Much Too Busy...

It is Thanksgiving week and I am beginning to feel very overwhelmed. I spent yesterday and today working on my paper of Medieval Literature class. It was a 5 page paper and strangely enough, when I am free to write on the topic of my choice, I have no problems with writing but somehow this paper was a struggle. I should have started it earlier, but I wanted to wait for the results of my first paper. I received my first paper last Thursday and was really disappointed to get a C+. I know it wasn't a stellar paper, but I felt that I had some really good ideas. The comments on the paper seemed to be directed more towards the technicalities of writing a paper, as opposed to the content. One of the comments was directed towards the spacing I used (yet, no mention was made on the spacing of the response papers that I have been turning in every week this semester) and other annoying comments seemed to stem from a cursory reading of my paper. The TA graded it and when I asked to talk about my paper with her, she said that she had to be somewhere and to write an e-mail about my concerns. That very day, I wrote my e-mail, but still have not received a reply. I felt dejected the whole weekend, questioning my ability to write and whether I really belong in school. I should have went to school today, but since I was worried about getting a good grade for this class, I decided to stay home and work on my paper some more. Normally I am loathe to miss my art history class, but I am hoping that I can trade notes with someone.

Papers Rain on my Parade

There are so many papers due. Three so far: 1/ Islamic Art and Architecture; 2/ Medieval Literature; 3/ Old English (announced today). Fortunately I already memorized the first 11 lines of Beowulf so that's one less thing to worry about. I guess I will just visit the Old English professor to recite the lines in her office so that I won't get nervous and trip up in class since she suggested the idea.

I don't know what I will write about for my paper topic in Old English yet. I think my favorite was Ælfric's Colloquy. I enjoyed hearing about all the professions. It would also be nice to do something with Bede since I don't really know much about him, but since the paper will be focused on the text and not the writer, the Colloquy seems like a more interesting choice. Not sure exactly what I will explore, but I am hoping to do a full text translation this weekend... but wait, I already have part of it so it shouldn't be too bad. I can start reading and thinking about what to write about. Hopefully, I can think about something unique and interesting to discuss.

The Latin exam is tomorrow. I still have to make time to study for it. I also have to write my response paper about two chapters of Tolkien's Silmarillion (Ainulindale and Valaquenta) that we are supposed to read by tomorrow. So far, it sounds similar to Milton's Paradise Lost.

The Islamic Art and Architecture professor also assigned readings to us. Argh! He seems really wishy washy with regard to whether he wants us to read it for class or not. Actually, we really are supposed to read the articles before coming to class, but since not many students did, he said earlier this week that he wasn't going to bring it up anymore and that we would be responsible for reading them on our own. Today he sent an e-mail reminding us to read them. If he were consistent, then we could plan when we need to complete our assignments better. I'm not sure if I will have time to read it before class with a response paper hanging over my head and a Latin midterm to study for, but I will try. Maybe I can do it on the train.

I would love to make this longer, but the longer I take the less time there is for me to complete everything. Until later!

How Times Flies!

It has been almost a week since I last wrote in my blog. Somehow the days that I spend with Christopher just seem to fly. As they say, time flies when you are having fun. I have more studying to do, but just wanted to take a little bit of time to put down a few words here.

This week I have a Latin midterm—the second midterm, which I guess, shouldn't really be called a midterm, but just an exam. Fortunately, it takes place on Thursday, so I have a little more time to study for it. I am concentrating on getting the vocabulary words down first because if I don't know them, I may not be able to translate the sentences. I also have to work on the 3rd declension words and the new perfect tenses.

My literature professor gave me the go-ahead on writing my second paper topic on speech, words, names and languages in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I wasn't sure if I should write about those topics, but I have thought about them now and then; they also seem like a topic that I might be able to talk about in depth.

I still have to get started on my paper in Islamic Art and Architecture, but right now there seems to be other pressing concerns right around the corner. That paper won't be due until December and the literature paper is due next week. I have some articles about Fatimid rock crystal objects, but I haven't had the time to read them yet. The professor had a brilliant idea that I should create a catalog for my report, so I'm really excited and eager to work on it and would hate to turn out a less than stellar product (I would hate to turn out a less than stellar project for anything, but especially for this one). One of the articles is written in German, so I should make time to translate it, especially if it has a lot of good and useful information. I think I may have trouble finding pictures to use in my report, but hopefully my research skills will not fail me.

Tomorrow is Latin and Old English. We have to translate some riddles for Old English as well as finishing the last bit of Bede's Account of the Poet Caedmon (which I have already finished last week). Hopefully, I can get enough of the riddles done so that I won't be behind in class. I usually like to work on one page a day, since it can be pretty time consuming to look up all the words, but since we are behind in our syllabus, I thought we might be skipping the riddles to work on Beowulf since our professor mentioned that we should begin reading it and didn't mention anything about the riddles up until yesterday. The good thing is that the riddles are short and we are only responsible for some of them.

I received an e-mail today about the winter scholarship. It seems that I was awarded a scholarship for a winter session class. I would really love to go, but with the new house needing work, I'm not sure if I could do it. Because the winter session is so short, the classes meet everyday. But who knows, maybe I can do it if I only take one class. I will have to speak to Christopher about it and see what he says.