hi

i'm not going to say much because if i do it will sound like a tacky-goth-teen post. but that's how i feel. and i've felt like this for days and days now and i don't know what's wrong with me. but i'm sure i will do absolutely nothing for awhile longer and hope it'll get better.

hello there

hi, we haven't spoken in a while. sit down i'll make you some tea.

so i got my third paper back. i got a 60. which is passing. now i just have to wait to see about paper number 4. it needs to be a 62. this british grading system is so odd. i don't know when i'll get it back. hopefully in the nexy week. i have asked one of the profs here to write me a reccomendation letter. that made me all sorts of nervous. but he agreed. he also asked if i could type some things up for him. i am super-office-tasks-girl by the way. i was happy to agree to that. i need extra money where ever i can locate it.

kind of odd to switch topics like this. makes some of what i have done feel wasted. but i won't dwell on that too much. another thing that sucks is some of my professors are relatively well known in the romantic academic forum. and sending off a reccomendation to be handled by modern european history profs...well...any clout they may have had will be lost on them. oh well. tim is a really nice man and i'm glad he has agreed to write this for me. i also asked lidh but haven't heard back from him yet.

i keep repeating to myself..."my world will not end if i don't get into grad school" and it won't...damnit... i'll take another year off and read and be better prepared to go in. worrying will get me no where... except in the running for the coveted worrier of the year award. it's awarded by country and has nothing to do with national origin just which country you have spent the most time in. i've never done this in england before. but it's smaller so i figure my chances are better.

anyway. class today with prof bennett. he always makes me nervous...i will say something ridiculous. oh yes i well. he's got that bald, leather jacket, i've written a well recieved intoduction to literary theory what have you done? thing going for him. he also doesn't show much emotion and kinda creeps me out the way he stares and doesn't tell you if he thinks your idea is good or not. he just waits until you get nervous , talk too much, and hang yourself. though he did help me with my last paper a bit.

to be honest i guess i'm a bit lonely. which is dumb. i have a handful of fantastic friends here albeit none of them are what i would call close. except for peter who is off in italy with his son now. and we bicker with eachother instead of saying to eachother that we're glad to be friends and sometimes that gets irritating. i have some very close friends that are continents away now and i know they love me. but i haven't seen most of them since last september. i need someone to go langerie shopping with (and jesse doesn't count...going langerie shopping with men is an entirely different thing...and something you should only do if you're already in a good mood). not that i can afford langerie anyway....or spell it...

oh well. i will be back in the states soon. and again in driving distance of almost everyone i love.

i guess what i am getting at is, i do love you guys. you really are part of me and i am thankful for that. i'm glad you shove me in the right direction sometimes, glad you hold me, glad you have the power to remind me who i am. and i miss you.

-sarah

i feel like i should post. because i haven't posted in awhile. though i really don't have anything to say. i'm too far inside my head right now. lisa is coming back this summer. which is good. and so i am up to my ears in travel books and websites right now. and i'm starting to forget the real world exists. she wants a price quote tonight some time. so... that is what i am currently doing. blah...
jesse and i found a suitcase today for 20£ read approx. 40$. fantastic price. and we had to get it because jesse's suitcase did not make it across the pond in one piece. it's actually in 2 pieces. so...anyway there is a new one now.

because sam told me to

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

so...if i had to burn what would justify that? that's what i'm getting from this question. if that's right. and i think the answer which may be too obvious would be the complete works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer because he was the sort of person that i hope i would have had the courage to be in similiar circumstances.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Much much too often. I had a crush on whats-his-face from Neverwhere. I'm currently crushing on Larkin from Mortal Love...and that's because Elizabeth Hand fucking rocks.

3. The last book you bought is:

The Oxford edition major works of Lord Byron.

4. The last book you read:

American Gods.

5.What are you currently reading?

my my. are you sure you want to know? Judaism History Belief and Practice by Dan Cohn-Sherbok. Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand. THe Jews in the History of England 1485-1850 by David S. Katz ( i do not reccomend this book by the way it's impossible). The Buisness of Genocide by Michel Thad Allen. and Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. Obviously i've got three things going on here. My current degree, the degree i actually want, and the stuff i read just before i fall asleep.

6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:

you ask as if this were at all easy.

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. i'm with sam on that one. that book utterly devours me everytime i have the time to put my hands on it. i can begin it, finish it and then begin it again immediately. it is fantastic.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Because I can't remember the name of the main character. yeah..it's time to read it again. and it's beautiful enough to read over and over.

Wuthering Heights by Bronte. This book is beyond good.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. i am quietly convinced that i am the only person that still reads her. and i turn to her over and over when ever i find myself going spiritually dead.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. because i can almost recite large chunks of that from memory and if i began to forget them i would go crazy if i couldn't look them up.

alright so that's that. hope you're reading this sam.

movies and books

often with movies and books i get really involved with the characters. i identify with one of them or another and then when the movie is over or the book is finished i feel suddenly disengaged and alien. like i'm still that person and suddenly i have found myself in this completely hostile and overly lit world and i don't know how to handle it or even what to do. i find myself getting startled by random little things. like the phone ringing. or my husband walking into the room.

i'll pick up the phone wondering which character from the book is one the other end. or i'll stare at jesse wondering how he got into this movie. except i don't think about them as movies or books just the place where i am and how are these random people or things that shouldn't be there there? and then i snap out of it and instead of feeling like myself again engaging in my surrounding i feel sad and empty. i feel like i've lost something.

maybe i wish i had the purpose these characters have. the ability to see the goal and the end. all i have to do is flip to the last page. or maybe i just crave escape. or maybe more realistically i have an overactive imagination which has always gotten me in trouble in one way or another.

children

so april has birthed a child. luckly by c-section. though she seemed to think vaginal would be better. no thanks, c-section sounds so much more controlled to me. i am glad she's having children because i am not in the mood to alter my life like that right now. i think i may be at some point but not near enough that i can see it. children involve so much more effort that i have. i don't want to get out of bed in the morning. there is no way combining that with having to fix cereal for someone will make my life better.
and there is the whinning and the crying and the inability to think logically. and if i can't argue with something what can i do with it. i hate the because mommy said so thing but what else can you say to them?
and yet somewhere in the back of my head i think that sharing my life with a child might be endlessly challanging, rewarding and a learning experinence. and off somewhere in my mid 30s maybe i will consider it. but speaking now from my early twenties...um...they really are vile creatures.
glad april and charlie have consented to let me play with theirs.