NP: Smile Lines - Incubus

I should get the Awesome Prize for today. Or at least the Near-Awesome Prize. No easy feat, what I did, and it worked, or very nearly. A follow-up operation should be all I need now.

My laptop has undergone its baptism of fire, and all its impurities have been consumed in the wrath of the holy system recovery disks. The wifi card seems to be having problems, though. Something about a lost driver, so I may not be able to use it for Internet access until next week. Oh well. At least the CPU won't be in overdrive all the time, which will prolong my battery life. Now begin the arduous process of putting all my music back.

My theater prof's irresponsibility is beginning to irritate me. Its presence is understandable enough (she's in the college of Liberal Arts, after all), but she's running the class via WebCT. Ordinarily not a problem, either, except she doesn't quite seem to know how to work it. I need to e-mail her about that paper; 80 points is a lot to be missing.

My lit prof is a nut case. She's giving us two days to write a paper on the one-act play Sure Thing. Wednesday and Thursday. No good at all. We're already doing a poetry explication for her which is due Monday. I wish she'd learn to manage her time (and ours) better, but she gets excited about feminist texts, so we naturally spend too much time on Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale.

Bah. I've way too much to do. Foskin wants a copy of my rought draft Wednesday, I have to convert the paper into a speech, two more papers for literature, one more play for theatre, and homework problems in astronomy. Not to mention finals. The only class I've cinched up is psychology. If I don't get an "A" in that class, I'm not worthy enough to live. Not that I am anyway, just a figure of speech.

Okay, enough ranting. This will all be over with in two weeks. And I'll be 20.

NP: Where I End and You Begin (The Sky is Falling In) - Radiohead

All my laptop files have been backed up, so the great purging will take place tomorrow afternoon. If any of you feel so inclined, you may perform a ritualistic sacrifice to guarantee the success of my endeavor. I should probably try to hunt down my parents' Office 97 disks.

Ah, I'd forgotten how much I truly missed summer. As I write this, the window next to me is wide open, letting the softest breeze drift over my skin. The distant song of a nightingale and the occasional passing of a car are the only sounds in the world right now. It's times like these that make all the scholastic busywork and exams seem trivial and ephemeral. Time's inexorable flow will bring about the end of this semester, this trial, and I will be free to walk under the stars once more, even if I must walk alone.

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord,
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall, the major lift.
The baffled king composing hallelujah.

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof.
You saw her bathing on the roof.
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you.
She tied you to her kitchen chair.
She broke your throne, she cut your hair,
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah.

Maybe I've been here before.
I know this room, I've walked this floor.
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
But love is not a victory march.
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

Maybe there's a God above,
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.
It's not a cry you can hear at night,
It's not somebody who's seen the light.
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

NP: Vanishing - A Perfect Circle

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NP: Aphex Twin

I've been on an Aphex Twin kick lately. Amusing fact: Gandalf the cat (I'm babysitting her for a friend in case any of you are out of the ellipse) seems highly vulnerable to this particular album (Selected Ambient Works Vol. II Disc One). Whenever I play it, she always sees fit to curl up under my drums and take a nap.

I discovered today how difficult it is to locate any critics bold enough to take shots at Rodgers and Hammerstein, the writers behind such classics as The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and The King and I. Everything I found online worshipped them as trailblazers of a new era in the American musical. I had to dig through the CSU library's basement to find a few books in which critics actually dismantled the "musical soap operas" these two men produced in the latter halves of their careers.

I've been so eagerly anticipating the semester's end that I almost always fail to remember my 20th birthday is the Saturday after my last class. As cliche as it is to wonder about aging, I can't help but ask Ronnie Martin's question: is there life after the end of youth? Not to say my youth will end with my teenage years, but it's something to think about. As if I didn't have enough already.

NP: The Scientist - Coldplay

So the roommate calls me up at 7:20 and asks if I want to go see Kill Bill Vol. 2 with him tonight at 7:45. I say no dice because I have my astronomy lab. So off he goes to the show and I to campus. But, lo! upon my arrival, I discover a brutally sweet truth: there was no lab tonight. So I walk Kate over to the library, make a copy of a skychart, then head home, kicking myself for not taking Ben up on his offer.

I've had enough of this bloody weather. It's friggin' April, but it feels like 24 degrees out there. Enough with the cold wind and cold rain/sleet/snow stuff. I summon the return of good scootering weather with all possible speed.

Peanut M&M's are round so they roll under the desk when you drop them on the floor.

Bah, two weeks left of this farce. Well, and finals week, but that doesn't really count since only one of them is cumulative. It's about time, too. This semester gets the "Longest Semester of All Time" stamp. The official one. Like from the government. USDA certified.

The good news: I have nearly all the archiving projects for my laptop finished, so hopefully I should have it restored by next week. Then it will work right. Yay.

NP: Minerva - Deftones

Back by popular demand, though I don't know if anyone actually reads this because nobody ever posts any freaking comments. So you should.

The new moon rises tonight. Funny how nobody has ever actually seen a new moon. I remember the waxing crescent moon following Helios beneath the horizon long ago...birth following death, as it were. To whom the eulogy truly belonged still remains a mystery.

Come down.
Get off your fucking cross.
We need the fucking space
To nail the next fool martyr.

Here's to dreams.