Sailcloth clouds

Playing catch-up

Well, I fell behind again. I blame school entirely. This session has seen a rather unwieldy reading load, and now papers are coming due. I did a presentation on Huck Finn this week, which ended up being really kickass, so that was fun; but I have a paper on Pope due Friday and one on Huck due Tuesday. Add to that my attempts to determine what exactly I'll be doing my thesis on, and top it with relatives from out of town, and you have my excuse for falling behind in posting. Heh. But it has been fun.

We're going on Friday to both the Clark and Huntington Libraries, to the former to see original manuscripts (Pope, Swift, etc.) and to the latter for tea. I'm pretty excited! I hear they do a great tea. And I'm looking forward to the company and conversation that will complement this event. I've only been to the Huntington once and never to the Clark. I'm sure I'll post about it after the fact.

Afternoon capture

Been meaning to shoot this tree since last summer, and especially for the past 6-7 weeks. Finally got my chance tonight. Glad I waited for the sunset.

This photo does nothing to hint at the actual size of this tree. It's quite large and noticeably mature...and it's a hottie, as trees go.

Nope, no color treatment or photoshopping whatsoever. This plant is truly two-tone. I know I'm not supposed to comment on my own shots, but this one blows me away.

Why do I love leaves' vascular systems so much but get queasy when anything has to do with the human vascular system? Hmm.

Homework Avoidance: Notes of Distraction

I'm sitting in a park
on a bench
in the breeze
beholding sun-spotted trees
feeling
hearing
canopy winds and small planes casting shadows.

My ipod, battery low,
still plays Aim and Em true and clear.
Soccer camps traipse by,
undergrads chew chips on nearby benches
and chat with friends.
I turn the wheel, the volume up.

Soon I'll hike the hill to
a box of a room
to Pope and Swift the afternoon away.

A boy navigates the hills and gullies of
the magnolia's roots,
inspecting bark and climbability.

These invite pensive reflection,
stir up staring,
invoke observation
behind dark glasses and feigned nonchalance.

The knocks of improving hammers waft
across the field of erratic butterfly flirtation
and bird chirps.
Arabic and Chinese accents consult
about the grounds
and an apartment.

Brown leaves fall at different speeds
to the green ground.
The wind roars up high,
even though these are not the mountains.

The battery died,
the board now hurts my butt,
and the clock indicates that Pope is ready for an audience.

A spider falls on my neck --
a green scout from a ferny tree --
and loses his life in the expedition.

Like sails

Thoughtful and lively sun coverings at the student center study patio.

Being Tracked

Tracking the shadows.

Martian-head shadow. (My kingdom for a macro lens!)

Favored Glade

I look at this as I read my assignments each morning. The hummingbirds, fat bees, bunnies, squirrels, and even a woodpecker this week populate the air physically and aurally. I take a lot of stare-breaks from my reading.

Being a student...

...is wonderful! Yes, I put off my reading and papers too long, and yes, sitting for two hours straight is literally a pain in the butt. But it's been so delightful to use my brain this way again!

• I delivered a presentation of a critical article on Beowulf.
• Watched the Zemeckis movie tonight; gah! In its own right, it was an interesting piece of fiction. But it was probably only 50% based on the poem. You'll probably hear more about this later.
• I finished the first paper for my rhetoric class.
• I'm working on a short preparation paper for the same class in which I have to follow Erasmus's steps of copiousness, creating a multitude of variations on a mundane sentence -- mine is, "I hate grading students' papers." It's quite a fun exercise, actually.
• I may do my second paper on the rhetoric of prayer; our professor mentioned that in passing, but we've not delved into it in the slightest, and my interest is piqued.
• I need to decide on a focused topic for my Beowulf paper. I feel behind there, though the paper isn't due for a week and a half. (That's simply ages in this program.) (So I tell myself.)
• I'm going to sit in on classes next week on revenge in Hamlet. I should be using that time to read and write papers, but this, seriously, is probably a once in a lifetime chance, and I'm not going to pass it by.
• We're going to the Huntington Library in several weeks to look at original manuscripts of Pope's and Swift's work. We'll do tea afterward. I'm looking forward to this excursion. I'll provide highlights once we're back. Field trip!
• We're at that point where we're having to come to some firm idea of a thesis topic, and we need to line up our first and second readers by August. Gulp. Can someone make the sun stand still for a bit, please?
• I'm shooting again. You'll notice below.