marine biology, Alexander Pope, Socrates, and sleepiness

Now Playing: "The American Seasons" by Mark O'Connor. Track 6, "Strings and Threads Suite: Captain's Jig". This violin sounds like a drunk but cheerful mockingbird. Reminds me of August nights (or early mornings), at 2 a.m., when a mockingbird would suddenly and randomly start to sing away at the top of its lungs outside Daisy's window. Reminds me of waking up early in the morning to hot sunshine and the sound of all the crazy birds making as much ruckus as possible.

Today has been fairly unremarkable so far. Up early to do oceanography, as usual. The professor admitted last Thursday that students usually beg him to put in more marine biology, so he started marine biology earlier than usual. (N.B.: We only have two weeks left to the semester! I wonder, would he occupy the last one-and-a-half weeks with coastline properties, and only that last day with marine biology?!) He is most certainly not a biologist himself. He spells "Kingdom Protista" as "Kingdom Proctoctista", which drives me crazy since my mother is a biologist and drilled into me the proper names of all the kingdoms.

In Major British Writers, we received our paper topics for our final paper. If we want to turn in rough drafts to her to revise, they have to be ready by the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. I cannot express just how much I do not want to work on this paper during Thanksgiving, so I'm going to try to at least get most of it ironed out before the end of this week. It shouldn't be too bad. I'm either going to write about Feste in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", or about Alexander Pope and John Donne. We're reading Pope's "Essay on Criticism". I had no idea that these familiar maxims came from Pope: "To err is human, to forgive divine", and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Anyhow, I think I'm going to write about the irony of how Pope, who is a Catholic, doesn't like the ornate styles popular with Catholics of Donne's time, while Donne, who was an Anglican (not quite a Protestant, I suppose, but certainly not a Catholic) uses the ornate styles that the Catholic Pope abjures. Feste is an interesting character because he's the typical Shakespearean "wise fool" who acts as a conscience for the other characters in the play. While all the other characters are rushing around making fools of themselves, Feste understands their emotions and tries to get them to realize what they're truly doing and feeling. Like Donne and Pope, he's interesting because of the irony--he's supposed to be a fool, and the other characters treat him as such, yet he's wiser than they are because he's the only one who sees through their deceptions.

In Honors, we looked at the "Apology of Socrates" and discussed piety. Last Saturday, I wrote a ridiculous poem about our class and Dr. G. I was silly enough to show it to Rachel and Danielle, who are in the class with me. They both thought it was hilarious and begged me to show it to Dr. G, so I reluctantly agreed to place it at his usual seat on Thursday, for him to read (without my name on it!). We shall see what he thinks of it.

During lunch, Rachel and I sat with a bunch of raucous Honors kids (students who live in the Honors House (the "Ho Ho"), not people who, like me, are not part of this elite housing establishment *hem hem*). For some reason, the Honors kids, who are supposed to be the quietest, most studious students, are the weirdest, wildest, noisiest people on campus. They're constantly teasing each other about inside jokes.

This afternoon I practiced my flute and read "World" magazine (yes, I did both simultaneously). While I was practicing, Syneva knocked on the practice room door. She's a double piano/cello major, and so she's often haunting Tyrrell Hall. She came in and chatted with me for awhile. She and the other girls here have been so hospitable to me that it's been quite a blessing. She and I are going to have a private Bible study/prayer time together, starting this Thursday. She's a mature, thoughtful girl, and I really look forward to getting to know her better. (For the record: she's a Calvinist, too. *grins*) After I finished practicing, I nearly fell asleep, daydreaming over Pope and listening to the "Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack. The music and the iambic pentameter were so mesmerizing that the vivid pictures they traced in my brain drowned out the dull images of reality my eyes were seeing, forcing my eyes slowly to close.

It was far too cold and windy for my hothouse tastes to go jogging this afternoon. The sun set through a blue lake of sky, with clouds floating across the water like ripples kicked up by the wind.

Tonight I ate supper alone in the cafeteria. I recognized several acquaintances of mine who were in the caf at the same time, but I never can get the courage to sit with them, nor do I particularly want to. I suspect it's probably cowardice on my part, but I do prefer to sit either alone or with only a couple of good friends (like Rachel), instead of with distant acquaintances. Violin and SwanElf, doubtless, will argue, "How can you get to be good friends with someone unless you sit with them, and begin by being acquaintances?" Very good question. My only reply would be that there are certain people who just are good friends, and were from the moment you met them--Rachel, Danielle, Syneva, while other people, for one reason or another just sort of remain on the periphery--people I nod to, or smile at, but rarely actually sit down and talk to.

At 8:00, I went to RUF. The meeting was truncated this evening because Mr. K, the RUF leader, had to go somewhere. Rachel happened to be there, which was unusual since she usually goes to a different Bible study on Tuesday nights, so we stood and chatted for a bit before heading out into the frigid night. She had a calculus project to finish--something about proving theorems with experimentation.

The moon is full tonight, scoured clean by the wind, but the stars and planets, as usual, are drowned out by the city lights. Venus is the only one that shines clearly, undaunted by the lights.