Good news for BA travellers...

SNOW!

Here's a one second video of the snow out my window. Sorry for the angle.

Thing That Are Wrong in My Life

1- One of my eyes won't stop twitching

2- I've been on a week long food binge. I've had a pastry everyday. My stomach reflects this.

3- My knee just started twitching

4- I didn't get into St. Pauls for Carols tonight

5- I found a passage in my Summer/Fall reading book the New Testament so funny that I've been laughing about it for two days (Acts:12- Poor Rhoda!)

6- I have literally no money.

7- I had to force myself not to buy a new book about the Black Death.

8- I don't go home till Sunday wahh.

9- I spent a good portion of today laying in bed and staring out the window.

10- Rochester has started to seem in my mind like the greatest city in the entire world.

Insult of the Weekend

I forgot to blog about how someone insulted my soul while in Oxford (besides the 2 hours of listening to my friend talk about the apocalypse- actually this related because Joyce wrote a very chilling depiction of Hell in Portrait, anyways). This boy who's reading (ie majoring in) English there told me that THE DEAD is OVERRATED. What. He also said he doesn't see how it basically depicts Joyce's transition into modernism. WHAT. It does. No, it honestly does. The story starts out like most of the stories in Dubliners and then transcends into this amazing finale. The last few pages of "The Dead" is honestly the best ending to a story that I can think of. I've never read a short story that can surpass its power. But then again Joyce is my home boy.

And here for your enjoyment is the last paragraph of "The Dead." However, the entire story should be read to get its full effect:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

And here for your further enjoyment is a really nice article about The Dead and today's American short stories

Awwwwkward story of the morning

I would HATE to be her neighbor. So so so awkward. It should be a pretty interesting trial nevertheless...

Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life.

What? says Alf.

Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred.

-James Joyce Ulysses

Interesting interview with Manohla Dargis on Women and Hollywood, particularly on female (or the lack of female) directors.

The This is Why I'm Single Guide to Music for Desperate Crushes

In honor of my essay kind of being finished (and ignoring the non-graded econ essay I should be writing), I've decided to make a list of songs that throughout the years have become theme songs for every unreachable boy I have loved/ been creepily obsessed with. This post will basically express a dozen reasons as to why I am single. Fun Times. I'm also going to try to post them in chronological order from my first major college crush (MIIIIKKKKEEEEE- no secret there!) to the latest unnamed victim.

- Maps- Yea Yea Yeahs

Key Line: Wait! They don't love you like I love you. -Which is repeated over and over

Why?: I used to sing this in my head a lot whenever I saw Mike 1st semester Freshman year. Creepy. I've since gotten over that and Mike and I have maintained a relatively healthy friendship. xoxoxoxo

-I Can't Make you Love me- Bonnie Raitt

Key Line: Cause I can't make you love me if you don't/ I can't make your heart feel something it won't.

Why: This has already been featured on this blog, but wow, what a perfect song for gals like me! It fits like every situation in my "romantic" life. Nice work Bonnie (though I don't think she wrote it)!

- It Beats 4 U- My Morning Jacket

Key Line: Eh I don't even know what they're saying in the song.

Why: This reminds me of Oxford where it eventually became one of my theme songs for my most desperate/hopeless crush yet. Not so much about desperation, but a really pretty nice song about how (in my mind) my heart beats for a certain someone.

- Nicest Thing- Kate Nash

Key Line: Um the whole song speaks to me. But, I guess if I have to chose I would say:

"Basically, I wish that you loved me,

I wish that you needed me,

I wish that when I said two sugars, actually I meant three."

Why: This became the key song for the previously mentioned English crush. The whole song was basically my life theme song from the end of Trinity term till last December when I kind of got over it. CLASSIC.

-Conversation- Joni Mitchell (ugh I can't find it on youtube- LAME)

Key Line:

And I only say, hello

And turn away before his lady knows

How much I want to see him.

Why: This was basically my official theme song in general for a while. It's amazing. Enough Said.

- Taylor Swift- You belong with Me

Key Line: Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me

Why: So, I fell in love with this song over the summer but I had no crushes to associate it with, so I kind of just let it encompass every crush I've had. I'm kind of over it now, but I still love Taylo Swift, just not as much as I did a few months ago. But, I know one day it will re-enter my heart.

- Hounds of Love- Kate Bush

Key Line:

I've always been a coward/ And I don't know what's good for me.

Why: I love Kate Bush, the song's amazing, the video is amazing and it's my current theme song.