Operatic intentions.

There's a presentation on Medea I should be working on right now, as well as some reading on the Crusades. Instead I'm emailing and msn'ing while listening to city and colour. I realise how often my blogs start with this, an outline of the work I'm supposed to be doing, and then an explanation of how I'm procrastinating instead. Will I change? Find out in two and a half years time! Yes, I know someone hates it when I speak like that, but hell, it was appropriate this time!

Currently reading One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Thought not many people had heard of it, then I found out my personal tutor ranks it highly as one of his favourite books. Came home, was walking with it upstairs and then my mother spotted it and proceeded to tell me how she read it thirty years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Not so much a literary hipster victory, but a fail. Yet I don't feel down, that would be facetious. That such a brilliant book is known is a good thing. Solzhenitsyn on the other hand, I can't say I identify with, his ideas of the prominence and importance of the Judeo-Christian tradition on civilisation and the ensuing morality is rather insulting. Though the influence on art, philosophy, literature, architecture and politics is undoubted, to say that the lack of belief in God results in moral breakdown is insulting to human reason and humanity in general. The shift from fear to responsibility is important, it weighs on a person. If you do wrong, you do wrong. When you don't, it's not because of the fear of divine retribution.

Been talking to an American college student of late. Reminded me how much I enjoy Opera. I should try to get down to London more often to see productions, to enjoy it and yet not see it live is wrong somehow. Same goes for theatre, I enjoy it, have of course been there, but don't go as often as I'd like. Ah, so much I want to do, so little motivation.

Stanza from Ginsberg's Howl.

who cut their wrists three times unsuccessfully,

gave up and were forced to open antique stores where

they thought they were growing old and cried.

I have started

To write again. It's much harder work than I thought it would be. Like quarrying away at a cliff face, in the vague hope that the resulting sculpture will resemble what you want it to.

In other news the cold is really starting to bite. Even with a woollen coat on top of a hoodie I was frozen this morning walking to University. Coupled with a strong, strong desire to have remained in bed, it was not a pleasant morning. The walk home was somewhat nicer, though I suspect it was due to the fact I was on my way home.

I'm not going to lie, University has become a drag. I realised today I have three essays, 2 seminar papers and a presentation to complete in the next month. The untold amounts of stress this will bring down upon me is untold, and I sure as hell don't deal with stress well. I'll get it done, I suppose, though to what standard I don't know. Why did I even do this degree anyway, it's not like I'm going to use it, I'll be co-running a café in Paris for fucks sake, how is that relevant to an English Degree.

The return from Rome.

Well I have returned from Rome. From the verdant, warm climes of Italy to the damp and cold English autumn. Although I was aware of the Mediterranean climate, I was unprepared for the shock of being able to stroll along Vias needing nothing more than a T-shirt. Would be nice to bring the weather back with me, though of course then I'd be complaining about the terrible Architecture around here.

What I AM most thoroughly complaining about, however, is the fact that a wonderful café is now several hundred miles away. It's most disappointing, yet it'll inevitably serve as a source of temptation to return very soon. Not that I needed another source of course, Rome as a whole is simply enchanting.

Paris keeps cropping up. It's an omnipresent light in the background, tempting wary students astray like some sort of urban will'O'the'wisp. What choice do we have in such circumstances but to give in!

In preparation, I'm supposed to be learning French, but the pressing matter of essays has already overshadowed these attempts. In the next month, I have four essays to write, one of which, on Roman socio-political conflict in the late Roman republic is going to take fucking ages to write simply because of the number of books I'll have to wade through to be able to form a few paragraphs. It's vaguely ridiculous. I should enjoy this, I love the classics, and yet being forced to write an essay that's worth such a large proportion of your final module grade is somewhat numbing. As you can tell (whomsoever you are, ethereal reader), I do not deal with stress well. What I do do well however, is hide is from those I need to hide it from. Yay.

It would have been nice, I suppose to have had a short break between Italy and Essays, instead this break was a horrific bad chest that made me wonder if I'd caught swine flu from somewhere. But from where? Rome? No. Such a thought would denigrate such a wonderful place. Must have been from those swine at easyjet.

Updating this

more than I thought I would. Whether it is through boredom or an actual desire to keep some sort of blog I have no idea. These aren't exactly planned and tend to end up more stream of consciousness than anything else, so it's more likely to be the former. As I sit here typing this, I'm extremely tired. Which is strange considering I haven't done mu.. oh wait that's right, I decided to walk home. That probably wasn't one of my most brilliant ideas, come to think of it.

The Libation Bearers.

Once again, I should be working on an essay. This time concerning a critical moment within Aeschylus' Oresteia where Orestes comes to realise his inexorable destiny. However, instead of finishing off the last few hundred words of this, I'm seemingly doing anything except the essay. So far I've read in unusual detail The Observer while drinking coffee and paced around my room while listing off mentally the last jobs I have to do. Oh well, as long as it's done at some point today, that's all that really matters.

In the mean time, I may as well finish off reading the first few books of Paradise Lost, which we're supposed to be studying in the first lecture on Tuesday. That is, of course, if I'm able to get into the building. Normally, you understand, this wouldn't be a problem, but after half te.. sorry, reading week, we (the degree students) have a wonderful new building that looks like the bastard child of a typical B&Q store and a Lego brick. To get into the building, we need our ARU I.D cards. Which we don't yet have. They're supposed to be awaiting us at reception on the morning, but we all know what the bureaucracy is like in those matters..