Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Normandy is fine and fair, so Normandy is where we'll go...

"This time of year the air I hear is rare and clear and warm..."  
~ "Normandy" from "Once Upon a Mattress"

Tuesday
Ok. So not in Normandy... and Norton isn't quite as gorgeous as the song describes, but the air has been clear and the light has been absolutely amazing.





In other news, oh DEAR. There are only three weeks until finals. THREE. *dies* That's three weeks to finish  roughly 1000 lines of Beowulf, write a 10-15 page paper, write a five page paper, have an astronomy exam, an astronomy presentation and another astronomy paper, have a music theory exam, have another music theory exam, memorize and perfect three of my four or five voice lesson songs for juries and for the voice recital, and the list goes on.

And I have to admit, as much as I can't wait for summer and a few months of not having to go to sleep late and wake up early and bludger my poor brain with more than I can possibly retain, and not have to struggle through astronomy I don't understand, or Latin that I'm not anywhere as good as I want to be at, or the hours of Beowulf translation or worry exactly what an open octave position is, I'll miss this.

It's my last semester of Anglo-Saxon, and I'll miss it very much, though I may take further classes in it as independent studies. Professor Schell may not come back, and I'll miss her dry sense of humor and the clarity she always brings to the muddle that is Latin in my head. And for all I complain, I actually do understand just about everything we've learned in Astronomy, and this is probably my last class in the subject, and I know there is so much more that I want to know in the field that I'll possibly never learn.

I almost wish I could stay in college for longer, despite exams and the endless homework. There are so many things that I want to learn, and there is no way I'll learn it all in the next two years.

Wednesday
  BAH. Just when I thought everything was evening out... everything piles up again! It's not really that bad, and there's been a whole bunch of good too, but still. Missing Beowulf class never puts me in a good mood, especially when the passage we translated was the Freawaru bit that I've been looking forward to for literally MONTHS. Not to mention that the presentation was on Beowulf and Sutton Hoo... so overall, not one of my better days. However, I did finish my music theory exam and plan on getting a LOT of Anglo-Saxon translating done today, as well as starting on my Astronomy homework, and that way, maybe I won't have to bring too much homework with me when I go home for Easter weekend...

Ok I'm off! Homework awaits!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I thought...

It was time for some new colors, it is spring after all. :D Not much else to report, other than I'm lounging about, because I'm done with my work for Thursday already, and am very, very slowly working on Anglo-Saxon translations... and by very slowly, I mean VERY slowly.

It's pouring out, which is rather dreary, but April showers bring May flowers... so I guess this is a good thing?

Today was my presentation on the Dating of Beowulf, and it went pretty well, though it lasted MUCH longer than it was supposed to, but what can I do? There was a lot of information to go through!

What else... yeah, nothing really!
:D

Monday, April 11, 2011

Take THAT, homework!!

Me: HA. I win. You can't get me, homework! 
Homework: Just wait for next semester when I will KILL YOU.
Me: EEP! *cowers*

This weekend I did more than two hundred pages of reading for my Beowulf presentation, wrote a five page paper from start to finish in less than four hours, translated over a hundred lines of Anglo-Saxon, and probably about fifty lines of Latin. I win. For now anyway.

I have also discovered that I do believe I would not mind researching/reading works about and writing papers on Beowulf for the rest of my life. Future job option? Perhaps, if I can do it without teaching...and it would mean I also have to figure out grad school...

Speaking of futures and such, this is my schedule next semester.

Monday
10:30-11:20 Chaucer
11:30-12:20 Latin Epistolography
Old Norse
2-4:50 Carolingian History
5-6 Chorale (if I take it)

Tuesday
HOMEWORK
7-9 World Music Ensemble (?)
sleep

Wednesday
10:30-11:20 Chaucer

11:30-12:20 Latin Epistolography
2-4 English Senior Seminar (Arthurian Lit.)
5-6 Chorale (?)

