A lot of little things

[icepixie]

I have gone forth into battle with my scrapbook, and I have defeated the mighty beast! Well, mostly. We'll see how well it holds up. It uses these little steel spindle-looking things that are about a quarter of an inch long to hold the pages onto the binding. You expand it by adding more of them. If one of these things equals roughly twenty front and back pages, and I have a total of five...well, yeah. And I think I'll still have pictures left over. Ow. And no matter how many pages I put together (I'm at mid-March right now), the pile doesn't seem to get any smaller. Sisyphus, meet rock.

*

I got Contact from Netflix a few days ago for want of anything better to rent. Seen it a couple times before, but I do love it. I remember the first time I saw it (in the theatre), I was thirteen or so, and I was all, "I'm gonna be Ellie someday!" However, that was the summer before I started Algebra. I mention that because that class that informed in no uncertain terms that I was never, ever, ever going to make it as an astrophysicist, whereas before I'd been the girl who read the entire physics/astronomy section at the library (skipping over the math, of course) at age twelve. Math and I do not get along AT ALL.

Now a very, very small part of me still wants to be Ellie, but I spent most of the movie this time ogling the camera work. Okay, the long pans and zooms could have been cut a bit and the movie made about half an hour shorter, but they're still preeeeetty. So very pretty.

*

I made soda bread last night from a recipe here (scroll down until you get to "white soad bread"). Surprisingly enough, it tastes exactly like...buttermilk biscuits. Hmmm. That couldn't possibly be because they're made from the exact same ingredients. Never. But it's thick and crumbly instead of light and flaky, and at any rate it's very tasty, if not quite what I was expecting after having had the real thing in Ireland a few months ago. I'll have to try the brown bread sometime soon.

*

And now, progress report on the

Summer Reading List from Hell

Beowulf
Paradise Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
George Herbert - Various poems
A. Pope - The Rape of the Lock; An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
William Blake - Songs of Innocence and of Experience; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Jane Austen - Persuasion (Only a little more than halfway, technically, but who's counting?)
Henry James - The Turn of the Screw (Finished last night, wheee!)
Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway
V.S. Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas (Ewwwww.)
Audre Lorde - Zami, A New Spelling of My Name
Eavan Boland - Various poems

Next up is Zami, then Paradise Lost, then finishing Persuasion. Then probably one of the Blakes and the Pope. So a text a week until I'm back at Kenyon, which leaves three more for Thanksgiving and Christmas, then all of spring break to review everything before the test.

Yes, Virginia, I am saving you for DEAD LAST. HA.

Comments

[orangetango.livejournal.com]

Ack! I feel so behind!

Then again, I am doing reading for the honors paper, so I guess it evens out.

[icepixie]

[whines] But you get a whole class to do the reading in next semester, don't you? [/whining]

So, so glad I'm not doing Honors...

[orangetango.livejournal.com]

Actually, honors seminar only reads 2 of the books that are on the reading list. I am so screwed.

[icepixie]

Oh my. They should at least let you read, like, half of them...

[alorarose.livejournal.com]

::blechs at beowulf::

[icepixie]

*has never read it*

[twinb76.livejournal.com]

wow, I've actually read some of those! hehe...in HS tho and only because of HS...let's see...Beowulf, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Turn of the Screw and that's it....actually I think I read TTofS in University....eh, I don't remember...hell, I don't remember what happened in it either! lol!

[icepixie]

hell, I don't remember what happened in it either!

*flings spoilers about* The kid dies! The ghosts leave! All is oh-so-Gothic!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I assume that list changes from year to year...? Pity, too, because I'd be ahead of the game if it didn't. :)

[icepixie]

It does indeed change every year. Your list should be in a folder on Barb Dupee's door at some point during October. Fear it.

[r0bingoodfellow.livejournal.com]

So you'll have to tell me what you thought of "Turn of the Screw", I've been looking over a play adaptation of it, and I'd like to know what people see in it from a litterary perspective(not that I'm attacking it, I just want to know why people like it or dislike it)...

Peace,

J

[icepixie]

It was a little overly long, but not that bad. I couldn't tell if he was actually writing a Gothic thriller or making fun of the genre. I don't have any strong feelings on the book one way or another, really.

[nickless.livejournal.com]

they're still preeeeetty. So very pretty.

Mmm, and so was Matthew McCaughna-hey-I-can-never-spell-your-name. That's what I'M usually ogling when it's on... *g*

[icepixie]

Heh heh heh. There is that too, I suppose.

[vbrooksutk.livejournal.com]

yeah, i tried the whole scrapbook page addition thing but those inserts pissed me off and i ended up using cheap photo albums instead :(

[icepixie]

I'd do that, except the whole point of this exercise was as an excuse to buy the pretty scrapbook paper and stickers that are everywhere, and I'm a little too invested at this point to quit. ;)

[vbrooksutk.livejournal.com]

Oh I for sure have a ton of scrapbook papers from my pre-summer school & job days, perhaps we can meet up sometime and I can bestow my paper happiness upon you... =)

[icepixie]

That would be AWESOME.

I'm so spending way too much money on this. But I'm not going back to Michael's, Hobby Lobby, or Joann's until this thing is DONE, so I can't spend any more money on papers or stickers or refill pages!

So with you on the math thing...

[elflore.livejournal.com]

My take on math is straight from Calvin & Hobbes. "It's a religion!"

If you've never seen that strip...Calvin explains to Hobbes how, "you take two numbers, you put 'em together, and MIRACULOUSLY, you have another number! You either believe it or you don't. So I'm telling my teacher that I can't do math anymore because it's against my beliefs--I'm a math atheist."

Which is SOOOOO my denomination.

John (Elf), somewhere in the universe...

Re: So with you on the math thing...

[icepixie]

YES.

I love that strip.

Re: So with you on the math thing...

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

I definitely had the math-free astrophysicist plan too when I was a kid! I love everything about astrophysics except for finding the exact answer. : )

Re: So with you on the math thing...

[icepixie]

There should be careers for math-free astrophysicists...

(Oh, wait, there are: science fiction writers.)

Re: So with you on the math thing...

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

(Oh, wait, there are: science fiction writers.)

And then not only do you get to be a math-free astrophysicist, you get to annoy all the real astrophysicists!

Re: So with you on the math thing...

[icepixie]

Wheeeeeeeee!