row, row, row your boat

I'm sitting in a ferry backing out of a French port on our way across the Channel to Dover and have a fairly strong wireless connection. That alone seemed to be reason enough to post.

The trip has been great so far; my Oma's (grandma's) 80th birthday went well (even though a server at the restaurant where the party was being held dropped one of the five home-baked cakes on the asphalt while transporting it from car to kitchen). Otherwise, it's been relaxing, and I've accomplished nothing besides vast amounts of shopping--typical--and a trip via the pleasingly-punctual regional train to Cologne to visit my good friend N. and her boyfriend, both of whom I got to know at UR my first year in VCS (she came as part of the German exchange program, to get an MA in Comp. Lit.).

More later when we reach London. I'm going to let April check her email, too, as long as this connection holds out!

i heart patricia arquette

"You see messages from dead people?"
(You really need to hear Neve Campbell's delivery of this line to love it as much as I do.)

God, I love Medium.

And I am deeply, deeply upset that I will be in Germany during the season finale. I started screaming at the screen when I realized that this episode was going to be another "to be continued..." Waaahh.

the young and the restless

I was at the gym today, trying to make up for the fact that when I leave for Germany on Monday I won't be able to exercise at all (except sporadic attempts of the "8 minutes abs" video with my mother), and I was listening to various weird disco tracks that I downloaded onto my iPod god-knows-when and watching, of all things, The Young and the Restless. Okay, so "watching" is probably an overstatment, as it was more of a distraction, an inability I have to work out in front of a big flat-screen tv without being drawn into whatever's on. Even if it's The Young and the Restless. Sometimes, if I'm in the right mood, I'll watch even if it's Nascar or NFL or some other ESPN nonsense (I draw the line at golf, though). Anyway, my post's not really supposed to be about that. I don't care about The Young and the Restless, except that the title seemed apt. Onwards.

That said, I took my qualifying exams a little over a week ago, and while it was tremendously exciting to jump through that one huge, firey hoop, I now find myself in a sort of general malaise, a restless stupor, if you will. The fact that I proctored a 3-hour calculus exam today for a little bit of extra money isn't helping matters. Proctoring is probably one of the most mind-numbing things you can do yourself--staring at 220 students as they sweat over their answer sheets, constantly moving about and scanning the rows and rows of seats to make sure no one's cheating. I'd honestly rather watch grass grow because at least then I could take a nap or read a book and not have to worry that the grass would sneak off to the bathroom and read a cheat sheet off of its cell phone. And I have to do two more of these this week!

Oh well, I really shouldn't complain. I am getting paid for my misery, and I did willingly sign up for the hours. I thought that sitting and doing nothing for 3 hours would feed and placate my post-exam inertia, but apparently all it did was make me even more restless and useless. I'm supposed to be writing an abstract to submit to a call for papers, but instead I'm doing everything but: fiddling with my MySpace and Friendster profiles and photos (neither of which anyone but me reads, I think), posting to my blog (ditto the last parenthetical), checking my email literally every 10 minutes (why are there no emails? why???), and a whole host of other things which I refuse to own up to.

Pre-exam, I felt very strongly that I should have a post-exam break to enjoy some relative freedom from writing before what I hope will be a productive summer. Funny that now I don't really want that freedom as much as I thought. My attempts at relaxation have made me restless, sullen and emotionally needy. How tragic. Almost melodramatic. Soap-operatic?

Okay. Clearly I'm losing my mind. Perfect mindset to write an abstract.

poetry with an edge

Something my mother sent me this afternoon that gave me much pleasure:

Wordsworth...for the YouTube generation