Blogging from public computer clusters really is one of my least favorite things, but I do have a half hour to kill so I'm going to take the plunge. The reason for my dislike isn't so much the lack of privacy as the unfamiliarity of the keyboard. It's one of those ergonomic deals and half the keys are further right than I expect them to be, resulting in such wonderful sentences as: "b;ppomg frp, [in;oc cp,[iter c;isters rea;;u os pme pf ,u ;east favprote tjomgs""

Anyway, the last of the exams ended this morning and there were cries of merdeka from the rooftops and the usual wild rejoicing before we started packing in earnest and getting ready to depart. We did a round robin of goodbyes, and then people dribbled away - Miranda, Anne and Kelly back to Wittenberg (where they will go on to the Bahamas where they're doing a summer program), Clay to a weekend at a friend's house, Lori to an internship in Ohio. Mamie and I made the boring 3 hour drive back to Duke (which was a 4 hour drive because of massive roadworks along 70) and mused about what lies Beyond, the usual suite of anxieties about all the tomorrows to come.

Am getting dinner with Han and staying his apartment until parents arrive (and I get to sleep in a bed again. And eat food. God I'm poor.) so I'm sure the travel blues will have sorted themselves out by then, good company being the remedy for those, in my experience. Also very pleased with birthday present (thank you Justin!) and for FINALLY receiving the by now mythic pineapple tarts (and other goodies) which are not at all moldy and quite tasty (thank you Minz!). And another copy of Penelope Fitzgerald which means that I now not only have more books than I care to be hauling around with me but doubles. Nonetheless, I am pleased, yes indeed.

I'd like to say thank you to all the people who have said nice things about this blog the past few days. It means a lot to me, and all of you are either funny or insightful or just wonderful people in some way. I usually try to stay away from the touchy-feeliness here (no 'college retrospective' in case you were hoping for it) but I'll make an exception in this case. Thanks.

...with college.

*shudder*

I'm done!

*happy dance*

Incidentally, the reason for "wurms" in the blog title was not to be clever or anything but because the correctly spelled alternative was already taken when I got here. Annoyingly enough, you might also notice that it hasn't been updated since 2002.

24 hours, 2 more exams and I will be done, praise the Lord Jesus and all his good works. As for sleep tonight? Probably not so much.

I have two lots of music on my playlist at the moment. Studying music is Bach's Art of Fugue - which I took a fancy to after reading An Equal Music sometime last year - good because it is melodious but not distracting. For the times in between when I feel like I'm going berserk I have Irish punk band Flogging Molly (From the east out to the western shore/
Where many men and many more will fall/ But no angel flies with me tonight/ Though freedom reigns on all... Walk away me boys/ Walk away me boys/ And by morning we'll be free/ Wipe that golden tear/ From your mother dear/ And raise what's left of the flag for me). No one like the Celts for beer and blood and hate and catharsis.

was unaware that su-lin is a blog vigilante, and will henceforth write in short, complete sentences. unlike these two.

re: urchins, as one of my professors so wisely put it, it's not called 'manipulating the results', it's 'massaging the data'.

10 indicators that you are playing too much Spider Solitaire

10. It is open in your Explorer Bar 24/7
9. You have planned breaks in your schedule explicitly to get in a few games
8. It shows up in hypnagogic images just before you fall asleep
7. You realize a minute after you have given up on a game that it might have come out had you done something differently after the second deal
6. You know your win/loss ratio by heart
5. You begin to wish that you could change the background color because green is getting boring
4. You start visiting the message boards on GameFAQs in the hope that people are posting about their addiction
3. You obsess over getting the stacks out in an aesthetically pleasing order, preferably all the reds before all the blacks.
2. And give yourself mental bonus points for doing so
1. You can actually think of 10 indicators that you are playing too much Spider Solitaire

In a phone conversation last night, Shaun and I started talking about "the way we used to write", that stilted, overformal style that I still use when I need to produce an essay on autopilot or in a very short amount of time. Apart from improving my ability to be succinct, I don't think college has done a whole lot for me in terms of changing the way I write, and that depresses me. Back in the day, when I first became conscious of the fact that writing well was important to me, I did what many of us (I'm sure) have tried to do - that is, attempt to make my writing sound genuine, switch from imitation to creation. It's tough, and the ever-present temptation for us, the Internet generation, is to retreat into the save haven of no-caps, indulge in an orgy of sentence fragments and ideas that trail off into nowhere. To brandish solecism like a sword and hide beneath the excuse that everyone else is doing the same thing. (No offense intended - as you can see, most of my blog is written in this fashion.)

