The Library and Other Exciting Things

If you are actually expecting exciting things in this blog entry, I would suggest that you close your browser or move on to someone else's blog. But there is only one thing going on in our lives right now (well, Jason's been in Africa for ten days, so that's something), and we could go many moons without an entry if I wait until something exciting happens before I write.

And that one thing? School. I find it fitting that, ten years after I holed up for a semester in this intimidating library-version Wonder of the World, I am again drowning in books and library lingo. Last time I had Oxford's Bodleian Library at my disposal. This time, I am even more grateful than usual that the Library of Congress delivers practically to my desk.

In addition to wrapping up the thesis, this semester I am taking two classes:

1. The Last Generation: My Tuesday class is a lit class focusing on great writers of the WWII era...and for the past five weeks, that has meant reading war novels. And not just any war novels, but novels anywhere from 600-850 pages. A week. Please feel sorry for me. Actually, after weeks of literally sitting in the chair in our living room with cup after cup of tea, I am going to be able to come up for air this weekend--the next novel is only 153 pages. (Ha! It's like an article in the New Yorker!) And, anyway, the thing is that the books have been really good--especially the most recent, The Young Lions, by Irwin Shaw. It lacks the guts-spilling-on-the-battlefield of The Thin Red Line and The Naked and the Dead, sure, but it's got a good story to make up for that. And only 661 pages.

2. Literary Research: Originally this class was supposed to be "How to Write a Thesis," which you'll note would be a complete waste of time for me at this point. Instead it is really "How to Write a Literature Paper." Also a skill I will never use again (please tell me why NNU didn't offer this class in 1998), but, surprisingly, I don't hate this class. In fact, in some ways it allows me to indulge briefly in a decade-old fantasy of being a literary scholar, ala the characters in Possession. For example, I get to read Kipling's Kim for the class, and reading something by Kipling was on my to-do list. And I'm doing a comprehensive bibliography of Margaret Atwood, one of my favorite authors in college, which is surprisingly fun. Don't get me wrong, this project is going to be the death of me, but at least I get to go out in style.

Meanwhile, starting at 10 pm tonight, Week Five of the Sprint to the Finish will be over. I'm feeling pretty good about that. As of 1 o'clock this morning, Congress is adjourned until after the election, and I'm feeling pretty good about that, too. It's absolutely pouring outside my Thursday-morning work window, and I'm sitting here with a lovely cup of huckleberry tea, and, to top it all off, Jason is en route from Paris as we speak. Really, I couldn't be happier.