Nott What You'd Expected...

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words(worth)s

I'm finding it very hard to concentrate lately-- i have roughly 300 pages of reading to do in the next week or so, and with travel plans, other class commitments, certain online distractions (not so bad), and other things that need to be taken care of, I really can't imagine what will happen when I go back to Luther and have real homework and real readings due.

Classes here are easy (for the most part), but slowly picking up speed. Having not been graded for a single assignment, the few that we are graded on are quickly arriving (Islam essay, field notebook, other writings and readings), and it will only get worse as family members of flatmates arrive, trips to London and the SW of England, and Crosscountry socials start filling up my calander....

In house-related and class-related news, we've been doing really well.... plenty of bonding over flat drama, long talks and discussions while holed-up in the flat library, and various outbursts that have or haven't happened yet----it's enough to keep you on your toes....

Classwise, the gang has been pretty perturbed with Mark and Carol and their lack of brevity.... 3 or 4 hr lectures, long phone conversations, and blatantly literarily-driven talks that bore the non-English majors to the point of actually falling asleep at the table....

As I write this, the rest of my flat mates are scurrying to write a very confused essay somehow combining the ideas of Wordsworth (hence the post- title today), The Industrial Revolution, The Enclosure Movement, The Enlightenment, and our experiences with our Green Spaces..... it's not fun to pull that much crap out and throw it on a page----today was hectic as all hell, and i'm glad that we've managed to get dinner ready while still having class and a paper due.

With that, I'll leave you with a popular poem by Wordsworth that is about the only thing that didn't put me to sleep today....

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

side note: one of his famous poems "We are Seven" was written based on a gravestone in Conwy in a churchyard near the castle, a gravestone we actually saw and morbidly took tons of pictures of.....it's a pretty good poem, about a girl whose brother and sister die of disease, but she still considers them one of the 7 in her family....touching, really....
________
Tonight is looking up- i might try to do some reading, but otherwise, bonding and planning for BRANDON'S 21ST BIRTHDAY tomorrow will take up most of my time.... that and calls home (how is it that everyone i called yesterday was busy....law of averages?)....

kevin

posted by Kevin @ 5:03 PM