While I was in R.I., I remember reading a book on style which asserted that if you master the rules of grammar and the principles of cadence, and have a wide enough vocabulary, you will, with enough practice, find your voice. It will, so to speak, ying2 ren4 er2 jie3, manifest itself unexpectedly like a Magic Eye picture from the graininess of your knowledge and technique. Whoever it was who wrote that is a liar, or at least it certainly hasn't happened to me. When I look at my writing, I feel that there is nothing beneath the words, whereas when I look at good writing, I sense a presence, something moving in the deep that tells me not only what the author is trying to say, but who he is. As a corollary, I look at the papers I have written for science classes, and I think (if I have to say so myself), that they're really good, one or two worthy of submission to journals. And that's the case because there does not need to be anything beneath the surface in a research article. All one has to do is say it like it is. Whereas, in humanities classes and in the rubbishy writing I do to amuse myself in my free time, there is nothing substantive within, just like those huge Cadbury eggs you expect to be filled with chocolate but which turn out to contain tinny plastic toys instead.

I guess college teaches you what you can't do as much as what you can. Perhaps what it should do as well is give the really hopeless people a good box on the ears and tell them to stop trying.

on su-lin's behest, i tell you about our new sinful dessert. they come in individual pieces, about the size and shape of a madeleine but made of dark chocolate. inside: warm and gooey, outside: slightly firmer than a mousse. indescribably delicious, yet impossible to eat more than one of at a time - besides, like lewis' perelandran fruit, having more than one at a go just seems unthinkably wrong*. had one after dinner yesterday and today and a whole tray still waits in the fridge, leftovers from a shindig had by professors and vips over the weekend. happy.

* although, unlike the fruit, one after every meal seems just about right.

Currently reading:
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos

Departed Days, by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Yes, dear departed, cherished days,
Could Memory's hand restore
Your morning light, your evening rays,
From Time's gray urn once more,
Then might this restless heart be still,
This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
While the fair phantoms rose.

But, like a child in ocean's arms,
We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
Where life's young fountains gleam;
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark, -- the sun goes down, --
Day breaks, -- and where are we?

weeks later, the promise to be added to minz's friends page has still not been kept. i am snubbed.

my paper is not done, and i have identified the culprit as spider solitaire

does anyone else think the worst part of a southern barbeque is actually the pulled pork? beans, coleslaw and potato salad are all right up my street and usually very good but at the same time the meat is always somewhat suspect, especially when they do it with vinegar.

All Is Well, by Arthur H. Clough

Whate’er you dream, with doubt possessed,
Keep, keep it snug within your breast,
And lay you down and take your rest;
And when you wake, to work again,
The wind it blows, the vessel goes,
And where and whither, no one knows.

'Twill all be well: no need of care;
Though how it will, and when, and where,
We cannot see, and can't declare.
In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,
'Tis not in vain, and not for nought,
The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
Though where and whither, no one knows.

Happy Green Day! Isn't it funny how the only Green Day song most people know is Time of Your Life? I suspect that in Singapore part of the reason for that is that they play it all the time over trailers of that silly teenybopper show that no one ever watches. Goodness knows what it's called.

Green Day. There was parking and walking to class which I obviously could not participate in. And there was vegetarian pizza, which I dislike because something as blatantly fattening as pizza should not have its glorious unhealthiness befouled by things like spinach and zucchini, although perhaps artichokes are OK. As a general rule, I say that fast food should not be adulterated for the sake of salving people's consciences. Take this whole McDonald's thing with the salads and pedometers - it's obviously all PR and pussyfooting around the real issue, which is, to paraphrase Deuteronomy, that we have before us life and death, good and evil, watercress soup and dripping cheeseburgers - and you pays your money and makes your choice. If you're going to be bad, why sully your enjoyment of the deed with lettuce leaves? And if you're going to be good, don't even think of stepping into a fast food joint, even for a salad, because that's just leading yourself into temptation.

Matt and I actually had an extended discussion of the above on the way to Hardee's last night. We also bemoaned the general poverty of service at drive-through windows, Matt citing in particular the countless times he had asked for no mayo on his sandwich and still ended up with it. I remember when I was young that there were always damn pickles in the McDonald's cheeseburgers no matter how stridently I insisted they not be there. I've since discovered that I do like pickles, just not inside of sandwiches. They have to be good crunchy pickles though, squishy ones are just nasty.

You wouldn't think that it would be hard to eat 6 Saltine crackers in 60 seconds*, but it really is.

* No washing down of crackers with water or other liquids allowed.

Went to the NC tax refund FAQ website just now and discovered that refund checks take 10 weeks to arrive in the mail from the time of filing. 10 weeks! I didn't bother checking on this before I filed my return, so now I'm going to have to get one of the staff members here to forward the check to wherever. Hate that...especially because I rather do need the money.