Thursday
SLEEP
DO HOMEWORK
SLEEP
DO HOMEWORK

Friday
10:30-11:20 Chaucer

11:30-12:20 Latin Epistolography

And in addition to that, I will have at least two days where I work (probably Tues, Thurs and/or Friday) and hopefully a voice lesson.
 
I may be insane. That's three three hundreds and a four hundred, plus an independent study. Three languages (Latin, Old Norse and Middle English (though I don't imagine ME will be that terrible)), and three reading/writing heavy courses. Gosh, that's a lot...

Further news
The Good: I got a single in Wellness.
The Bad news: It's Young, not Larcom.

ALAS.

BUT some other good news, I'll be on the same floor as my friend Emily, who will be taking three out of the five classes I'm taking next semester, so we can complain, gripe, work and celebrate together.


Random news
Well, I never thought I'd do it, but I've been listening to Sarah Brightman all day... I'm not entirely sure why, but hey, I'm enjoying it...mostly! I don't always like what she does with her voice, but there's no denying she is a good singer. And sometimes there's just that song that makes you go... "OH. WOW. So THAT'S why I'm listening to her!" (Her diction is really strange there, though...) She is just a little too... theatrical/over the top in most of her concerts, buuuuut if you're just listening, it's not that bad.

I DID get to draw this weekend in spite of the MASSIVE amounts of studiousness, so that was nice!



Ok. Must return to reading, translating, and otherwise preparing for upcoming classes.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

From Winter Round to Spring

"'Round and 'round the seasons are turning,
Spring to summer, fall to winter,
and from winter round to spring,
round to spring,
round to spring..." 

Hullo dear friends, spring is beginning to spring, indeed! The sun is out, the daffodils are out, the fish are out in the pond (and so too, unfortunately is the pond scum), and the air is warm. The light has changed, it's brighter much later now, which is lovely, and that also means some new pictures!! 

from shortly after I came back from (not so) Spring Break.



'Tis Spring now, methinks!







my rose bush is apparently very confused about seasons...

my former roommate brought me a daffodil when I was sick! :D

Unfortunately I'm still a bit sick, but have been to the doctors today (my first time going to a new doctor completely by myself and filling a prescription...*gulp* which was an experience...)

Today (Saturday) was a GORGEOUS day, the sun was out, and it was a wonderfully balmy afternoon. Some friends and I studied together, outside, for some of it, and I've been reading books on Beowulf all day, which if I wasn't so strapped for time, would have been idyllic.

I'm giving a presentation on the dating of Beowulf, which is a bit intimidating, but hopefully will go well. So far, I've read The Audience of Beowulf by Dorothy Whitelock, and the bit in R.W. Chambers' Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn and am currently slogging my way through the part of the Introduction to Klaber's Beowulf that deals with dates. (Might I add, a bit proudly too, that I read all of that today!) Then I just have to read Tolkien's essay and the collection of essays on the dating of Beowulf edited by Colin Chase. All very interesting. And I understand most of it, except when they go into great detail about the linguistics of it all, in which case I feel rather dull and stupid for not understanding what they're saying.

I'm also starting to feel the beginnings of a horrible conviction that I should probably learn German before this is all said and done... (the horror comes from the fact that I'm dreadful at language, not because I don't like German, on the contrary, I like German very much.) I wish I was like some people I know, and could pick up languages like a sponge... cause I'd like to learn Finnish and Welsh too. XD Oh... and Gaelic...

Speaking of German, I'm learning a new song in German for voice lessons, and it's quite pretty! It is called "Lachen Und Weinen" and is by Schubert, whose work I have long admired and never sung. Here it is sung by Lucia Popp, a wonderful Soprano who I will sound NOTHING like, sadly.

Anyway, I must return to the land of Anglo-Saxon poetry. I am becoming more and more convinced about the whole early dating of Beowulf thing... That and Tolkien said so... XD that's mostly a joke...mostly...

Ta ta!