boo bah boo bah

it probably shouldn't surprise me anymore, but i am finding myself unexpectedly busy these days. every day i make a plan for myself for all that i hope to accomplish, and considered in its totality this daily plan is daily getting away from me. however, i maintain my belief in plans; that some things are left undone does not deter me from the hope or expectation even that i could complete the whole of them.

this weekend i am encountering my first (but very far from last) bout of real work this semester as i prepare a presentation tuesday on glasgow-native charles rennie mackintosh for my architectural history class. this is a painting of his to the above/right - he is the artist whose paintings i went to see recently at a far-away exhibit in town. he was actually an architect though, and a designer...mostly one should call him an eccentric. everyone now worships the man, because while alive he was innovative and misunderstood, and he liked pretty things like roses and sinewy lines and soft colours. i think i might have to use slides and everything for this. i was talking to my flatmate meredith recently about her english classes here - she managed to get three - and apparently they are all pretty frustrating and understimulating in some way. i think i am quite fortunate to be exploring these other disciplines while still experiencing what seems to be the cream of the crop in terms of tutors and professors and material.

my classes this semester have forced me into what my english classes full of the portable work of novel-reading usually allow me to resist, which is a daily routine of going to class and staying out in the library all day. but i don't mind, i am finding some homes in the smaller departmental libraries. in between the library time i have been up to some other things, of note:
-i went to an international exchange lunch in which people here on exchange and people about to go on exchange next year met and talked about their shared schools, if possible. i met an english fellow named douglas cadbury who is coming to uva next year, studying history. i got really excited telling him all about my school and even volunteered to tell him which classes to take, where the lectures that will make one fall in love can be found. i am such a nerd.
-i saw hotel rwanda, finally. man was that a difficult movie-going experience. i wanted to cry about 18 times but knew it wasn't going to get any easier to watch so i didn't, left only to the rumbling. i also saw donnie brasco, which was not quite a tearjerker, but still quite provocative for a gangster movie. the film culture is so huge over here, in a way that i've never it noticed it to be back home. i find that if there is no other common conversation topic, i can always talk to someone from a different culture about films, because they all completely keep up with it. hollywood 4life, bringing people together! bah.
-i sent a lot of things across the sea in their physical form, which was satisfying such that i haven't felt quite so much anxiety over all of the emails i have not been writing.

i really should get back to work now, but i thought an update was in order. seems i have self-created guilt about writing by now. i promise though that there are times of inspiration as well. in name of eugene o'neill, whose massive and massively autobiographical tragedy i've just read, i will leave you with this quotation:
"Happiness hates the timid! So does science!"