Random Ramblings

Right. In the end, today was fairly productive. In paper terms, I finished up my research, outlined it, and wrote 6 and a half pages. It's slow going for me, as I mentioned in my last post, but I will get the rest of it written tomorrow, damnit! Tonight, I decided that if I stayed alone in my room any longer, my brain would explode, so I took some Latin stuff over to Massey. I reviewed 6 old sight passages and read 5 chapters of the Vulgate, and got a free glass of wine to boot! Yay!

And now I'm back in my room, whose floor is currently covered with papers and two pairs of jeans (don't ask). I refuse to do anything that even pretends to be schoolwork for the rest of the night.

So... for something a bit different: I'm thinking of teaching a class at Pennsic, now that I've finally found a group to camp with. There is a 40-word limit for the blurb which will go into the class list book. Given that, I need your opinion on which of the following is more compelling:

( Blurbs behind here )

If you have thoughts either way, please let me know. Otherwise, I wish you all a good night.

I can honestly say that the seder I had tonight was one of the more... unique seders I've ever attended. In the end, the food was wonderful and my cousin did an admirably job of being hostess while my aunt and uncle were in Montreal (don't ask). The hagadah, an abridgement of an abridgement, and out of order to boot, was... erm... probably the less said about it, the better. My dad and I managed to toss out some extemporaneous commentary which made it flow a little better, and in the end we had a lovely evening.

Though, on second thought, perhaps having turkey and two small glasses of wine was a foolish idea, given that I want to take notes on at least one more article tonight.

Right. Time to get to it. I may post one more entry tonight if I get around to writing up notes from yesterday's D&D game. I know Andrew and Sam are waiting for it, and there's a lot to say... I'm just tired. So, if I don't write again, g'night. If I do, g'night anyway, because I'm sure someone, somewhere, will go to bed before I write the next entry. G'night all.

Why am I back in Montreal? Excellent question. For those who don't know, my grandfather is being bar mitzvahed tomorrow morning. Some of you might be asking yourself, "isn't 89 years old a bit late for a bar mitzvah?" Indeed it is. But timeline is never something that has stopped my grandfather. There is a wonderful article about him in the Canadian Jewish News, and I heartily recommend everyone check it out. I'll likely post more about this topic tomorrow.

( Other stuff: more academics, and an unexpected meeting )

Anyway... I need to wake up in 7 hours, so I suppose I should get some sleep. I suddenly have no plans for tomorrow afternoon, so if there are any Montrealers who want to take advantage of the very short amount of Julie-time, feel free to comment here. G'night all.

I had a very odd experience tonight: I had no schoolwork to do. Well, of course that's not entirely true, there's always more schoolwork to do. But I'd accomplished everything I set for myself today (to whit: outlined paper #2 and wrote 8 pages, did Friday's Latin exercise, and read some of the readings for next Thursday), and didn't have any real desire to do more. It was very odd, I assure you. But this is the reward I get for doing my work early in the day.

Of course, I needed to fill my time this evening. So I watched an episode of B5 and generally relaxed. And then, as I was in the shower, my muse demanded attention. (She does that, sometimes.) For several days now, I'd been mulling over the "Lay of Ideld," a song that features prominently into our D&D game as the source of our information about the main antagonist. Obviously, the GM didn't write out the song as a song, he just told us what it says and left it at that. Very reasonable of him. However, I am anything but reasonable, and I'll be damned if I'm going to start being reasonable now. As a measure of my bardic ninja skillz, I'd been meaning to write out the song for a while, but the proper tune never came to me. Tonight it came like a flash of lightening. (To quote the movie Hook, "that must hurt.") In the end, I wrote 13 verses. It is now done, and I am quite pleased with the result, if I do say so myself. I'll see the other players' (and GM's) reaction at the next session.

Until then, I think it's time for one more episode of B5, and then bedtime. G'night all.

The following will probably not be of interest to anyone, but I need to rant a bit about it anyway. Hence, I will put it behind an lj-cut. Fellow students who feel like comiserating about end-of-term stuff may feel free to comment, otherwise I won't take offense if no one does.

( You want me to read 110 pages of Latin? In 3 days? )

Okay. I'm done now. Move along, nothing to see here.

Paper #1 is entirely written! It stands at 21.5 pages. It's not edited, but I can edit it at any time in the next two weeks. Yay for one paper being actually written! Yay and yay again!

Now you only need to deal with me writing the same old dross for my next two papers. Don't worry, it'll be over in a month. :)