Another Dull Day in the Life of a Hobbit

Now Playing: The "Chariots of Fire" soundtrack by Vangelis. Track 7, "Chariots of Fire, Film Score".

I'm sorry it's been such a while since I've posted on here. Perhaps I can explain some of that as I describe today.

This morning Rachel and I ate breakfast together, as we do on most mornings of the week. After breakfast I spent the morning sending e-mails to various people and tidying up other matters left over from the weekend.

In Major British Writers class this morning, we began to put together a study guide over the Modernists for our final exam, which is in four weeks. We also have a research paper due at the end of April. The professor will let us extend the paper we wrote earlier in the semester, which makes the process a lot easier, but I still need to do some work on that. For these past couple of weeks, we've been studying the Modernists: T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and all those strange people. It's been sad to watch English literature decay from the Anglo-Saxons in MBW I to James Joyce in MBW II. As we put together the study guide, certain distinct characteristics emerged, all of which are tied (in my mind) to the rejection of God: meaninglessness, reckless experimentation, alienation from community, depression, rejection of authority and tradition, triviality, and mockery of ideals and established morals. The Modernists, for the most part, realized what the consequences were of their rejection of God, but they preferred to live with the hideous consequences than to embrace the only One who could save them. That's what makes them so sad.

In archaeology class today the professor lectured about domestication. We're actually studying real cultures now, instead of the methods of archaeology, the way we did for the first half of the semester. The professor has assigned us to complete a virtual set of archaeological excavations which are on a CD/textbook set so that we can see how the archaeological methods work out in "real life". The lectures have been fairly interesting, and will become more so, hopefully: We're supposed to cover Sumerian, Egyptian, and Mayan culture before our final exam at the end of the semester. The articles that the professor has assigned have been really fun to read, for the most part, for this half of the course. Last week, we were assigned an article about a man who's doing an excavation of a gigantic tomb in Egypt. This tomb is the largest ever discovered in the Valley of Kings, with hundreds of rooms--pillared halls, stairs, false floors, secret passageways, statues and paintings. The thought of that enormous, dusty darkness, with the relics of a lost civilization buried inside, gave me the shivers.

After archaeology, I practiced my flute. For juries at the end of the semester, I've decided to play the first movement of the Poulenc sonata. That sonata is such fun to play that I wish I could perform all of it. If there was a recital that I could play in (even at home :), perhaps Syneva would be willing to accompany me, but I don't have enough repertoire from this semester to set up a recital of my own.

During lunch I sat with some acquaintances and listened to them talk. One of them, Nicole, is in my Honors class this semester. She sends her Honors paper to her father via e-mail so that he can edit them for spelling and grammar mistakes.

After lunch, I had all afternoon to waste, proverbially speaking. Of course, I couldn't waste it. Honors class was cancelled so that we could work on our midterm papers, due this afternoon at five o'clock. So I spent the first hour touching up my paper, easing out a few tangled clauses, etc. Then I read a book called Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, by Umberto Eco, for Honors class on Wednesday. It's quite a fascinating book. Since it doesn't have any pictures (strange for a book about art), it's more about the philosophy of medieval art than about actual examples of it. Eco's tenet is that since medieval people lived lives that integrated religion and the "real world" much more than modern people's lives, their art blossomed from a sense of the wholeness, fitness, and beauty of the world as God's handiwork. He pointed out, interestingly enough, that only ascetics trying to conquer their desire for worldly pleasures could truly appreciate how wonderful physical beauty is. I think there's a measure of truth in that: Often the people who try to overcome something are the ones who have a realistic grasp of its power.

After finishing Wednesday's reading for Honors, I proceeded to work through The Guide, by R.K. Narayan, which Dr. F assigned for MBW. The Guide is a sadly absurd modern novel about an Indian man. He starts out life as a shopkeeper, becomes a travel guide, falls in love with the wife of one of his tourists, lives with her and turns her into a famous dancer, then gets jailed for embezzling. When he leaves jail, he wanders to a temple, and a stupid villager, seeing him perched on the temple steps, thinks he's a holy man. By virtue of this rather ridiculous plot, the book makes fun of every institution imaginable--marriage and religion especially. Of course, it doesn't make fun of art: The dancer lives happily ever after (in a manner of speaking) because her art is so wonderful and she's so wrapped up in it that everyone praises her. But since art is the savior of mankind (according to just about everyone), that isn't surprising. *cough*

Finally I roused myself from my afternoon of hibernation and marched over to the Arts and Sciences building to drop off my Honors paper (now I get to start on the Anglo-Saxon research paper--it will be great fun except that the topic is so obscure, and the library doesn't appear to have very much material on the subject of the role of Anglo-Saxon poets). James and Eleanor, two young people who go to RUF, were playing lacrosse on the green lawn below the library, giggling and laughing at each other's mistakes. Across the sidewalk from them, two or three guys were tossing frisbees around, and a girl was curled up, reading, under a sycamore tree.

I ran in the gym, showered, and sat outside to finish The Guide before supper. The wind, wavering all day, had switched around to the north and seethed over the short, very green grass. Early dandelions bobbed like guttering candles in the wind, and sycamore seed balls danced overhead. Thin clouds streaked the sunset deep red and silver.

Rachel ate supper with me. We discussed our Honors papers, and plans for studying abroad. She wants to attend a highly reputed economics school in England during the summer after her sophomore year. I told her about the woes my father and I are suffering while trying to figure out Cambridge's schedule.

After supper, I've spent the whole evening cloistered in my room, working on the archaeology project. It's actually more than halfway done. The part that I had anticipated being so difficult, the actual excavations on the computer program, were very easy. It turned out that all I had to do was to hit a few buttons, and the schemes of each site appeared neatly laid out, complete with artifacts sorted into categories and little circles or squares for houses or hearths or graves. The data all lines up clearly so that the patterns for the prehistoric people I'm supposed to be studying are fairly plain. Now all that's left is writing the paper to describe what the "excavations" uncovered.

That's enough for today. I almost fell asleep this afternoon, and again this evening in the middle of my archaeology project. There must be something soporific about stories of foolish Indians and excavations of bones and stones.

So I'm going to bed. Good-night, and God bless.