This is just to say

I volunteered to read the poem making fun of William Carlos Williams out loud.
I'm not sorry, because we talked about it all weekend
and I didn't want anyone else to have it.





Also, I got a letter from King's College today, informing me which classes I have been "allocated," which means the ones I am stuck with, like it or not. They are

modern theater,
victorians and social change,
elizabethan shakespeare,
twentieth century postwar fiction,

australian literature and film,
first world war literature,
paradise lost,
and poetry in america 1900-1950.

Luckily, I am pretty happy with these courses. I am going to move to london for a year and read a lot.

back to school,
back to green bed,
back to black coffee,
back to clean air.


Finished Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West. It was really good. Also hugely depressing, but in a good way. Gotta read 3 short stories, one off them being The Metamorphasis, by Wednesday, and who knows what else. The quarter system is indeed merciless. In an hour I begin poetry--first reading it in german, then writing it. I am scared!

Dear everyone,

i am so stupid and I cannot speak or read or write german and i thought i could but i have been studying for hours and i still do not understand ahhhhh deathdeatdeath why did i sleep in so late today i think i am losing my mind i just want to watch tv or do something equally mindless and i think i might have failed my final exam for online traffic school what kind of pathetic is that seriously like what the hell i am such a loser today and so stressed out but sarah is coming to visit over break and that is good.

lovemandy

sleeping bear

I <3 my TA. Sarah, you would appreciate this. He almost invited me to be part of his salon (WTF?! salon?!) until he found out I was only 20. I think he should have invited me anyway, but then I'm glad he didn't, because it would mean having to converse with graduate students in particular and people I don't know in general. Anyway, it's good to know someone thinks you're cool enough to recruit you into their secret society. Plus I have an idea for my final project and I think it will be pretty good, if I can pull it off.

I am excited because Yasha and I are both going to be in the same intro to fiction class next quarter. I miss having people in the same class as me, it's so fun to talk about the teacher and annoying people together. Got an interview set up for tomorrow with my German teacher, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that her parents were Nazis or something interesting like that. Wow, what a terrible thing to say. It's true though, so I won't erase it. You as my blog reader should know who you're dealing with here. Anyway, things are looking up, except for the fact that I might be coming down with a cold. Up, down. Good times.

Oh yeah, um, William Blake is so great! I hope I can take a class on him next year while in England. That would be incredible. I am starting to get really anxious about the whole thing. I was in the programs abraod office yesterday and it got me to thinking about the fact that I should be finding out where I got in really soon. Scary! And uuuuugh omg I looked at my file and read the letter of recommendation that my old Muir 50 teacher did for me. It's really well written and it would be the better of the two except for the fact that it had like FIVE TYPOS! No kidding! Like what a jerk, come on. When you agree to write a letter for someone it's kind of understood that you're going to proofread it at least once! Now I probably won't get into Kings, and it won't even be my fault! I mean I guess I should have read it and not let him drop it off directly to the office, but even if I had, what was I supposed to do? "Hi, the letter you wrote for me has several glaring grammatical errors. I have marked them with a red pen. Please turn in your revised copy along with the original by tomorrow in order to recieve full credit." What an awkward position to put someone in. I am tired of being out in awkward positions!

I am listening to the Arcade Fire for the first time right now (late, as always) and it's pretty good!

so, next quarter I am taking:

writing fiction
writing poetry
german poetry
intermediate german

that's two writing classes and two german classes and two poetry classes! weird, right? I know. I guess it will be an enlightening quarter for me. Or possibly full of failure. Or both.

Yeah so I got a way better score on my Dylan midterm rewrite--went from 88 to 96!!! After agonizing on it for so long and having to pull an all-nighter because I chose to start from scratch with it, this is very welcome news. My TA loves me so much, it's not even funny. Just kidding, it is. He write things like "lovely" and "amazing" in the margins (he also writes things like "cliche" and "awkward" but lets overlook that for the time being) and then on the back he says that the paper was "a vision." No joke, he wrote that. Then he goes, "really, wow." haha! I have recently come to the realization that I am really good at being teacher's pet. I always have been, my whole entire life. I was not one of those genius kids who does bad in school as a kid but later on turns out to be a nobel prize winner. Instead, my first grade teacher told me i would be famous some day, and my senior year english teacher ssaid that students like me keep her teaching. There is a big difference, you see, but I have yet to determine how it will play out in terms of overall brilliance. haha. Anyway this is the kind of ego-building crap I am up against. No wonder I'm such a terrible person who writes blogs about her good grades. But what I'm trying to prove, I hope, is not that I am some brilliant writer, because I read the essay over again and it was still pretty not that good in my opinion, but rather that I am a nerdy teacher's pet who goes to office hours and wins over her TAs, in an academic sense anyway, and not a romantic one, unfortunately.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.

