Freedom and the mad gangsta Byron

A few things...

First of which is: Sweet. Glorious. Summer.

Done! Done! Done! No papers for three months and nothing linguisticy for three months and no more reading about Roman death and doom and destruction and now I can read books for actual fun and not have to critically analyze them in social/gender/political/economic/whatever the hell other stupid topic context my professors manage to come up with! Check out the exclamation points! There! And there! Factorial!

Unfortunately, once the initial ecstasy has been fully-realized, it then gives way to that horrible sort of quiet that comes post-finals, when all of the anticipation and mental horribleness of exams are over, and I am faced with the prospect of three months without school. So, making a plan, I suppose, is a reasonable reaction:

-read a lot.
-write a lot.
-music a lot.
-Harry Potter 6 A LOT
-oh, and speaking of Harry Potter, the USPS brought me a present last week!



Oh yes, you can believe your eyes! That is indeed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in Latin! I had to order it online because for some bizarre reason the local Borders didn't have it in stock...weird, right? I would've thought it'd be a best-seller. Anyway, it is my desperate attempt this summer to keep up with the language so that I don't die in the fall when I'm faced with the prospect of muddling my way through Caesar's De Bello Gaellico.

I was also considering another summer project, but I have yet to make a final decision about it. It'd be a really big step for me. Quite drastic, actually.

I've been thinking about attempting to make the switch to black coffee. No accoutrement of any variety. Just straight up black and strong. My encounter with slow-coffee-stirring-girl a few weeks ago really got me thinking. I dunno. I feel like it would just seem more productive, to grab it and be on my merry way, rather than having to mess around with sugar packets and milk and stirring sticks. It's all a bit of hindrance to the coffee process--a process that should really be as pure and untainted as possible. At the same time, though, I think that if the conversion to black coffee does happen, it'll be a slow one, because only the truly strong seem to be able to take it so...well, strong, and I would need some time to build up that tolerance to the bitterness.

See, this is why I love summer. Because I can think about such things as mutating my coffee-condiment preferences without the massive, looming cloud of schoolwork over my head.

Yeah.

Summer.

Yep.

Totally.

Already kind of bored.

But! A funny story: I had to buy a three-pack of Norton Anthologies for one of my classes and we ended up not using one so it just sat on my bookshelf all quarter, until now. I was just browsing, seeing if there was anything good in it, and I came across some notes belonging to the previous owner of the book. Beside Lord Byron's biography, this person wrote, "Lord Byron had every qualifying standard to be a famous rapper in the 21st century."

I laughed. It's the funniest thing I've read in awhile. Which is actually kinda sad.

In any case, I just wanted to depart this post with a few hella thug verses from Lord B. They're infinitely more enjoyable if you read them in a Eminem-esque voice while playing this in the background (it actually kind of works, if you're delirious enough when you try it):




From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3"

7.
Yet I must think less wildly:--I have thought
Too long and too darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late!
Yet I am chang'd; though still enough the same
In strength to bear what time can not abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

43.
This makes the madmen who have made men mad
By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule.

90.
Then sirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self; it is a tone,
The sould and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,
Binding all things with beauty;--'twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.