O c t o b e r 28

If any of you are in university, you understand why I've been hard pressed to find the time to write lately. It might be more difficult to understand if you're not, but it's mid-term time, and this means all I'm doing is studying, writing, and worrying. I was actually really mopey and depressed yesterday because I got an assignment back with a grade of only eighty percent. I know that sounds pretty good, but I had worked quite hard on it, and I really thought I'd mastered this paper. I really thought I had it. Although my professor (my much-admired philosophy professor, the same professor I've had classes with over the past two years, and although I've consistently been one of his better students, he probably knows me only as the extremely quiet one who is often late for class) agreed with me for the most part, there were areas where his comments (this is a fourth year class featuring all of about ten students, most of whom are either graduate students or in the PhD program for one department or another, so there aren't any Teaching Assistants -- heck, I think some of the students in that class are T.A's) were just helpfully critical enough that I took what he said rather personally. There was one part where he'd remarked "Huh?" in response to a paragraph I'd set up as an example, another where he said, "Frege never thought this!" and another where he said "No! Read that section again" and I left Philosophy of Language feeling like a real dummy. My newest friend, Rosemund, sat me down at Mike's Place (Carleton's coziest, quietest, most relaxed and non-jocky pub), and consoled me for some time, pointing out a page I'd overlooked where the only comment my professor had made was in drawing a big smiley face in the margin, indicating his amusement and agreement at some particularly well-phrased elements in that page (it was a big part of the main body). She read the paper, and really liked it herself, and since she's a linguistics major I took her understanding of the concepts to heart. She also reminded me that it was a really decent grade, that the professor is a pretty tough marker, it's a fourth year class full of post-graduates and doctorate students with whom I seem to be keeping up, and that all in all I have no reason to be beating myself up. It actually cheered me up quite a lot, and for this reason, as well as because she herself was facing a three hour mid-term in her speech disorders class causing her much nervousness and stress, I ran upstairs to secretly purchase a quantity of incense she had been admiring the night before, just as a token of thanks and an expression of faith. And, what can I say, she gave me the nicest hug when I gave her the simple present just before the test, and in spite of myself I can never dislike hugs. It meant a lot to cheer her up like that, since she herself had helped my own mood so tremendously of late.

It did sound like a doozy of a test though. She had to, first of all, be intimately familiar with every bit of cartilage, every tendon, every muscle, every major nerve, and every structure of the human articulatory mechanism. This is a lot more difficult than knowing what a hard palate and an alveolar ridge are, among the other gross features of the mouth and throat, which is the lot of second-year phonetics students, and is easy because it only involves giving names to places you can largely touch with your own tongue, which may have never had names before to you so as to not be all that confusing. For example, Uvula. Soft palate. Epiglottis. Vocal cords (a term frowned upon by upper year professors). Blade. And so on. Anyway, when Rosemund was quizzing herself, I heard many a word I'd never heard before, and for a perspicuous ratbastard like myself, that's a pretty big deal, so you can understand the technical complexity she faced.

Anyway, I must get back to my studying.

I am once again furious with some of my roommates. Details at eleven. Well, let's say, eleven, Pacific Time. Or possibly even later than that. Anyway, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

N o v e m b e r 1

Today I am off to Montreal, to see Lilith for the first time in a year and a half -- since our breakup, and all the terrible fights and misunderstandings leading up to it. Tomorrow I'll tell the story of how exactly this highly wonderful and scary undertaking turned out.

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the buzzing and mild irritation of
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