I have completed some work!
Well, world, I'm very proud of myself: I managed to finish that essay, and I didn't even stay up past two! I think it was two, I missed a lot of sleep the night before as well. It's a bit of a blur. A Calisto MT (which is, incidentally, the font I would marry if given the choice) blur. Fortunately, I rocked the title. The content and citations, I'm a little leery on. But dang. My title was a piece of art. You're dying to know, aren't you? Well, I suppose just this once...
My topic was the impact that following the cycles of the agrarian year had on the Zhou's perception of time and the world around them. At least, I really hope it was, since that was what I wrote about. It was called, drum-roll please...
To Every Zhou There Is A Season
And the first sentence, a direct quote from the Classic of Poetry, proving that some things are universal:
“[A]t times we hull, at times we scoop,
at times we winnow, at times we stomp..."
It even scans almost perfectly! Obviously meant to be. Downside, though: that was the only part of this writing I could get myself excited about. I mean, before I started worrying about citations I was marching along just fine, thinking I could pull off a little BS here and there... Nope. None of that. According to my wonderful mother (an English prof, so basically she knows her shinny), I need to cite everything. Including stuff like where I got the idea that tradition was important to the ancient Chinese. Yeaaaah. Result? Less BS. Crushed my spirit a bit, I love making stuff up.
On the plus side, or rather the minus side, I had a much happier weekend than did The Roommate. I blame her family. Individually? Lovely people, hilarious, intelligent, and just sarcastic enough to make me happy. Together? Less good. It's not that they fight all the time, because they don't. But by the sounds of it, Roommate's mother plays some vicious mind-games with Roommate and her sister, trying to set them against each other, Roommate's father tries to avoid some issues, and ultimately Roommate's parental units are going through a bit of a martial marital stage. The paternal unit moved out on Sunday, and Roommate was understandably upset. There was a whole bit of drama earlier this summer too, and mostly I am just extremely unimpressed by her parental units in general. Harrumph. I love her to pieces, I really do, so it makes me extraordinarily angry that her family is composed of such dickheads.
And it's not that they are dickheads even, it's just that this year they have been treating each other terribly. It makes me very sad to see people as close as they obviously are turn on their loved ones like this. Stress, and unspoken things, and emotion all builds up and takes them somewhere they didn't necessarily want to go. This sort of thing must happen a lot, and it seems like the sort of little tragedy that just doesn't let go once it sets in.
In other news, I went for a sprint-run thing today, partway up the mini-mountain my school is next to. It was a little torturous, since I started by running up from the base of the hill, where my apartment building is, no stretching or anything. Alas, sometimes I am dumb. The park is beautiful, so I could at least admire the great big trees (which we do not have back home, since I come from a hamlet that thinks 25 years counts as old). Mmm, trees. Despite the horrible seizing up in my throat at one point, I felt so good to finally get some exercise other than walking! You see, creepy Internet strangers, I am a fencer. But I was on holiday in Ireland for the last part of the summer, then I moved away from my home and lovely club to come to a city with an awesome rep for fencing and what have I not done? Joined a club.
At all.
And this weekend, I have a tournament! I'm extraordinarily excited, because it is an enormous tournament and people from all over the country (i.e.: Home Province) will be coming to visit, and I will admit to being a little homesick. Sadly, my pockets will be quite empty come Monday, as I will have to spend a lot of money getting equipment the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime has approved. FIE, why are you so expensive? Did I forget our anniversary? Baby, I'm sorry, let me make it up to you.
As you can probably guess from such a long and rambling post, I have been avoiding some work. I shall go read some ancient Chinese speeches now, possibly while drinking hot soy milk (better than it sounds). And then? Good people, I am ashamed to admit it, but then I may just watch some America's Next Top Model. I should not like this show. And yet. And yet. I am really so easily drawn in to teevee, it's shameful.
Ciao!
My topic was the impact that following the cycles of the agrarian year had on the Zhou's perception of time and the world around them. At least, I really hope it was, since that was what I wrote about. It was called, drum-roll please...
To Every Zhou There Is A Season
And the first sentence, a direct quote from the Classic of Poetry, proving that some things are universal:
“[A]t times we hull, at times we scoop,
at times we winnow, at times we stomp..."
It even scans almost perfectly! Obviously meant to be. Downside, though: that was the only part of this writing I could get myself excited about. I mean, before I started worrying about citations I was marching along just fine, thinking I could pull off a little BS here and there... Nope. None of that. According to my wonderful mother (an English prof, so basically she knows her shinny), I need to cite everything. Including stuff like where I got the idea that tradition was important to the ancient Chinese. Yeaaaah. Result? Less BS. Crushed my spirit a bit, I love making stuff up.
On the plus side, or rather the minus side, I had a much happier weekend than did The Roommate. I blame her family. Individually? Lovely people, hilarious, intelligent, and just sarcastic enough to make me happy. Together? Less good. It's not that they fight all the time, because they don't. But by the sounds of it, Roommate's mother plays some vicious mind-games with Roommate and her sister, trying to set them against each other, Roommate's father tries to avoid some issues, and ultimately Roommate's parental units are going through a bit of a martial marital stage. The paternal unit moved out on Sunday, and Roommate was understandably upset. There was a whole bit of drama earlier this summer too, and mostly I am just extremely unimpressed by her parental units in general. Harrumph. I love her to pieces, I really do, so it makes me extraordinarily angry that her family is composed of such dickheads.
And it's not that they are dickheads even, it's just that this year they have been treating each other terribly. It makes me very sad to see people as close as they obviously are turn on their loved ones like this. Stress, and unspoken things, and emotion all builds up and takes them somewhere they didn't necessarily want to go. This sort of thing must happen a lot, and it seems like the sort of little tragedy that just doesn't let go once it sets in.
In other news, I went for a sprint-run thing today, partway up the mini-mountain my school is next to. It was a little torturous, since I started by running up from the base of the hill, where my apartment building is, no stretching or anything. Alas, sometimes I am dumb. The park is beautiful, so I could at least admire the great big trees (which we do not have back home, since I come from a hamlet that thinks 25 years counts as old). Mmm, trees. Despite the horrible seizing up in my throat at one point, I felt so good to finally get some exercise other than walking! You see, creepy Internet strangers, I am a fencer. But I was on holiday in Ireland for the last part of the summer, then I moved away from my home and lovely club to come to a city with an awesome rep for fencing and what have I not done? Joined a club.
At all.
And this weekend, I have a tournament! I'm extraordinarily excited, because it is an enormous tournament and people from all over the country (i.e.: Home Province) will be coming to visit, and I will admit to being a little homesick. Sadly, my pockets will be quite empty come Monday, as I will have to spend a lot of money getting equipment the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime has approved. FIE, why are you so expensive? Did I forget our anniversary? Baby, I'm sorry, let me make it up to you.
As you can probably guess from such a long and rambling post, I have been avoiding some work. I shall go read some ancient Chinese speeches now, possibly while drinking hot soy milk (better than it sounds). And then? Good people, I am ashamed to admit it, but then I may just watch some America's Next Top Model. I should not like this show. And yet. And yet. I am really so easily drawn in to teevee, it's shameful.
Ciao!