Thanks for the advice, guys! I'm meeting with major adviser on Thursday and the Study Abroad dean sometime this week as well. I'm going to try to think positively about my future, or not think about it at all. For now, this seems like a good plan. Except that I kind of really need a job for this summer. At this rate I'm going to end up back at the boardwalk. -_-;

I wrote an extremely decent seven page paper in under 10 hours last night/today, which is an interesting achievement for me. "Remembrance and Self-Effacement in Christina Rossetti's Work." Basically I analyzed six poems of hers according to the theme for about 1500 words and then speculated for the other 800 as to why this binary was such a unique and all-encompassing concern for her. Easy-peasy! I love poetry and that class (Victorian Poetry) and am feeling more and more devastated that my last class with this teacher--Erik Gray, love of my intellectual life--is this Wednesday. I'm really afraid I might get choked up. I'm so embarrassing.

In other news, I apparently got chosen from a random draw of openID accounts on Dreamwidth to get an invite code, which is kind of nice (three days ahead of the curve! all registered openID users will receive invites on 4/30). However, I have been totally dithering about what to register as. Here are my current options:

search_soleil

searchsoleil

ssoleil

epaulettes

Right now I'm leaning toward searchsoleil or epaulettes. What to you guys think? Any suggestions?

Okay, this has been really niggling me lately, so I am just going to type it out and then let it wither and waste here where I don't have to look at it ever again.

( In which I reveal even more clearly that I am a HUGE dork, and also my idea for a meme. )

ETA: Also, I had to chuckle a bit when I saw this post on my LJ since my layout automatically converts my subject lines to all-caps. Sorry, e.e.cummings!

Me: *paraphrasing a line from class* Shelley wouldn't write about a bird! He's Percy goddamn Shelley! It's a fuckin' cloud of fi-ya!
splintercat: hahaha. fuckin' a, man.
Me: Percy Shelley, man. He's one badass poet motherfucker. Effin' skylarks.
splintercat: aw man, don't mess with the skylarks, man. that shelley motherfucker will fuck you up.

*dies and dies*

P.S. Guys, I am totally spoiled for choice on the icon front. I nearly used my married icon, and my bitch plz icon, but in the end, I went for the period-matching roleplay icon. You have no idea how giddy with dorky love I am today.

While in the midst of reading Teh Remus Angst Fic of Doom and Great Sobbing Messes That Were Once Young Women, I had a startling revelation about the poetry that I like.

That being, all of my favorite poetry -- the kind written by professionals and left to ferment in critical acclaim -- is about death/dead people/people who have lost loved ones.

The evidence doesn't lie.

Exhibit A: What I consider to be possibly the best poem ever written:

( Dirge Without Music, Edna St. Vincent Millay )

This poem makes me want to cry and swell and love. Everything about this poem is a triumph. Of course, I am a very poor judge, as I am only vaguely aware of what are considered the Greats in poetry, so perhaps, eventually, I will find something that tops this poem. For now, not so.

Still, this poem has a very, very depressing premise. It is about those who are dead and dying, the people we most hate to see leave us. It is not a happy poem, by any means.

Exhibit B: T.S. Eliot, who, despite being somewhat dry at times, I love with all sorts of parts in my being. Now, T.S. Eliot is not generally an optimistic poet (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats notwithstanding) and I read a ton of his stuff. But, of course, one of the things I keep around is this number -- an excerpt from Four Quartets, Little Gidding. Just as a hint, this is just the beginning of a poem that is simultaneously about war, Eliot's fate as a poet, and his spiritual journey told as a modernized version of Dante's Inferno. I left the more complicated stuff out for sake of length, but if you're curious you can get it here.

( Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot )

Another one of my favorite poems that I keep in a folder of bits and bats (favorite quotes, poems, randomosity, etc.):

( Echo, Christina Rossetti )

Are we noticing a pattern?

Here's a poem that I have loved since I was very small. Keep in mind that I hate ghost stories, and see if this is not highly out of character for me.

( In Flander's Fields, John McCrae )

And another, in the same vein, that seems absurdly simple, but, as a poet myself, I can say definitely isn't, and I love it:

( The Soldiers at Lauro, Spike Milligan )

Now here's the poem that sparked this epiphany:

( That the Science of Cartography Is Limited, Eavan Boland )

There is only one conclusion to be reached: I am a closet angst whore.

Seriously. What the heck?