Wednesday, January 16, 2008

8:30 a.m. is a wonderful time to think about the purpose of life

Yesterday in existentialism professor Marina Byovka passed around a sheet on 
which we were to sign up for a topic and date for a presentation we have to do.

Luckily I had decided to sit in the second row, close to the windows, since the

50-odd class freaks me out a little when I'm sitting in the back. The light

streaming in from the windows means, at least, there is some kind of escape.


She'd talked a bit about the presentations earlier, and had mentioned a bit
about Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov being one of the options. So as the
sheet was going around -- there were about 10 people ahead of me -- I could
not stop worrying someone would steal my presentation spot. It was pure dread.
Anguish. Two more people came in to class late, one of whom sat behind me,
and I vowed to kill him if he stole my topic.

Then it dawned on me: no one is going to steal that. Only very strange people
have an obsession with the Russian authors.

'I'm safe,' I thought.

And I was. Thank goodness for strange obsessions.

Here is an excerpt from my notes. Camus, I love you. You've solved my problems,
for although you didn't give me one bit of information that would help me better
understand life, you've made me realize that I can't.


In addition, I'm loving Latin. Expect the dangling participles to return!

Here are a few videos Abby and I found. I'm slightly encharmed.




No one else thought this was funny. Everyone kind of thought I was a freak for
laughing at this kid's loinal pain.

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