If you look at the kinds of posts I have been posting the last couple weeks, you will get a good idea of how busy I have been. I have thus far managed to not get very stressed and overwhelmed, which I am proud of, and I hope I can continue that. But man, I am so tired. It just doesn't end, not even for one day, you know? not even on weekends. not even on my birthday. gotta keep on trucking. The only thing that bothers me is that now that I'm really a lit major, I feel like I spend too much time reading about life and not enough time actually living it. It's a strange thing though, because it's not like while I am reading I cease to exist. Reading itself is an experience that is part of real life. But sometimes, for obvious reasons, it doesn't feel like it. I cannot be content to simply read and apreciate other people's work. Reading has always been for me a kind of research. If I like something, I make a mental note to do something like that someday (not just like it, but something like it). If I don't like something, I lose respect for the writer and promise myself never to write anything like it. What I'm trying to say is that I read a lot now under the assumption that someday it will be someone else who is reading me. This assumption is what makes it OK forme to spend so much of my life reading. It's what gives my education, at least for the time being, a purpose. I do not plan to always be reading, but for now, it is the best thing I can think of to do. And maybe that's why I don't get too stressed these days.

On an almost related note, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf is amaaaaaaazing. I'm not even kidding you, I feel so enlightened. I feel so inspired. I feel so ashamed. Here is the feeling I was trying to describe a few days ago about that mountain goats song:

... the beauty of the world which is soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

uuuuuadfjghbrgiuruuuuughkjsdfngkafg I am such a failure.

Half of what I say is meaningless

the scene is thus: german discussion, 9:30 AM, york hall. teacher is describing the beat movement in 1960s germany. Is currently discussing music.

"...such as the Beatles. Is anyone a Beatles fan?"

I weigh my options. I could go non-conformist and not raise my hand. I could justify it to myself-- overrated, haven't listened to them for months, have a newfound approval for the current music scene, see no need to harp on the past. I decide against it. It would be unforgivably elitist not to raise my hand. I raise it.

Half a second later I realize that nobody in my line of vision has raised their hand with me. I look right, I look left, I look right again, twisting my head around for good measure. Nobody in the entire room has raised their hand besides me!

At first I was just mildly embarassed. The class went on and I didn't think about it too much. But now, sitting here considering it, I am completely dumbfounded. Who ARE these people?!!! EVERYONE likes the Beatles. They are VERY FEW people out there who do not like the Beatles! What the odds of 30 non-beatles-liking young college students ending up in the same classroom all at once? It's not that I care about their music taste, though I think it goes without saying that these kids are the rankest of philistines. I am more just baffled by the probability of such a phenomenon having occured. nobody? NOBODY?! So much for not looking like an elitist, eh? my goodness.

P.S. I lovelovelooooooove my classes! Especially the writing one (I feel inspired already!) and the Jane Austen one (today we spent the whole time analyzing the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice!). I actually want to do my reading for once and that in itself is an incredible feeling.

First day of class. So far, German, same as last quarter only earlier and farther away. Had terrible nightmares last night so found it easy to wake up at 8. Study abroad application progressing nicely. Current favourite song: "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade. over and out.

You don't have to go to college

cause this is really all we do:

alarm clock who?

Oh dear. The prospect of going back to working and classes in a few days is frightening me a lot at the moment. The idea of 9 AM gives me the same feeling that I get when I think about like maybe careers, or eternity. I spent my whole break being disgusted at myself for sleeping too much, but now I realize I should have been savoring every minute of it. Oh dear.

8 page lit paper on nathaniel hawthorne's views on women: check

studying for linguistics: check

frozen burrito: check

tater tots: check

coffee: check

animal crackers: check

myspace: check

german: heh...

gotta go!

I am about to do one of those myspace bulletin surveys as a reward for having written 2 pages of my lit paper tonight. I know, right? Outside the window people are having fun. Lesigh.

Edit: turns out those people were actually my friends. Wow. Pathetic.

Don't take this the wrong way, but

You know that there's something wrong with our educational system when one actually has to go out of one's way to do badly in a class. Who are these people, and why are they so lazy?

falalalala, lalalala

thanks to yasha, we have christmas lights! on our balcony! hoorah!

can't wait for thanksgiving and seeing everyone and stuffing and gravy and decorating the house for christmas!

but first, two midterms and a german essay.

crisiscrisiscrisis!!!!!!!!!!

early-life crisis!

many crises!

what?

"the point in a play or story when a crucial conflict takes place, determining the outcome of the plot."

yes, I think so.

Good News:

I was on time to German this morning! I seriously feel really good about that. And I finished all my homework last night so all I have to do now is take a shower and make myself look pesentable, which is a rarity these days, really, it is. And tomorrow Sarah is coming!! ucsd will be whole again. And hopefully I will go to see either Bunky or just Rafter for only 5 bucks at the che this weekend. I am pretty much really stoked for life.

edit: also, my work schedule got changed, and now I work monday afternoons instead of tuesday mornings. yippieyahoohooray for sleeping in! and being punctual!

True story. Minus the innevitable grammatical errors, of course.

German Professor: (hands back essay) Amanda ist perfekt!

me: uhhh danke?

her: Wie lange haben sie Deutsch studiert?

me: nur ein Jahre...

her: (actually seems suprised) Wirklich? Kennen Sie eine andere Sprache?

me: nein, nur Englisch.

her: ah, sie sind ein sprachegenius!

me: hehehhh... danke....(awkwarrrrrrd)


Also, die Moral der Geschichte ist:
ICH LIEBE MEINE DEUTSCHE KLASSE SEHHHHHHR VIEL.