The Fat Lady and the Answer

Hi all,

Well its basically all over. Really the only thing left is for someone to call it a game and the fat lady to sing. Where did that expression come from? I just looked it up. It comes from the opera. Apparently the lead was normally played by an overweight soprano lady. Since she was the lead she normally always had the last number. Well good thing we cleared that up.

So really tomorrow I still have classes. I have biology discussion and biology lecture. In biology discussion we are just watching a video on intelligent design, and in lecture it is just a general review for the final. Nothing important, but I have this feeling that I will go anyway.

That's it. Its just that and the finals. Three total, the other class didn't have a final. I will be done on Thursday and then I will be on my way home.

I'm not nervous at all. I can't at this point get any lower than a B in all of my classes, and to escape your first semester with a 3.0 and still have some stories of some hilariously funny times, well that is a feat. But really, I want at least a 3.5. I think I will get it.

I foresee myself studying, but not being overly zealous about it. I think that my years in Academic decathlon have ruined any hope of test anxiety. Sure I will get some right before the test, but once I am in there taking the test I am in a zone, a zone just like an athlete gets into. It really is mechanical at that point. My hear beats really fast and my adrenaline is going. I love the feeling I get when I take a test. Because everything in my body is going so fast my mind is also racing. This would be a problem for most, but again like an athlete I have learned control when I am in the zone. I just read super fast, and think about the question and only the question and its possible implications fast. I answer fast, and I move on to the next question almost completely forgetting the last question. The upside is, unlike Academic Decathlon, I know most of these answers because I have at some point heard or read this stuff. Few questions can really make me faulter. I am really grateful for my years on that team because while other kids are stressing about their finals I have the advantage of the study techniques and the advantage of the ability to hold on to information for long periods of time. I don't need to study as hard. I will not be stressed about these exams. If college is a marathon just call me the guy from Kenya.

I really should be stressed, but in reality I am just relieved that it is almost over. I don't have any big plans for the break, I just really want to be at a place I know completely.

So in an unrelated topic, I just found a few books that I would like for Christmas. The problem being this: I have already sent out my Christmas lists, and my family is the type that buys your presents the day after Thanksgiving. I will call my mom and tell her that I want these books. She is my second best shot. The best shot is my brother. I have yet to email him my list of things he can afford that I want for Christmas. Come to think of it he was supposed to send me a list too. This will be a gentle reminder that I need his list right?

The books that I want are basically anything that Dorothy Parker wrote. I am becoming a huge fan of her poetry and her delightful wit. I will post my favorite poems and some awesome quotes from her as an ending, and to encourage you to look up more about her and to read her works.

Theory

Into love, and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice and hold your pen---
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?

Coda

There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh hard is the struggle and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle---
Would you kindly direct me to hell?

Fable

Oh, there once was a lady, and so I've been told,
Whose lover grew weary, whose lover grew cold.
"My child," he remarked, "though our episode ends,
In the manner of men, I suggest we be friends."
And the truest of friends ever after they were ---
Oh, they lied in their teeth when they told me of her!

Fighting Words

Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad ---
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue ---
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!


Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick. I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore:
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men.
I'm due to fall in love again.

Some quotes:
(when being challenged to use the word horticulture in a sentence)
"You can drag a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”

“I wish I could drink like a lady / I can take one or two at the most / Three and I'm under the table / Four and I'm under the host”

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.”

"If you want to see what God thinks of money, just look at all the people He gave it to.”

"It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”

"That would be a good thing for them to carve on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment”

That's it for now. Hope you had a good laugh.

Ta Ta