Thank god I checked my e-mail to see that my next thesis meeting is scheduled for TUESDAY at 9:30, as opposed to forty-five minutes from now. Thank god, thank god.

It's not that I need to work harder on my thesis; it's just that I need to work on it more. Probably faster would be more accurate. I am consistently underestimating the amount of time it takes me to complete sections.

My biggest accomplishment yesterday was making two CDs for my sister. One is a surprise, the other is Senior Year!-themed (it's called "I'm Going To Make It Through This Year If It Kills Me"). There's something about making themed CDs for people that makes me feel very accomplished. It's like trying to tell a story through songs. I know it would be faster and more efficent to just e-mail mp3s, but where's the beauty and and joy of creation in that?

It was also a very weird and sad day yesterday. I heard the news that a professor I had lost her baby. As with the case of the freshman heroin overdose death, I was more upset than I expected to be. Someone sent out an e-mail to the rest of the class, suggesting that we compile different pieces of paper, letters, drawings, poetry, and so on, and send it to her. Part of me thinks this is a great way to show how much we care about and are thinking of her; another part of me feels that anything we have to say could only be trite, or worse, upsetting. I feel like that's an inevitable consequence of the situation, that nothing anyone can say or do will provide significant comfort or respite from the terrible grief.

I flipped through my poetry anthologies, trying to find something that could possibly be comforting. I (re)found some poems I really liked, the kind that I've muttered under my breath and have quoted to friends without knowing I'm doing so. I'm not going to use them for this particular situation because I don't consider them appropriate, but I will post them here to share. Er, hopefully posting them here isn't a violation of copyright. I'll even cite my source (always incorrectly--never learned proper MLA format. Literature major what?): Staying Alive. ed. Neil Astley. Bloodaxe Books : New York, 2003. pg. 375, 382, 396.

'DEATH DOES NOT COME FROM OUTSIDE...'
Death does not come from outside. Death is within.
Born-grows together with us.
Goes with us to kindergarten and school.
Learns with us to read and count.
Goes sledging with us, and to the pictures.
Seeks with us the menaing of life.
Tries to make sense with us of Einstein and Wiener.
Makes with us our first sexual contacts.
Marries, bears children, quarrels, makes up.
Separates, or perhaps not, with us.
Goes to work, goes to the doctor, goes camping,
ot the convalescent home and the sanatorium. Grows old,
sees children married, retired,
looks after grandchildren, grows ill, dies
with us. Let us not fear, then. Our death
will not outlive us.
Jann Kaplinski
translated from the Estonian by Hildi Hawkins

DEATH'S SECRET
It is not true
that death begins after life.
When life stops
death also stops.
Gosta Agren
translated from the Finland Swedish by David McDuff

INSCRIPTION
When I die I will return to seek
The moments I did not live by the sea
Sophia de mello Breyner
translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith

Oh, so many good poems! I had to force myself to put the book down before I pulled a "Limited Inc" (oh snap, Derrida in-joke! LOL ACADEMIA).

whoa

that was a ridiculously long work session. definitely a record. it was worth it, because the result is 18 pages 1.5 spaced! and a lot of it's good writing too! more again tonight. and it's going to be for the scary books i've been avoiding, too. well, now is the time for sleep.

but briefly, here are some of the thoughts running through my head these days, which basically involve me sitting at the living room table literally all day, scrounging carrots, celery and chocolate, while impressing my housemates with my prodigious amounts of books:
- man, the life of an academic intelectual is hard. so monkish. so committed. you've just locked away all day in hermetic isolation, you and your brain and your books. thinking great thoughts, writing great things. yep.
- i wonder where my spring break went to. i know that it pretty much broke my brain
- this week is going to hurt (thought every day since march 14th)
- hey! I actually really like this topic! this is actually really interesting, and i am really a pretty good writer! man, I wish I'd worked on this more during the school year.
- man, i really wish i'd read blanchot earlier. like, in november when my advisor told me to. it would have made my life a tad easier.
- i wish i could go to the beach/bar/party/resteraunt with corey and his visiting cousin from new orleans, but i can't because i-have-to-work-on-my-thesis-i-havetowork-onmythesis ihavetoworkonmythesis ihahiiihjihtttthhhhshshshshssi
- SLEEP is for the weak! RARWR! (only last night; before then i was getting up at 11am every day and going to bed at midnight)
- i don't like how i've somehow regressed to the stage where the lakers not winning makes me annoyed
- i wish i could stop grinding my teeth; my jaw hurts
- I had no idea that there was a difference between a headache and a brainache, but there is!

obama-ed

I've guess I've officially become an Obama supporter, in the sense that I've gone so far to donate $10 to his campaign. How did this happen? I'm not really sure. I read a quote from him on a NYTimes blog that I liked: “I think it would be a problem if Senator Clinton’s voters disliked me or my voters disliked Senator Clinton [but] I don’t think that’s the case. I think our voters are passionate about bringing about change. My sister keeps asking me, a fervent Obama supporter herself (she went to a rally in Conneticut; you can see her photos here: (http://goodtimes.webshots.com/album/562385124SwFVbz) Part of me wonders if I'm just as much of a bandwagon jumper in politics as I am in sports (ver since the Lakers acquired Paul Gasoul and suddenly looked championship caliber again, my interest has suddenly resparked). I didn’t expect Obama to get this far, but since he has, he’s definitely looking better than Clinton. I’m suspicious and cynical about politicians in general, but as far as these things go, Clinton is definitely more of a politician than Obama, in the worst possible sense.

In other news, things are stressful. I vacillate thinking I’m totally screwed with my thesis and that I’m never going to finish it, verses being absolutely giddy and convinced that I’m a total genius. I am rarely in between, and quite frankly it’s getting exhausting! I’m working in the Catholic Charities immigration office this semester, which I’ve really enjoyed so far, but I had to flake out on going there this afternoon for the second week in a row just because I’m so far behind on thesis work that I’m absolutely panicked about meeting with my adviser with what I feel is very little to show him. Part of this comes from being mildly depressed for the past week and a half, whether from the always gray weather or having the flu or general ennui, I’m not sure. But anyway, I keep forgetting (and then relearning!) that the best way to conquer malaise or writer’s block is to simply get out and do things! I’m at my best, mentally and emotionally, when I’m buzzing around like a little bee, going with grim determination from one appointment or assignment to the next. When I don’t have clear deadlines or goals, I waver. I get bogged down and overwhelmed, like I’m walked through a swamp and my boots get so much mud attached to them I get stuck in a slurpy mess. Onwards and upwards, then.