Red Raincoats and Rifles

Hrm...rather aggravated mater today, because I don't see the need in memorizing precisely how many undergraduates most of the schools that we shall be visiting have. I'm sorry that it is unimportant whether Duke has 5,000 or 6,000ish; the difference is minimal and the only thing worth remembering is that it is in the same range as Stanford and company, whereas NYU is much larger. My interest in Reed is dead, Pomona having supplanted it, and at present it would appear that NYU is on lifesupport; perhaps the visit will resuscitate it, but I'm rather not counting on it as the place seems like another larger-ish university, rather than the overgrown liberal arts school that I'm looking for. Pomona has become the second runner, more because I would prefer California over the East Coast, so the reasoning is less than sound, though Pomona's chemistry program is quite good; the lack of engineering is annoying, and I'm rather expecting Penn to be enticing; Columbia not so much.

In other news, I started writing, got a whole two pages out, and then was distracted by...something, I don't remember what. Facebook, in all probability, which is utterly stupid, but at least I kept the same tone and cadence that I've been striving for during the entire project, so the layoff hasn't negatively affected the continuity or anything. All's well, in short. I keep vacillating on whether or not to proceed with reading Ulysses, and I have reached the Circe episode, written in play format, which ought to progress more quickly than the last few bits have. Now that I understand that the Odyssey episodes do not fall in chronological order, I understand that aspect of the work far more thoroughly and everything has more or less fallen into place; a little refresher ont he Odyssey helped as well. At the same time, I've realized that I am not nearly literary enough to understand or appreciate the complex parodies and such that fill a large part of the work; certainly it is a piece of virtuosity that only Eliot can even come close to, and if nothing else I can grasp the first layer of references and such, those being the Odyssey-related ones. Beyond that, I'm willing to let things slide. The ending is inevitable, the message already one that I have heard before, but I'm going to see the thing through, given how much time I have invested in it.

In other news, I'm thinking of taking a break from thinking...well, not thinking, but at least communicating with L or making determinations to do so for a while; letting that little thing slip into memory where it belongs. That would be my only other issue with going to Pomona; I would be forced to interact with L and that would be utterly disastrous for Holy is Thy Name, if the project is not completed by that point. I wish I could say that I would be done with the writing, but I know that I won't be, though the storyboards have been helping. I rather like having fluff demons, I think, and it would be a shame to do anything to get rid of this one, though I want to at the same time.

--Sam'ich out--