style. ^^' So, I really will get over that and try to do better.
Last night I went to a lecture given by Anna Quindlen, a lecturer for our new president's inauguration. She's a columnist for Newsweek and a novelist, and she was pretty liberal but had a lot of good things to say, I thought, especially about our system of raising children in America: basically, isolating the mother and child, which isn't healthy for either of them. I suppose you could also say that lots of children are in childcare systems, but amongst the world's developed countries, our system's the least developed, so perhaps that's part of the reason why it gets such a bad rap. I'm not really in the mood to go into the complexities of that, though. ^^' I was invited to a book signing with her afterward, which was odd... I was one of the five students there, so we kind of walked around and schmoozed with faculty (not really; I just wanted to say schmoozed since it seemed like the appropriate word for the situation). More like I talked with the other students, talked to some of the faculty and staff I knew, and then impulse-bought a book and got it signed. Anna Quindlen came over and talked to me after signing by book, so I was all surprised by that, but it was really cool of her. ^_^ We didn't really talk about much, just my grad school plans and her recommending the women's college she's on the board of to teach at in the future (Barnard), but it was cool just to interact with her a bit.
I've been keeping busy this semester so far by working at the Writing Center (where I basically help people make their papers better), volunteering at a program in Harrisburg that helps adult immigrants learn English, hanging out with sisters, doing homework stuff, and trying to figure out grad school things. I haven't been as dedicated about schoolwork or grad school stuff as I hoped that I'd be; it's really tough especially with grad school just because there are so many decisions to make, and I feel like I'm making shots in the dark all the time as to where I want to be/what I want to do... really difficult. Anyway, the places I'm considering right now are Duke, Harvard, Yale, UVA, UPENN, Notre Dame, Catholic University (D.C.), George Washington, UMICH, Rutgers, and Oxford, and that list's always changing. I'm conflicted about some schools (Yale, UVA, PENN) because of things that I've heard about them/impressions that I've gotten of them, so I don't know that I'll apply there for sure, but we'll see. It's scary stuff, honestly.
That's all I really feel like writing, actually; I should go and get some work done. ^^' Anyway, hope everyone's doing well. ^_^
I saw Laura the day before yesterday, which really made my day. I really liked hanging out with her in Oxford, and hadn't really seen
her much after I came back to campus and hadn't hung out with her at all, so I felt kinda like... oh, maybe she didn't really like hanging out with me all that much... but we had dinner together that she made, and then just kinda hung out and talked, and she was like, you should come over more often and just read over here, and wants me to hang out with her and see Nate and Rach's kittens, so.. that was happy. ^_^ It's funny that something small like that can cheer me up so much.
Today I slacked off... slept in rather than going to my 8 o'clock Intro to Acting class, which's really unusual for me, since I never really skip class, and I had no real reason for doing it except for just randomly getting more sleep, although I wasn't even that tired. Ah well... I got one of my papers back from African American Lit, too, the first longer one I've turned in this year. I got a decent grade, but I was disappointed because my prof said that I overuse the colon and that I seem like I'm trying to be too serious and sophisticated in my writing, so basically I'm pretentious. ^^'' I don't mean to be, but I guess maybe I do try to hard sometimes or something. I think the long sentences/chronic colon problem's probly a result of Oxford. Being immersed in Henry James (who's notorious for his long, convoluted sentences) and literary theory (just think incomprehensibility x 10) is not healthy for anyone's writing style. ^^' So, I really will get over that and try to do better.
Last night I went to a lecture given by Anna Quindlen, a lecturer for our new president's inauguration. She's a columnist for Newsweek and a novelist, and she was pretty liberal but had a lot of good things to say, I thought, especially about our system of raising children in America: basically, isolating the mother and child, which isn't healthy for either of them. I suppose you could also say that lots of children are in childcare systems, but amongst the world's developed countries, our system's the least developed, so perhaps that's part of the reason why it gets such a bad rap. I'm not really in the mood to go into the complexities of that, though. ^^' I was invited to a book signing with her afterward, which was odd... I was one of the five students there, so we kind of walked around and schmoozed with faculty (not really; I just wanted to say schmoozed since it seemed like the appropriate word for the situation). More like I talked with the other students, talked to some of the faculty and staff I knew, and then impulse-bought a book and got it signed. Anna Quindlen came over and talked to me after signing by book, so I was all surprised by that, but it was really cool of her. ^_^ We didn't really talk about much, just my grad school plans and her recommending the women's college she's on the board of to teach at in the future (Barnard), but it was cool just to interact with her a bit.
I've been keeping busy this semester so far by working at the Writing Center (where I basically help people make their papers better), volunteering at a program in Harrisburg that helps adult immigrants learn English, hanging out with sisters, doing homework stuff, and trying to figure out grad school things. I haven't been as dedicated about schoolwork or grad school stuff as I hoped that I'd be; it's really tough especially with grad school just because there are so many decisions to make, and I feel like I'm making shots in the dark all the time as to where I want to be/what I want to do... really difficult. Anyway, the places I'm considering right now are Duke, Harvard, Yale, UVA, UPENN, Notre Dame, Catholic University (D.C.), George Washington, UMICH, Rutgers, and Oxford, and that list's always changing. I'm conflicted about some schools (Yale, UVA, PENN) because of things that I've heard about them/impressions that I've gotten of them, so I don't know that I'll apply there for sure, but we'll see. It's scary stuff, honestly.
That's all I really feel like writing, actually; I should go and get some work done. ^^' Anyway, hope everyone's doing well. ^_^