An epic bridge from an epic voyage

Well, I'm back from vacation and the first thing I notice as I walk up to the dorm is that I've forgotten two important things: 1. My student ID which also serves as a key card to get into buildings and 2. my keys which let me into my room. If I hadnt happened to travel up with Taylor I would have been screwed over royally.

On that note I settled down to getting my stuff out of the car and I dropped the tote bag with my books in it into the slushy muddy mess that lines our road.
Following a quick string of expletives I grabbed them and noticed that -- joy of joys -- the ones to land in the sludge were the ones I had most recently purchased. A copy of Toothpaste for Dinner, I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke. Oh and a library book.

This realization resulted in more unseemly language.

But after some damage control things didnt turn out that badly, I was able to get most of the stuff off, the Toothpaste for Dinner book sustained the only noticable staining. My id and keys are being express mailed to me so things might yet go my way. Also, obsessive listening to New Radicals and Collective Soul - Disciplined Breakdown is an EXCELLENT album, have helped as well.

I had an eventful vacation to say the least, the first day was spent traveling down and interviewing my grandparents about what the education system was like when they were in it, that night on returning home I went with my sister to hang out with some friends of hers from work that I knew vaguely. What followed was card games and jagerbombs and a lengthly discussion of music with one guy that was awesome. I got very little sleep of course and ended up crashing for a long time when I got home. Next came the 6 hour (though fun) trip to Jessicas, meeting with many interesting people and coming back for six hours, getting lost in Troy in the process. Right after that myself and Katie journeyed out and saw Leah for the day at her school. There was a massive library and some delicious tofu, broccoli peanut thing was served. The journey back was compartivly short. The next day I went to see my cousins play - she goes to a Waldorff school and it was a circus thing. Seriously those kids can juggle. I was amused and then we went to Borders where I bought some books that were soon to be dropped into slush

That is a rapid and rough sketch of what I did...I'll elaborate later I think. I took some random pictures that could be amusing.

Yeah, well I figured I'd do a post now in case tomorrow I'm too busy to write anything. Vacation has arrived somewhat unexpectedly, it's welcome to be sure, but I didn't quite think five weeks of class would pass by so quickly and without my really learning anything. My Literature class is the most interesting, with the discussions...but everything else has not really provided me with anything.
Blah blah, anyway, on Monday I went to the wonderful mall and bought a couple of CDs, the first being the New Radicals' as seen above. And it's awesome, it was a bit of a gamble but all of the songs are really good, excellant writing and a good blend of 70's rock and even a bit of motown...not sure if that's the right spelling.

FASCINATING

Yeah. I bought Hole's Live Through This and its alright, some good and some bad. Courtney Love, while sleazy, has some decent music now and then.

COMPELLING

I have a ton of reading to do over the break, the library had a second book sale and I bought two new modern library books Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which I intend to read eventually and James Hardy's The Portrait of a Lady...I'd never heard of it before this but I'll try it out. The third book I bought was a paperback of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist, which I've been looking for for a long time.

Yeah the other books I'm reading are to finally finish the original Foundation Trilogy, just one more book to go, The Great Gatsby, Assasination Vacation, The Doors of Perception, and at least glance at Gargantua and Pantagruel and read a couple of essays from The Wisdom of Catholicism...some weird stuff in there. I should be finished with Agnes Grey before break starts.

SHOCK AND INTRIGUE

I bought the second season of 3rd Rock and it's as good as I remember it. Awesome awesome stuff. And junk.

And...yeah, I won't be doing much over the break, a few plans might be set into action but I've got nothing solid for now except a visit to my grandparents in Connecticut.

Well I'm done for now.

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1136365791/Don_Hertzfeldts_Rejected

Watch this. I command you. It will change your life.

It's beautiful.

Richard Adams is a genius


Freedom, that consuming goal above doubt or criticism, desired as moths desire the candle or emigrants the distant continent waiting to parch them in its deserts or drive them to madness in its bitter winters! Freedom, that land where rogues, at every corner, cozen with lies and promises the plucky sheep who judged it time to sack the shepherd! Unfurl your banner, Freedom, and call upon me with cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music to fall down and worship you, and I will do so upon the instant, for who would wish to be cast into the fiery furnace of his neighbours' contempt? I will come to you as the male spider to the female, as the explorer to the upper reaches of the great river upon which he knows he will die before ever he wins through to the estuary. How should I dare refuse your beckoning, queen whose discarded lovers vanish by night, princess whose unsuccessful suitors die at sunset? Would to God we had never encountered you, goddess of thrombosis, insomnia, asthma, duodenal and migraine! For we are free, free to suffer every anguish of deliberation, of decisions which must be made upon suspect information and half-knowledge, every anguish of hindsight and regret, of failure, shame and responsibility for all that we have brought upon ourselves and others: free to struggle, to starve, to demand from all one last, supreme effort to reach where we long to be and, once there, to conclude that it is not, after all, the right place. For a great price obtained I this freedom, to wish to God I had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when I sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full. The tyrant wasn't such a bad old bugger, and even in his arbitrary rages never killed as many as died in yesterday's glorious battle for liberty. Will you return to him, then? Ah no, sweet Freedom, I will slave for you until I have forgotten the love that once consumed my being, until I am grown old and bitter and can no longer see the wood for the starved, dirty trees. Then I will curse you and die; and will you then concede that I may be accounted your loyal follower and a true creature of this Earth? And, Freedom, was I free?

- The Plague Dogs, Kit 2