Wit & Whim

The urge to write struck me as I was sitting here. I have a sneaking suspicion that this has something to do with the mountain of German homework I should be doing. Alas, for now I only feel like writing in English; say what I will about enjoying other languages, English is the language of my heart; my mother tongue and the stuff of my imagination. I will never take the same joy from another. I suppose, since it is St. Valentines Day, that I should say something to the subject at hand. Those of you who know me none to well might not be wise to this, but I am something of a hopeless, sopping, sappy, romantic. I subscribe to a great many old-fangled notions, and cling desperately to a somewhat idealized view of love. Perhaps our present hook-up culture has left me a touch outdated, but that is quite alright; I will take classic grace and beauty over coarse modernity any day. But, take heart, my old-fangled brothers, Valentines Day is as much for us as for those who are just looking...

It is not easy for me to form new habits and disciplines; it  simply does not come naturally, and it requires some considerable conscious effort. Even if, however, I do apply myself to establishing a new discipline, that I will succeed is far from certain. To put it simply, no matter how determined I am to see it through, often I just forget, and so my good intentions seldom make it to the habit stage. Thankfully, this same forgetfulness, combined with a desire for variety in my activities, has also kept me free from many bad, time wasting, habits. I might occasionally binge on video games or internet, but that can be followed by weeks of fast, virtually unbroken; mostly because, I believe, those things just lose their novelty too quickly. Indeed, one of my habits, which might most be considered a time suck, is walking. It is not however, while it is my mechanism for collecting my thoughts and bringing them into some semblance of order. That, accompanied with the relative tranqui...

I have slipped into a new routine since the beginning of the semester. I get up early every morning, entirely too early to be decent, drive up to campus, and knock out an enormous amount of homework. There are few drawbacks to this plan; it has cut back greatly on my black-hole time and eliminated some stress. Unfortunately, I am spending 4 mornings a week solely on homework, and goodness knows a solid chunk besides in my evenings and between classes. Nonetheless, I am just managing to get my basic, weekly, homework assignments done in a manner satisfactory to me. Granted, I have already started to put some work in on my senior seminar, but the fact remains that the major assignments for this semester have not yet hit. I can already tell that this one is going to be a bit of a wild ride...which I already kind of knew when I got into it. I am going to have to concentrate on finding ways to do research faster than I have been accustomed to in previous semesters. I am going to have to...

Do not ask me to believe in the rational human. No society took to the enlightenment with the same vigor as the Germans. Granted, the French butchered each other and regularly overthrew their republican governments in their illuminated fervor, but they do not compare to the Germans when it comes to how deeply the enlightenment took in the middle and professional classes. One might question what drove this exceedingly advanced attitude--and unusual stability--I do not know quite enough to say, but I intend to find out. This advanced society continued to flourish as the most progressive and cultivated society of the middle 19th and early 20th centuries. None equaled them in the field of academics, in the sciences or humanities. Yet all know that this great society went on to wage war against most of the world, and to kill off large segments of its own people, many of whom were the best and brightest of German progress. They held the single most evil belief which has ever infiltrate...

I enjoy receiving gifts and, even more so, giving them. But it is with a certain antipathy that I consider the feeding frenzy of the Christmas shopping season. Every night the mall is packed, and on the weekends it is hard for someone like me to move without nearly mowing someone over. But it is not their poor sense in cramming themselves like sardines into the stores that irks me. I am frustrated, rather, by their frustration. Many of them are buying their presents without any pleasure; they expect little gratefulness. Christmas gifts, instead of being recognized as an act of generosity and sacrifice on behalf of the giver for the sake of their love of the recipient, are seen as due by the receiver; these gifts are what they are owed, by right of merely existing. So much the worse for the giver, should their offering be found wanting, because scorn certainly waits in the wings to belittle their efforts. Parents, friends, grandparents are held to ransom by expectations, and not by ...

A little bit too much of an unfortunate happenstance. I spent my entire day yesterday, and the majority of my night, working on a paper, which was due this evening. I failed to make satisfactory progress yesterday, so I wound up calling off of work this morning, so that I might actually turn something in before the deadline which was not the literary equivalent of a heaping mound of organic waste product. I spent my morning, and a decent part of my afternoon, hammering out something which I would not blush to own, only to discover upon arriving at class, that the professor had pushed the deadline to the end of the school year, to give us time to get him something polished. Gratefulness and rage mingled momentarily, giving way to maniacal laughter. I found the email telling us that he was giving the extension in my spam folder. How it got there, I know not. He was not offering us any used cars, or massages we wouldn't forget, so I could not fathom what gmail was thinking; I be...

I woke up at 6 to the deafening klaxon of my alarm. After I had chastised it in the most severe of terms for its sin, I proceeded to snooze it for the next 45 minutes or so. Astonished each time that I woke that the cheeky little thing had the impudence and courage to sound again in the face of my displeasure. I dragged myself out of bed...correction, I spent the next five minutes pulling off my covers bit by painful bit, allowing the cold of the room to shock some wakefulness into me, without sending  me into immediate cardiac arrest. The shower was another struggle. The hot water was irresistible, and I had to call up every last ounce of my self-control to turn it off. Amazingly, I escaped after fewer than ten minutes had passed. Dressing was an even more difficult challenge. I did not like clothes this morning, and the clothes I did like were not enough clothes, or else, did not match with my new jeans, which I felt it was my sacred duty to wear. It was the kind of morning w...