*sigh* what a way to start the new year

You know you're a nerd when...

You go to the mall to go shopping and your most exciting purchase was a book of T.S. Eliot's selected poetry.

I actually ended up spending a half hour in a bookstore, and left frustrated that A) the classics were mixed in w/ the crap they call modern fiction, and B) there was only one shelf of poetry, and absolutely no John Donne books!

Happy Birthday!

I know I've written like 2 days in a row and you're all amazed that I've been so productive and all. Don't worry...it won't last long. Well, I suppose you can blame the latest lack of laziness on Jay, who thinks I need to update again. Umm, ya. So I drove home yesterday. Whoever said driving 11 hours in the rain is a fun thing to do was....oh wait, I guess no one really said that. But I had good company. Jonathan even brought the new Bill Engvall CD...funny funny guy. I stayed up till 2 and slept till noon today. It was wonderful. And I finally got to see The Two Towers. Makes me want to read the series again. But I think I'll wait. Too many other books to read. The rain melted all the snow and it feels more like Easter instead of Christmas. But I have 4 glorious weeks of freedom before returning to the Bubble (don't worry Grovers, I'll miss you!). So all you wonderful New England people, start calling me. Cause I'm going crazy in this house and it's only been 24 hours! TTFN

Well, I've survived this fun but very stressful semester! Finals are done, I don't need to worry about grades for a couple of weeks, and I am going HOME for a month! Man, do I ever need this vacation!

Erin Kinnen rocks my socks off! She is the coolest. She loves the Beetles and drinks Chai Tea. She obsesses over cute cute boys. She also likes to come in and give us study breaks and eat our chocolate. She thinks she is Anne of Green Gables and talks to us through the wall. When I grow up, I want to be just like her!

Dr. Potter makes Am Lit so worth it!

We’ll put little hobbits up on the table and slice them open? That’s terrible! That’s something Sauron would do!
~ Dr. Potter on his dislike for analyzing The Lord of the Rings

…and if they send the wrong pizza, you don’t say, “This is an interesting hermeneutic dilemma.” No! You say, “send it back and no tip for you, Bub!”

Let’s think, and I want to say briefly (but you won’t believe me), about feminist criticism.

Is there an essence of Dr. Potter? That’s a frightening thought!

You should probably get aerobic points for PE.
~Because we lug 3,000 p. anthologies about

We are a nation created ex scribbla!

Ok, I got off track. Sermon over. Set the soap box aside.

The one attitude you never want to have is: what I have written, I have written.

Ok, so that was a simplistic reduction of several hundred years.

No… No! You need to get your money’s worth!
~The reason he won’t let us out of class early

Lord willin’ and the crik don’t rise.

If you want to adjourn yourselves, how can I stop you?

She, poor dear, thinks the couch is gold…
~Of his wife and the controversial couch

If we can’t agree on the color of the doggone couch, how can I know that anything I see around me is real?!

You’re a sly dog, Henry David.

A great scene for Gladiator enacted on a wood chip.
~On Thoreau’s account of the ant battle

If the loon is an emissary of the natural world… Maybe that’s too much to pin on a poor little loon…
~During discussion of Walden

Can’t find where you’re going until you get lost first, right? Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but Thoreau probably would have though it was.
~With a characteristic Dr. Potter smirk.

Time’s winged chariot, my friends. Time’s winged chariot.
~Dr. Potter, wishing he could ignore the clock.

He’s just representative of the polymorphous perverse.
~On Walt Whitman

Sons and Daughters of Walt, unite! Animate the world! We could all sing of the circle of life!

Well, curse the clock, you’ve got to go.

Well, we’re on the downward slope. Let’s just hope there isn’t a wall at the bottom…
Upon our return from Thanksgiving break

“And the sermon is never long” (and all the people said “Amen”).
~Dr. Potter’s insertion while reading Dickinson

You can write your essays in whatever you like. I dunno. Blood?
~Explaining the final exam

Productivity scares me...I don't fully trust myself when it happens...I'm always afraid I might blow up or hurt something in the heat of my ambition

Sassy E14: and I feel productive
DCP1285: you feel what???
Sassy E14: lol
Sassy E14: don't have a cow
Sassy E14: it happens every once in a while
DCP1285: what is that like?
Sassy E14: ...weird
Sassy E14: like having a sugar rush or something
Sassy E14: except not so wicked-hyper
Sassy E14: like a more mature sugar rush
Sassy E14: it's kinda freaky
Sassy E14: I try to make sure it doesn't happen too much

This weekend was fun. I actually had a small enough amount of homework that I could have a really good social life. I just got back from making Christmas ornaments with Emily, Becca, Malinda, & Meg. (And ya, that's ORNAMENTS not ORDAMENTS Meg...hehe). We made them out of applesauce and cinnamon and they looked like poop and smelled really cinnamony. But it was a lot of fun =) Also, my friends are very gullible and I am a really good liar (not that I didn't already know this).

I know this poem is kinda long for a post, but I really love it, so I'm posting it anyways.

Learning by Doing by Howard Nemerov
They're taking down a tree a the front door,
The power saw is snarling at some nerves,
Whining at others. Now and then it grunts,
And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds.

Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one
Big wind would bring it down. So what they do
They do, as usual, to do us good.
Whatever cannot carry its own weight
Has got to go, and so on; you expect
To hear them talking next about survival
And the values of a free society.
For in the explanations people give
On these occasions there is generally some
Mean-spirited moral point, and everyone
Privately wonders if his neighbors plan
To saw him up before he falls on them.

Maybe a hundred years in sun and shower
Dismantled in a morning and let down
Out of itself a finger at a time
And then an arm, and so down to the trunk,
Until there's nothing left to hold on to
Or snub the splintery holding rope around,
And where those big green divagation were
So loftily with shadows interleaved
The absent-minded blue rains in on us.
Now that the've got it sectioned on the ground
It looks as though somebody made a plain
Error in diagnosis, for the wood
Looks sweet and sound throughout. You couldn't know,
Of course, until you took it down. That's what
Experts are for, and these experts stand round
The giant pieces of tree as though expecting
An instruction booklet from the factory
Before they try to put it back together.

Anyhow, there it isn't, on the ground.
Next come the tractor and the crowbar crew
To extirpate what's left and fill the grave.
maybe tomorrow grass seed will be sown.
There's some mean-spirited moral point in that
As well: you learn to bury your mistakes,
Though for a while at dusk the darkening air
Will be with many shadows interleaved,
And pierced with a bewilderment of birds.

50 Car Pile-Up Shuts Down Part of Interstate 80
A fifty car pile-up Sunday morning along Interstate 80 in Luzerne County closed down the highway for more than 6 hours, causing a 23 mile traffic back-log.
State police say a sudden snow squall created white out conditions and "black ice" along the Interstate between Exits 247 and 253.
Both lanes of I-80 were closed off while emergency workers and tow trucks cleared passengers and cars from the roadway.
No minor injuries were reported.
Traffic was back to normal by six o'clock Sunday night.
So ya, because of this, I had to find a detour through the mountains of Eastern PA. At least I wasn't stuck in the middle of that pile up!I was on the road driving for 13 1/2 hours as it was. Oh well. I got here safe, and Jonathan, Jon, & Faith were good company.