For the last few days, my housemates have been out of town. Whenever that happens, and I'm less committed than usual to doing housemate things, I'm generally quite content for the first several hours... and then I start getting a little restless. Luckily, I've still had class to occupy me, but I've had to find a few other ways to stay busy as well. Here are some things I've done in the last few days:
1. Senior Paper! On Friday, I presented my senior paper, which I have been working on since last spring, but intensively since the beginning of the school year. It's both liberating and terribly sad to be finished. Yeats and Woolf will remain my friends, however, even though I am no longer required to analyze them.
2. Pleasure reading! This hardly ever happens when I'm at school, but since I presented my senior paper last Friday, I've had some free time on my hands. I'm in the midst of a fascinating biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose poetry I love but whose life I know very little about. It's wonderful.
3. Pictures. I was playing around with my camera and, as there was no one else around to be the subject of my pictures, I took some self-portraits.
As I was reading some poetry today, I found lines that perfectly express my thoughts and general mindset lately. I love when I stumble upon poetry that I can identify with, that somehow corresponds with my life.
"Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself."
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself."
Song of Myself
Thank you, Walt Whitman.
